Brady was smart to put all the businesses in my name. This allowed us to apply for minority owned business grants and additionally made it easier to qualify for loans and lines of credit for our two businesses. Approximately eighty percent of our household expenses were covered under IRS rules that allowed us to deduct that revenue from our income, or gross profit, allowing a more constant and steady flow to the bottom line. We were taking in $75,000 each month, and were able to write off nearly $57,000. It still placed us in the top ten percent of income earners in the United States, but with our investments and capital gains being taxed at a paltry ten percent, we were making out like bandits. Brady also started a “Wealth Building” team at our church, and was the head of the committee. He put a plan in place to pay off the debt of the church in seven years, a biblically sound number, and based his projections on rolling 40-day periods, also significant for raising the capital to retire the debt. He was a master planner when it came to finances, and I always appreciated his counsel personally, even before we were married. Life was good.

               

At the age of forty-two, I became pregnant. God was blessing us with our first child and we had prayed for only ten fingers, ten toes and healthy. We did accomplish our goal, and Isabella was born on Mother’s Day. What a gift from God!!! Isabella Reyna was born with a full head of red hair and was healthy from day one. Brady had concerns that she or our son that would come in two years would be bipolar, but that was something that only God could control.

Liam was ironically born on Brady’s grandfathers’ birthday and just two days before his on March 5. At the time, his grandfather was ninety-two years young. Vibrant, but healthy by most concerns, Wayne Henderson Durst had been born in 1992 just before the depression in 1929. He had several brothers and sisters and all had proceeded him in death by the time he was eighty-five. Even his wife had preceded him in death seven years earlier. She had lived a full life with “Grandpap”, as we called him, but was stricken with Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease and knew mostly nobody at the time of her death. She was a strong Catholic woman and Brady and his mother, and two brothers, grew up in the Catholic Church. Brady would later learn that an intercessory to God was not necessary and joined the Baptist Church.

               

  As I am now writing about Liam and Isabella, I sit here on the veranda of the Greenbrier Resort. Isabella is now four. With respect to development, she had not and did not experience the “terrible 2’s” but did have trouble with teething. Liam on the other hand is experiencing them right now. The combination of teething and the “terrible 2’s” is about to drive me insane. Brady said he was quite the monkey in his youth, and if genetics plays any factor at all, Liam is sure to follow in his footsteps. He is climbing out of his crib, throwing food at people in restaurants, and riding a motorized John Deere tractor exempt from the consequences of his actions.

                

As I prepare Isabella for school, she is already reading at a 2^nd-grade level. She loves books and is currently into anything Barnes & Noble, including the iced Frappuccino’s, unfortunately. I can see why those in Seattle are now rich and why it has appropriately been named on the street; better known as ““5-bucks”! At the end of the day, Brady takes time to read to them a short verse from the Bible and a short story. All of fifteen minutes puts them both sound asleep, and sometimes Brady will let Isabella and Liam sleep together. Other times, Liam is ushered off to his crib, and typically crawls or climbs, rather, out of it about 5:45 AM. Luckily for me, Brady spends his free time in the morning doing a devotional from “The Leadership Bible”, and then writes a few words for a novel he is working on. If one project is not enough, he is currently working on two. A business at Mutual of Omaha, the restaurant, the personally delivery service, two books for a creative outlet, and two young children is quite the full plate I would reckon. But somehow, and thru the Grace of God, he does, indeed, handle it with grace.

               

Thankfully, I have just the restaurant and the kids. Though I do not see my parents as much as I like anymore, they attempt to come down every two weeks to see the grandchildren, and I make the trek to Roanoke via the Blue Ridge Parkway every two weeks as well.

Mom,

Isabella and Liam are growing like weeds. Liam hates haircuts and the dentist, and is ornery. He typically crawls out of his crib exactly at 5:45 AM religiously, but Brady is there to feed him breakfast. Sometimes, he invites him to the dock overlooking the lake near our home and they bang on the typewriter together. Bray is getting overwhelmed by the fact that Liam is learning everything so fast. He will soon be able to count to ten, and knows how to work an iPhone better than any of us.

Isabella is reading well and even reads to Liam before bed. They are both brushing their teeth and even FLOSSING. Hooray! Yeah, ME! Brady and I have found time to exercise and he is doing better all the time at making it home by 7:00 PM each night. Thankfully, we have a good staff at both businesses, and they are not cranking out the normal hours that a restaurant otherwise might have to. They are usually all packed up with the doors locked by 11:00 PM.

