A Thanksgiving and birthday sandwich

Time for another blog post from Bragg Family South!  First, we start with Beth's birthday in late October.  Her birthday this year was a more laid-back affair than most, with a simple cake (above) and a birthday gift surprise, below:

Beth's lack of enthusiasm in the picture above is because we (namely, Hope and I) had been teasing her about getting her a book for her birthday, when she was convinced she was getting something much different.  I had quickly wrapped a convenient book ("How to build a dinosaur", a very interesting book given to me by my brother Bill), and she spent a few minutes trying to figure out the meaning of this gift before we sprung her real gift on her--a small tablet computer:

Yes, you can note the much greater enthusiasm!  Stephen has also been busy this fall with his Cub Scout den/pack:

As a part of the den's ceremony, he got to get his face painted up by mom:

I was fortunate enough to get up to northeastern Arkansas one day this November to participate in an fascinating archeological dig.  Below, the site is in the middle of a soybean field, and doesn't look particularly impressive:

But it yielded a trove of really cool artifacts, including the perforated ceramic disk that I picked out of the first screen of dirt that cold morning:

A short time later we also found an antler arrow tip (not all arrow points are chipped from stone; some are shaped from sharpened deer antler tine tips):

The picture below illustrates perhaps the coolest aspect of this dig--the light colored soil material on the bottom and sides of the pit below is sand pushed to the surface following one of the massive earthquakes (a process called "liquefaction") that periodically affects this part of the world.  The dark brown area behind the young lady digging this pit is the organic material rich soil (called "midden") from the prehistoric Indian village that had occupied this site right up to the moment of the earthquake:

The lighter brown soil on top is the "plow zone" that has been stirred and mixed by decades of farming this land.  You may recognize the young lady, by the way--it is our former neighbor Jessica Howe, who now is a PhD student in archeology at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville.  I really wish I could have spent more than one day at this site, but I had to get back to work...

We recently returned from a quick trip to Wisconsin to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family.  This year, Thanksgiving was hosted by my sister Laurie and her husband Mark at their newly purchased home in the bucolic countryside west of Madison:

For further evidence of this, their house on the left is just down the road from the dairy farm (silos and all) that has been operating in this valley for generations:

You can look out their large front picture window across the valley to see another farm nestled below the steep but low hills that dominate this area (this is a part of Wisconsin's "coulee" country, or the part of the state untouched by the Pleistocene glaciers):

Our kids LOVED the fact that there was snow to play in, a rare commodity in southern Arkansas:

The snow was also accompanied by the requisite cold air--some of the nights got into the single digits while we were there, cold even for Wisconsin standards for November!  Below is a glamorous picture of our lovely and gracious hostess, my sister Laurie (aka "Aunt Lulu"):

In addition to great food, enjoyable company, and good conversation, I got to enjoy watching my baby sister work her artistic magic in stitching a baby quilt that she and my mother have been working on:

Laurie and Mark have two gorgeous (if mischievous) Llewelyn setters, Lilly and Mingo:

They are wearing the orange vests because it was gun deer season in Wisconsin when this picture is taken.  Mingo (in the back) looks a little guilty because they're not supposed to be in this room (but they spent most of the visiting sneaking up to be with the group).  My brother-in-law Mark manages the food services and other aspects of a nearby hotel, and is a master chef unto himself.  He spent most of his time (including his time off) during this period doing some kind of food prep, including cutting mushrooms (below) for a fantastic pheasant dish he made for us using some birds he shot himself:

(The bourbon was not for the pheasant, but one of the ingredients in Hope's sweet potato pie).  Below, Beth joined her cousins Emma and Leila for some hand-made pilgrim outfits.  Emma and Leila are the daughters of my sister Lisa; Beth is holding their dog, Teddy:

Below, my father says grace before the family digs in to the Thanksgiving feast prepared by Mark, Laurie, Lisa, Hope, and my mom (but mostly Mark and Laurie):

After a hard day of prep, eating, and entertaining, my sisters posed for a less glamorous but much more relaxed picture (Laurie on the left, Lisa on the right):

The following day, before people started to leave, we had a lunch of (what else) Thanksgiving leftovers and then we gave Kenny his birthday party, which included packages of Green Bay Packer cupcakes!:

Unfortunately, we had to make this trip really short--the kids need to be in school tomorrow, and Hope and I have to be back to work.  We drove from Madison to Monticello in one day, arriving fairly late last night.  We had a blast, and really enjoyed our Thanksgiving adventure this year!