One crazy busy March

Doesn't he just look suave in this fedora?  It is hard to believe we're already a week into April...March just evaporated right past us!  What a busy month!!  March started out pretty tame--we snuck out a few times to our lease to let the kids explore:

Which was a good thing they splashed in this little creek BEFORE the big rains hit...Monticello ended up getting about 14.5 inches of rain for the month of March (our usual average this time of year is 4-5 inches per month)!  Note how wet our backyard got:

Other parts of southern Arkansas and northern Louisiana had a lot more rain than we got in Monticello, and had some major flooding issues.  I was worried how all the rain would impact the archeology opportunities I had this month...Fortunately, they had little impact.  I spent a couple days working on a late Mississippian site in northeastern Arkansas, pictured below:

The dark soil is the "midden" or organic matter-rich soil formed by long human occupation and (in this case) littered with artifacts, including the following rim-rider human effigy figure made out of ceramic we found in our unit:

I really enjoyed this dig, even though I was only there two days...Lots of neat artifacts, and in a very interested context (an Indian village buried by a sand blow triggered by a major earthquake).  During this time, the kids were out for their spring break, so they got a visit from their grandparents during this period.  Below, the kids enjoying Collier Springs in the Ouachita Mountains:

There are many creeks and waterfalls in the area to explore, including this one just above the Collier Springs:

Hope's dad Rich Pruden had come down for most of a week to help watch the kids and enjoy the warmth and spring flowers of southern Arkansas.  Below, Rich also got in a lot of grand-kid photography:

which they didn't mind a bit!  Below, they played quite a while on the jumbled rocks of this stream:

We also went to an old quartz crystal mine called "Diamond Vista" that the US Forest Service allows people to scratch around in for their own crystals.  We found some nice crystals, and all survived the mile-long uphill walk to the mine:

As you can see, these pictures don't have Hope in them...she was the "working stiff" during this Spring Break week.  Hope was busy putting together one of her large activity days for the region's 4-H students.  It was well-attended, with well over 80 students and parents:

The rains did put a bit of a damper on one of the events she had hoped to really feature, which was some archeology at a historic plantation site east of our hometown of Monticello.  Below, Kenny helps University of Arkansas-Monticello Station Assistant Katy Gregory with some excavation work at this site while some 4-H parents looked on:

Hope's dad left on a Thursday; my parent flew into Little Rock on Friday afternoon (Good Friday).  They had come down to celebrate Easter with us, and to join in Stephen's First Communion.  Below, my mom watches as my dad takes pictures with his new iPhone at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Little Rock:

Stephen's First Communion was to be done during the Easter Sunday service, so we had all of Saturday to enjoy a nice sunny day.  We took my parents to McGehee to see where Hope works, and then visited the Japanese Internment Camp Museum in that town.  Later, we drove a few miles further out to the actual internment camp, where thousands of Japanese-Americans were relocated to from their homes along the West Coast of the US during World War II.  This tragedy is commemorated by a number of monuments, most erected by those forced to live there for years:

The monument above is particularly poignant--it commemorates those Japanese-American soldiers who fought (in Europe) for the same country that imprisoned them and their families...many of these soldiers died fighting in some of the most bitter engagements of the war.  Below, my dad captures the scene at the camp:

And here I "capture" dad and I in a bit of quiet time in our backyard:  

The weather was nice, and we had a campfire or two during the visit.  Of course, being Easter, we had some eggs to color, too, which was carefully observed by my dad:

Easter Sunday came with great anticipation by Stephen.  Below, you can tell my mom is getting a little tired of her "shutter-bug":

Stephen was thrilled to have his grandparents join him on this big day, and he looked pretty sharp dressed up:

You can see the banner he decorated hanging on the pew we were to sit in:

St. Marks isn't a big parish, so we don't have a lot of kids getting First Communion every year...but they were all excited:

(Gotta love how photogenic Stephen is!).  Kenny (cross-bearer) and Beth (candle bearer on right) helped out as servers at this mass:

Here are the beaming First Communicants again, with our priest Father Mark:

Beth was also a big help at the social after mass, taking care of the cute little curly-haired daughter of some friends of ours:

On Monday, I took the day off from work (Hope still had to work, and the kids had school), so I bundled mom and dad off to Lakeport Plantation (http://lakeport.astate.edu/), a beautifully restored plantation house about an hour or so south of Monticello.  They were very happy to get a tour from Dr. Blake Wintory, the Assistant Director and Facilities Manager at Lakeport:

As you can see, Monday was another very nice day, and we spent much of the afternoon outside enjoying the weather.  Mom in particular loved all the green leaves she could see, and the flowers blooming (wisteria, in this case):

Mom and dad left on Tuesday...Hope actually shuttled them up to the airport; I couldn't, because I was en route to a business meeting in Columbia, Missouri.  While there, I visited the University of Missouri's tree-ring laboratory, where they showed off some of their really ancient wood...the piece I'm holding below has been carbon-dated to over 13,800 years old!

After several days in Missouri, I returned.  Kenny went off to a Boy Scout camp, so Hope and the other kids and I went out for our tradition spring picnic to Arkansas Post (only saw one gator this year, but it was a big one!).  We also visited the Museum of the Arkansas Grand Prairie not too far away in Stuttgart.  This neat museum had a lot of cool displays, including some of the historic buildings from the area:

We spent time in all of those buildings, including the old one-room wood-heated school:

Below, Stephen was dwarfed by one of the old steam-powered tractors on display:

We really enjoyed the visit of the grandparents, and hope that the worst of the rains of the year are now behind us...Can't wait to see what the rest of April has in store for Bragg Family South!