We are making a good income as you might expect, largely in part because of Brady’s financial tutelage and guidance. He is using biblical principles, and not flying by the seat of his pants either.

We will be home for Thanksgiving, and I am excited to think about our shopping excursion. I would like to suggest that we indoctrinate Isabella into the culture, but judging by the way she can order at 

Barnes & Noble and Starbucks, we may want to let the fire burn for another year.

Your loving daughter,

Stephanie

P.S., send me some sheets, as I miss the fall air…as my neighbors made me take down the clothesline L

               

                August and September is probably my favorite two months. Outside of the Thanksgiving holiday with my mother, I have come to appreciate this time of year. Dad has usually stopped running hay for the year and is/was home more often during my youth. He is now more or less a consultant for the engineering firm, and only takes jobs with a high return on investment attached to it.

                

Fall in Asheville, and especially at Biltmore Lake is beautiful. In addition to writing and spending time with Liam and Isabella, Brady has started kayaking in the morning. Typically at 4:45 AM, he has donned his wet suit and paddles for about an hour, or more correctly fifty-five minutes so that he has time to lug that thing home in five minutes before Brady begins looking for him. Oatmeal or cold cereal and fruit is usually what the three of them have for breakfast. Ever since Whole Foods came to town, we have shopped at only Whole Foods and the Ketuah Marketplace. Coffee there is reasonable, the food is 100 percent organic, and the beer, wine and cheese selection are to die for. Brady recently got a four-pack of beer from Sierra Nevada; which recently started construction on a $350 Million project in nearby Mills River, North Carolina. It will house a restaurant, golf course, two private clubs, a brewery and of course a restaurant. Located near the airport, it is sure to attract a multitude of visitors.

               

As September ushers in, it is time to go to the fair. This will be Liam’s first experience and Isabella has been twice. She likes cotton candy and fried donuts and candy bars, neither of which we let her have very often. However, this year with Liam in toe, we will have to let her indulge at the expense of the crying and fussing that would ensue otherwise. Isabella is big enough to ride rides this year, as she has just eclipsed the height and weight requirements. Liam will have to go around in circles with Brady on the carousel or something of that nature.

               

 On the first nite, we took things easy, simply allowing them to eat fries and a cheeseburger. Then we strolled thru the livestock barns and listened to all the sounds and saw all the sights that are associated with the farm. This was Tuesday nite. Mom and Dad were coming for Friday and Saturday night, so I needed Wednesday and Thursday to put on my “French Maids” outfit and clean our humble abode. With our bedroom being on the first floor, mother and father would have the kids and the upstairs to themselves. While it was tradition for Brady, he allowed my father to do the honours on Friday and Saturday nite, as chief storyteller. Dad has many a story and takes a different approach, telling stories from his past and childhood. As I lay in bed, I could quietly hear Dad telling a story, and mother and the children laughing until their little bellies were rolling like jellybeans in a jar.

                

I have been amazed that we haven’t had any major traumatic events to this point. Liam was colic as a young boy, and once or twice Isabella became ill with the flu, but we had escaped pneumonia and massive amounts of vomiting or the passing of blood. I laid awake for the longest time that evening and Brady and I talked about how blessed we were to have Mom and Dad and the children. “Would they always be this happy”, I thought? I knew the answer, but shielded myself from the natural outcome that would imminently come into my little pea brain. After all, Brady was the head of household and the real brains of the operation.

                

Brady finished his first book that year in November. It was just before the Thanksgiving holiday and he had hoped to have it on the bookshelves for the Christmas holiday. He had found an agent and received an advance of $25,000. We thought this to be more than reasonable, as this was his first attempt as a novelist. He was happy with the extra income that month, and donated all of the proceeds to the Autism Foundation and the Wealth Building Team at the Church. In the four years that Isabella had been alive, they had already retired 5/8th s of the debt owed. They were ahead of schedule, but decided that no matter what, the debt would not be repaid except within the parameters of the 7^th year.

                

The restaurant was doing better than expected, and from all sources of income, we were tithing twenty-one percent of our income to missions at Trinity Baptist Church. A multiple of three and seven, Brady had come to the conclusion that this was the perfect number. We saved an additional nineteen percent by funding our IRAs, 401k's, the Keogh’s for the businesses and then an additional amount went into life insurance and investments each month. Brady wanted to raise $2 Million for his vines.