Gabor takes the gold!

Gabor Boritt - Civil War historian and author, subject of the documentary "From Budapest to Gettysburg," head of the Civil War Institute, former boss and mentor of Miss Emily Hummel, host of the annual FOG ("Friends of Gabor") society party (to which Jenny and Anne were invited with the comment, "Ve need more girls dare..."), and honorary member of the Kemp family - has now been selected as a recipient of the 2008 National Humanities Medal in a ceremony at the White House. There he is, to the right of the President in the photo above. To read more about it, you can follow this link to the White House press release, or a detailed bio of Gabor as part of the National Endowment for the Humanities "Ten Who Make a Difference," or go to Jake Boritt's website for other articles about the honor. Congratulations Gabor!

Citizen Nadia and "Mr. Tom Kemp"

From Nadia's Citizenship Ceremony

I just finished writing on my own blog about the experience of watching Dad's friend from Afghanistan, Nadia Dildar, become an American citizen. Nadia is Daoud's wife. 

Becoming an American was Nadia's dream. It was also Dad's dream for her. And to be there at the ceremony was to witness the power of dreams and of freedom. Afterwards, we went out to dinner and talked about Taliban, and burqas, and America. When dad knew her, she knew little English and he continued to encourage her and praise her every new English word. And he was apparently close at hand in more ways than one, as you'll see in the story. Anyway, I think that you might enjoy hearing about the experience. Click here to read more.

Dinner anyone?

Who wants to sit next to me for dinner in Vail?! I'm lots of fun, a good conversationalist, and I'll share my food.

I can't wait to share a giggle with everyone this weekend. Safe travels!

Love, Noah

Gettysburg

Gettysburg provided the setting for a mini-reunion of Paul, Nancy, Jacqui, Emily, Jenny, and Anne. Some of us were there for the Civil War Institute (Paul, Nancy, Jenny, and Anne), one of us to see Gburg for the first time (Jacqui), and one of us (Em) came to see the rest of us. We had the traditional Dobbin House dinner (dad's favorite) and Emily and Jacqui drove through the battlefield on their way home to DC. Will post more details later. (click on photo to enlarge)

A ballerina is born

Amelia has just finished up her first experience with ballet - a week long ballet camp. The dance fire has been lit!

Today was her very first recital. Imagine five little 3-5 year-old-girls dancing (aka running) around a room to the music of "Cinderella" and you've pictured it clearly.

Click on over to the Brinson Blog for more photos... and some silly videos.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in Vail. Maybe Amelia will put on an impromptu performance of her mad ballet skills!

New photo of Jack and Dorothy and Spongbergs

My friend, Pam Davis, loaned me this photo of Jack (front right), Dorothy (center back), Connie and Art Spongberg (back left), Barney and Ethel Noyes (at right, inbetween Dorothy and Jack), and Gordon and Melissa Funk (front left).  The photo is labeled, "Homecoming Party after WWII, Beverly Hills Hotel."  

Pam's parents are Ethel and Barney Noyes (in the photo), one of whom was related in some way to Dorothy, and they were also long-time friends of the Spongbergs.  On a side note, Pam's husband, Craig, worked for dad at Coke.  

I just loved this photo and thought the Thomasville group would enjoy it as well.  You can click on it to enlarge.

graduations (assorted)

Emily here, reporting from our great Federal City, Washington DC.

So I'm not sure if everyone has heard, but I'm going to be joining Jacqui Kemp at American University this Fall. She has two years left, and my program (MA, Public History) is two years, so this is letting everyone know now that not one but two members of the extended Kemp family will be graduating May of 2010 in DC.  Also, Amanda Donahue will be graduating from the University of San Francisco in 2010 as well!  

It will be a busy, busy month -- make your plans now-- though I ask that your priorities be the undergraduate graduations! 

In the closer future (approx. 2 weeks), sister Claire & cousins Thomas & Patrick Donahue are all graduating this year, Claire from the Rhode Island School of Design, Thomas from University High, headed to Orange Coast College, and Patrick from Chapman University.  That's just on the Tom Kemp side.  Branching out, we've got Jennifer Nolan graduating from Holy Child, headed for Wake Forest (I think).  Phew!

It has become clear that because of this, perhaps, I might possibly be a grown-up, as I am officially in complete shock that everyone is already graduating.  Wasn't I just in college two seconds ago?  (Answer: Not really, no.)

Congrats to all of our graduates this year -- I'm so excited for you!  

p.s. congrats to Andy Kemp too, who's graduating from 5th grade and off to jr. high! :) 

Jack's been opining again....

Jack wrote a great article for the Wall St. Journal on April 17th.  Here's the link.

Click here for link to "Obama and Economic Opportunity."

Final Four

Well the UCLA, North Carolina matchup we were all hoping for never happened on the basketball court, but Pat, Thomas, and Terry got to meet up with Lee for a great 2 hour lunch filled with laughs. The final game was unbelievable and lucky Thomas got the trip of a lifetime.

Jack becomes an institution...

