Proud Wife

Well, he did it. Brad wrote a book! As well as working at a genealogy company, Brad has also had his own company on the side offering more specialized products and services. And he finally found a client that wanted exactly what Brad has always imagined would be an excellent product that he could offer. He extensively researched their family history and compiled all the information into an informative, interesting, book.
Brad has so many skills that made him the perfect man in order to do a project like this. It required:
Extensive genealogical knowledge - He extended lines, found children, uncovered draft cards, census records, wills, land maps, ect., and found stories about their ancestors. Where stories couldn't be found he discovered enough facts that he could paint a decent picture of what their lives must have been like. He also was able to hire overseas researchers to find information located only locally where the families came from.
Brad's great writing ability (which I have never come close to having!)
Photo restoration - Brad was able to retouch and restore old family photos to put into the book
Skills in Lay-out and Design - mainly learned as an editor of his college newspaper.
and most importantly:
The ability to work and persevere, no matter what, in order to finish a project!! - Brad has this skill in abundance as I discovered while we were renovating our home. This book was not an easy thing to finish in the short time frame he had. He was working his regular full-time job and then coming home and working late into the night on this project. Levi and I were given, on most days, maybe an hour for dinner and some quick family time then it was back to work till usually 3am. From October through December, Brad had zero time for himself. Anytime that he wasn't working, he was sure to spend it with Levi and me. One thing this taught us was to cherish each other and the time we spend together. Now that the book is done, it has been so great having a husband and a father for Levi back in our lives. We are loving every evening that we are able to do things together as a family and watching Levi play with his Dad more than he has been able to the last couple of months. It was very evident how much Levi was missing his Dad during all of this. One of the phrases that Levi started saying most often was "daddy working." But we did it, we persevered and Brad was able to deliver an excellent product the week of Christmas to his client. (who, by the way, was thrilled with the finished product!)

Brad posing proudly with one of his books as well as boxes behind him filled with over a hundred of them waiting to be delivered .

Here are a few lay-out examples of the book. Brad tried to include as many pictures and historical documents as he could among all of his writing. The book ended up being about 550 pages.

As you can tell, I am a very proud wife. Sorry about such the long post on this subject, but this was a huge deal in our lives. Not only was it very difficult and trying for all of us, but it was also a huge blessing in our lives that Brad was given this job opportunity. We could truly see Gods hand in all this.