A baptism, a wedding, and a dig...

...but starting with one unrelated photo.  The picture above was taken during last Thanksgiving break; Hope's parents had come down to Arkansas for a visit, and we picked a rather cool, blustery, damp day to go up by Hot Springs to "mine" for quartz crystals.  A brisk day, for sure, but pretty fun--I think Stephen would agree that any day he gets to play in mud is a good day!

Back to more recent events...What a busy March we've had!  Below are a few pictures of some very recent adventures.  It seems Hope and I can't shake the affiliation of weddings and baptisms.  Some of you may recall that on our wedding day we became the godparents of the daughter of some friends of ours...Well, the other weekend, we were getting ourselves ready to go to the wedding of some friends from church, when we got the call to come down to the local hospital to be the godparents of a baby boy of Joshua and Heidi Adams, friends of ours from work and church.  The little guy had been hospitalized with a case of pneumonia (he's fine, now), and the Adams wanted him baptized before he got the anointing of the sick.  So, we headed off to the hospital for the most unique baptism we've been to:

The little man was quite a trooper, even with his IV still attached, as you can see by his tolerating goo-goo eyes from Hope:

Oh, and the white gown he's wearing isn't a baptismal gown, but rather the hospital garb!  Shortly thereafter, we headed off to St. Marks for the wedding.  The uniformed gentleman on the left, Sgt. Max Sawyer, grew up before our very eyes--we've been in Monticello long enough now (14 years and counting) to have seen the children of many fellow parishioners go from children into adulthood; many are now parents themselves, some are doctors, others have gone into the military.  We take pride in their success!

Below is a picture of Hope in substitute mommy-mode:

The little angel sleeping on her shoulder is the daughter of Joshua and Heidi Adams.  We offered to relieve them of this sweetie for a few hours so they could rest up after being at the hospital with their son all night.  She slept throughout the wedding, and was a little charmer later at the reception.  Below, Father Mark Abban officiated the wedding:

Father Mark has been such a blessing to our parish.  Originally, he came over as a student to the University of Arkansas-Monticello to study land surveying to better service his diocese in Ghana.  He would occasionally fill in for the priest we had at the time, but has since taken over as the parish administrator.  He delivers wonderful sermons with such passion and enthusiasm!

Our other big event of the last week or so has been the spring break archeological dig going on at a historic homesite about 20 miles from Monticello.  This location, known as the Taylor House, is an antebellum (circa mid-1840s) plantation home built in the flat Delta lands in eastern Drew County:

This building, plus some land, was recently acquired by the University of Arkansas-Monticello, who plan to fix it up (properly) and use it as part of a heritage tourism program.  The dig we're doing right now is to help fill in some of the background details.  Below is a picture of the family cemetery at the Taylor House:

There were slaves at this plantation, and they are buried nearby in a less marked cemetery.  Below are pictures of the house itself, showing some interesting aspects of its construction:

It may seem hard to believe, but it is in pretty good shape--especially considering it was originally built well before the Civil War, and was living in well into the 20th Century!  The wood structure has survived well because it is made out of cypress, which is very decay resistant.  This log home was built without particularly great tolerances--note in the picture below the very wide gap in the logs filled with cypress "shims" to help hold in the plaster:

Note also the the rings in the log on the left--some years ago, a University of Arkansas professor I work with (Dr. David Stahle) used these rings to date the construction of the home.  In addition to the archeology being done at the Taylor House this week, the local 4-H program took advantage of the work being done to help make some local kids' spring break more educational:

Hope used the dig as an opportunity to organize a "Quad Day" (a gathering of 4 local county 4-H groups) based on history and archeology themes.  This included a local volunteer reenactor,  who helped Hope describe some aspects of pioneer life, including cooking in Dutch ovens:

The archeologists also helped deliver parts of the program, including our neighbor Jessica (right) who taught these kids about prehistoric tools--she is showing Kenny (blue coat on left) and others how to use an atlatl (an ancient spearthrower):

We also showed the student and their parents/guardians about the process of archeology, including allowing many of them to screen for actual artifacts:

We have found a number of neat items at this dig, including a number of these home-made clay marbles, very commonly found on historic sites with children:

Hard to believe April is almost upon us, but with activities like these going on, time just flies by!