Musical May

Kenny has taken to skeet shooting with a bang!  As you can see from the picture above, the boy who was too gun shy to want to shoot anything above a .22 has shown some skills with a 20-gauge shotgun.  He will go through 25-50 shells during one of his practice rounds, and his confidence seems to grow with every practice.

Hard to believe we are almost half-way through May already!  The kids are wrapping up their school year, and getting ready for summertime activities.  One of which will be spending some time at our new library facility, just completed a few blocks north of the old facility, which had been outgrown some years ago.  Below, Hope and the kids eagerly await the grand opening tour of the new library building:

Beth and Stephen liked the screen porch reading room (well, at least for now...it is not air conditioned, so give it a couple months, and it will be pretty empty in the hot part of the summer!):

This past two weeks has been a seemingly non-stop musical performance binge for the minions of Bragg Family South.  First up was Kenny playing with the rest of his 6th grade class band:

 This evening performance really highlighted the strides they had made as a group, and we've definitely heard Kenny improve over the year.  He's still exciting about playing in band, and is already planning to try out for advanced band next year so he can be part of the middle school marching band at home football games.  Next up was Beth, who sang with her class and played a percussion instrument for one song in their performance:

Last weekend we decided to take advantage of a rare Saturday that did have Hope or I working AND the kids booked with activities, and we drove up to Hot Springs.  Part of our goal was to get a membership at the Mid-America Science Museum, which the kids like to visit.  Below is a picture of an old steam engine that used to be use to power a small sawmill in the Arkansas woods:

This science museum has a number of things for the kids to play with while learning (hopefully) about some related scientific principles:

After we spent a couple hours at this museum, we took the scenic route to downtown Hot Springs.  Below is part of downtown from an overlook in Hot Springs National Park.  The large building on the right is a rehabilitation center that uses hot water from the springs to help heal veterans; the tower at the top of the hill on the left is a commercial operation located on part of the National Park:

We weren't all about education on this trip; the kids got to play miniature golf at their favorite local pirate-themed course:

Note how Kenny has the Bragg male trait of sticking out his tongue when he's concentrating!  Today was the final musical performance; Stephen's kindergarten class sang a half-dozen songs for parents and other friends and family:

The kids are all looking forward to summer, but I know they'll soon miss the friends and fun activities at school, and will soon be eager to get back to it!