Christmas 2014, New Years 2015, and beyond...
So, I guess I'm getting a bit late on this, but I suppose having my Christmas and New Year's pictures out before the end of January should count for something, right? The picture above is actually from before Christmas--Kenny warming up prior to a basketball game by his 7th grade team. The picture below is also from before Christmas--the young lady in the foreground speaking is Rachel Silva with the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program in front of the Taylor House in eastern Drew County:
You may recall the Taylor House is a large, dog-trot style log cabin built in the 1840s that I've done some volunteer archeology work at...The program pictured above is a general one for the public on the history (especially architectural history) of this property.
We headed up north for Christmas around our usual time, with our first destination being Rhinelander, Wisconsin. We felt pretty lucky in that by the time we got to Rhinelander, there was some snow on the ground. Pictured below is Hope looking at a snowball that had just struck her (I believe it was Kenny that threw it); the dog is my parents' dog Oscar, and the other person is my younger sister Laurie (Lulu):
Below, Kenny and Stephen enjoyed the snow quite a bit:
On our way to Rhinelander, we had first stopped in Madison to visit with my siblings (Lulu, Bob, and Bill) and their significant others (Mark, Nancy, and Scott, respectively) who live in that area. We then spent only one night in Rhinelander before heading a few hours west to visit my sister Lisa, her husband Jon, and their kids (Michael, Emma, and Leila). A new fresh coating of wet, packy snow made for the construction of snowmen (below, Stephen (left) and Leila):
Kenny and Emma made a decidedly larger one:
We also had an epic snowball fight...As that was wrapping up, more family arrived for the Bragg Family Christmas get-together. Below, Leila snuggling with Hope; my brother John (Brewers coat), and his husband Jim:
Below, my sister Lisa and her hubby Jon:
We spent a couple nights with Lisa and her family before returning Christmas Eve to Rhinelander. We had a nice, quiet Christmas day opening gifts with my folks, and a few more days to enjoy the snowy woods. The next few pictures are in the pines on my parents' property; below, the mature red pines always look so pretty against the white snow:
The heavy, wet snow temporarily bent over these young, pliable eastern white pine saplings:
The snow also looks great on the balsam fir, paper birch, and other trees:
We stayed through the weekend, allowing us to watch (with our friends in the Skinner family) the Packer beat the Lions to claim the NFC North Division title again, and a first-round playoff bye. We left that Monday morning for Hope's parents in lower Michigan, arriving by that evening. We had a nice, if short, visit with them. One the highlights was a visit to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn (near Detroit), which had a traveling NFL exhibit at that time. Of course, we had to take some pictures of the Packer players shown:
The Henry Ford Museum, of course, has a number of cars to it (not all Fords, though!), including this limousine which happened to be the one that JFK was assassinated in:
After visiting the museum, we had some time to pass before visiting with Hope's grandparents, so we went down by downtown Detroit to Belle Island Park, where you get a good view of the skyline:
This park is also right on the Detroit River, so you can see a lot of the freighters hauling bulk goods through the Great Lakes:
We also had a visit with some of Hope's other family members, including their cousin Evan:
(The kids are holding their small drones, given to them by their great-grandparents as Christmas gifts). All too soon, we headed back south to Arkansas, departing a little early to avoid an early January winter storm.
Since returning, we've gotten back into the school and work swing of things. Kenny has stayed active in his band and basketball, Beth's involved in several after school activities, and Stephen's been enjoying begin a Cub Scout. We also took advantage of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend to help the kids expand their experiences, including those related to civil rights. We drove to Alabama that weekend, in part to visit Selma, where a peaceful march 50 years ago this coming March turned bloody. Below are parts of a small memorial near the site of the fateful clash:
The colorful mural is painted alongside a nearby building:
An below is the famous bridge that witnessed the carnage that day (you can still walk or drive over it):
The crowd of people are taking A/V equipment out of the Penske rental truck on the left and setting it up on the bridge--the next day, Oprah (yes, THAT Oprah) was arriving with some of the actors from the movie Selma to commemorate the holiday. We visited a small museum at the site before heading north from there about an hour to Moundville Archaeological Park (http://moundville.ua.edu/), which is run by the University of Alabama. This park preserves an amazing set of flat-topped Indian mounds surrounding a large plaza (open area). The kids below are looking across the plaza from the top of one of these mounds:
Moundville also has a very nice, recently renovated museum:
I liked the bird-topped totems below enough to take several pictures of them--the one below is of an ivory-billed woodpecker:
There are some amazing artifacts that have been uncovered here at Moundville, including this elegantly carved and polished stone bowl:
and this supernatural cat effigy, also of carved, polished stone:
We returned from this trip unfortunately in time to see the Packers blow a late lead and lose out on their chance to go to the Super Bowl. Moving on with our lives, we went to northern Louisiana the next weekend to attend the first birthday party of our godson, John Mark Adams, pictured below "sharing" his birthday cake with his older sister Mary Virginia:
Their parents, Joshua and Heidi Adams, are good friends of ours that recently moved from Monticello to take faculty positions with Louisiana Tech University in Ruston (Joshua's hometown). We miss the Adams, but see them fairly often, as Ruston is only a couple hours from Monticello.
This week's big event was Hope's 4-H appreciation dinner, at which she and some of her 4-H kids and volunteers got to show off the large novelty check her groups received from the big ag company Monsanto:
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