The Baynhams

Tonight Gareth celebrated his Confirmation. As part of his ceremony he got to pick a new name and he chose "Joseph" as it has strong family connections. His Great Grandfather was called Joseph and his Great Grandmother was Josephine. They named their son Joseph. This is my Dad who is known to our kids as Grandad Joe. My Dad called my brother Joe and he in turn used the name Joseph as his sons middle name. Now Gareth has added it to his name too. When Gareth announced his choice he cheerfully decided that his new name Joseph was going to "help unite all our family together like branches on a tree"

He had to chose an adult Catholic to be his Sponsor and he went with his Uncle Joe. The only problem was that Uncle Joe works in Tokyo and wasn't originally going to be in Australia this week. Being a great Uncle he changed his flights and planned to drive up from Sydney with Rhonda and their two little boys so they could be with us. It was a midweek evening service and they did the two hour drive here and back tonight so it was really appreciated.

Gareth was so excited about this evening. We planned a family dinner before the 7pm service. Lasagne, garlic bread and salad with Granny's French Dressing on it. We were all stinking of garlic after it! After a big plateful and a second serving Gareth asked me "Was that the starter or the main course?" I couldn't really throttle him on his special day so I let him away with it! We had a great big chocolate cake for dessert. My brother asked was this my favourite 6 minute chocolate microwave cake? I replied that it was, except that we had tripled the ingredients and cooked it in the oven. This caused lots of laughter because apparently I am known for saying I follow the recipe exactly and then admitting all the small changes I actually did so that it barely resembles the original! This cake had sort of been a disaster. It had cracked into four big pieces as it was turned out of the tin but the kids rescued the situation by announcing it was a volcano cake and needed lots of lava (chocolate fudge sauce) and lava rocks (frozen raspberries) to fill the volcano fissures. Good save kids!
After dinner we all scrubbed up and headed out to church. Gareth looked so chuffed all through the service. He said he thought his Uncle Joe was the smartest dressed Sponsor there. After all the running around and chaos of the family meal in the house the actual church service was lovely. Very calm and relaxed and lots of quiet reflection. It was a beautiful evening and one Gareth is sure to remember.