I'm not sure I quite realized what's been going on at Pepperdine, but Jon just sent me the link to the new Jack F. Kemp Institute for Political Economy at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy. (That's JFKIPEPSPP for those of you with a fondness for acronyms....) I'm thrilled to hear about it, and am looking forward to hearing more, but for now, I'll post the link so you can explore it on your own. Congratulations, Jack! (click on photo to enlarge)

Click here for link to Jack F. Kemp Institute for Political Economy at Pepperdine University.

fun with ice cream

after a long delay, I finally have posted some new photos and a fun video on our blog.

easter at the kemps!

So it was a veritable mini-family reunion, as we had representatives of 3 / 4 of the branches of the Kemp clan at Jimmy & Susan Kemp's house this past Sunday for Easter.  Jacqui Kemp, Claire & I headed over to dinner with Jimmy, Susan, the 4 boys, Jack & Joanne.  

It was wonderful!  We got a tour of the playroom (which, incidentally, we are all jealous of), played with some Lego and Brio, and headed outside, armed with bubbles, mini basketballs, and some baseball equipment.

Here's Jacqui & Tommy:

Here's Claire pitching to the intrepid batsman...action shot!

Meanwhile, Susan showed Marco & Jonah how to make resurrection rolls -- marshmallows (Jesus) dipped in butter (anointing oil) then cinnamon-sugar (spices) then wrapped in roll-dough (tomb), which, when baked, the marshmallow disappears!   It was fun to watch, and the rolls disappeared just as quickly as the marshmallows!

Dinner itself was delicious too, and after-dinner consisted of watching Tommy look incredibly pleased with himself while he sat on the couch, and Jacqui's announcement that she was interning at the DNC!  

Shock, horror! -- only kidding, of course.  It sounds fantastic!  We're excited too, since she's seeing everything from the inside during an election year.   

All in all, lots of fun, especially since we had 2 Hummels for the price of 1 -- Claire being in town for her spring break! 

Hope everyone else had a lovely Easter & hope to see you soon!

give us a half-hour in your town...

So Mom and I are in San Francisco for the (extended) week-end. I have a wedding (not mine, don't worry) to attend, and since I would be in the same state, Mom decided to drive up. Hooray!

Since we are in the city where the lovely Amanda resides, we were set to visit her. Of course, this is the day she is leaving, and had a half-hour between her last class and catching a bus to the airport... In the spirit of Tom Kemp, who, I believe would make an effort to visit one were he in the same time zone, we attempted some kind of rendezvous. Again: half-hour.

After managing 2 separate bus routes, we were slightly waylaid by a man on the street who saw us admiring a Victorian home and invited us to come inside and look at the renovation he had recently completed (no, really). After almost making an offer, we got a phone call from Amanda and managed to meet up on campus!

Not to be deterred, we decided to milk all the time that we had, and proceeded to walk her to the bus stop, and realized that it was the same route we needed to get back to our hotel! A mildly harrowing bus ride followed (see below!) but resulted in us reaching our destination, which was occasion for the photograph to the right.


We then sent her on her way -- and retreated to the hotel: success!

Earlier, too, we had stopped at the monument to Cervantes in Golden Gate Park, which we thought was a fitting tribute to Gramps. Here's me with my arm around Sancho Panza & Don Quixote.

To dream the impossible dream...

Judith wins the Rob Hummel Christmas Collection award!

Judith Nolan has officially won the "Rob Hummel Christmas Collection Award," given annually to whoever listens to all or part of the Rob Hummel Christmas Collection for the longest period of time.  Since Judith is still listening as of March 4th, she is the clear champ.  I'm not sure what the prize is.  I'll leave that up to Rob.  Maybe it's first dibs on Volume 8...

Congratulations, Judith!  

From New York City to Santa Monica....

Jake Boritt came to Santa Monica to do some work on the dvd of "From Budapest to Gettysburg" so some of us gathered at El Cholo in Santa Monica for some mighty yummy enchiladas.  We got to hear updates on the film's progress and Jake got to hear suggestions for raising more funding and for getting into the Academy race.  We also learned about Jon's new job and what it's like working in a sea of Democrats.  Maddie worked on her ballet sticker book, and Thomas slept, while Gina and I got caught up.  Next time we'll make sure Matt Kemp has the correct schedule of events - we missed you, Matt!  

This was our first time meeting Thomas and he is perfection...  See for yourself.

(click on photos to enlarge.)

Lovebirds...

Rob has been editing the old 16 mm home movies we found in dad's attic, trying to figure out what goes before or after what.  Not an easy task!  I'm going through and printing out some stills, so that I can begin the process of putting names to faces.  There are so many wonderful moments in it all, but some of my favorites are of Paul and Frances as newly in love.  I'm putting three movie stills up on the Thomasville blog so you all can enjoy them as we have!   Notice that Paul doesn't have a wedding ring on.  We think we see that Frances may have an engagement ring on.  That would date the movie footage to around 1926, which is definitely some of the earliest 16 mm home movies ever shot, since that's just a year or two after Kodak first started making that type of film available to the consumer.  Wow!

Christmas in Laguna 2007

The Tom Kemp Sr kids and grandkids were (miraculously!) all together on a gorgeous Christmas day. Had a rousing game of Apples to Apples, a wonderful dinner, and enjoyed opening presents in the shade of our new artificial Christmas tree. Does it get any better than that? (Click on photo to enlarge.)