Don and Rose Bragg's 50th wedding anniversary party

Hard to believe these two "kids" were joined in Holy Matrimony a mere 50 years ago!  My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary recently in a party held at a local picnic area by their friends and family...  More on this later, though...

We had helped plan this party for months with my siblings, and Hope and I--well, mainly Hope--organized the food part of this effort.  That meant we came up about a week early to start putting various elements together.  This trip also doubled as our northern visit this summer, so there were plenty of other distractions.  One of our first stops on the way up was the Hoard Historical Museum in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin (http://hoardmuseum.org/).  This museum features an ancestor of ours (by marriage into the Bragg family) named William D. Hoard and his extended family, as well as serving as the "National Dairy Shrine" as Stephen and Beth show (with varying degrees of enthusiasm):

In the picture below, Beth poses with a picture of Agnes Bragg Hoard (top image), our direct ancestor and the wife of William D. Hoard:

William Hoard was known for a number of things, including being a one-term governor of Wisconsin around 1890, but is best known for his influence and impact on the early dairy industry (no big surprise there!) in the state.  We happened to visit the museum while they were celebrating their
"Dairy Day at the Moo-seum" (yes, bad pun was theirs...).  Below, Stephen pets one of several cows on display:

Ft. Atkinson turns out to be a neat old town, with a number of cool buildings, including a brick water tower (the picture below is of Kenny and his Uncle Bob inside the base of this tower):

Here is a picture of the outside of the tower:

After our visit to Ft. Atkinson, we drove a few miles to a major archeological site in this part of Wisconsin called "Aztalan".  Although it is hard to see in the image below, the boys are sitting on part of a reconstructed platform mound, looking out across a broad plaza at a reconstructed wooden palisade wall:

After visiting this site, we drove to Bob and Nancy's home for a couple hour visit, and our kids fished in Nancy's stocked pond with some success:

Later in the week, when we arrived in Rhinelander, I again took Stephen out fishing...This time I had the biggest success, catching a couple bass from shore on evening (both were released unharmed back to the lake):

Beth's "big" event was her getting a brand new tuba, which Hope found on sale in Stevens Point, WI:

On Friday of last week, my sister Lisa and her two daughters came to my parents house for a pre-party visit, which meant fun around a campfire:

(Note how my niece Emma hammed it up for the camera).  The kids also played a lot of outdoor games, including some croquet and basketball:

Friday and Saturday morning were the "cooking times", as Hope frantically prepared a lot of side dishes for the anniversary party on Saturday afternoon.  We the drove about an hour north of town to Crystal Lake recreation area, which we had visited for years to swim and camp.  They have recently built a nice pavilion for these kind of events you can rent, which we did to provide a comfortable venue with an indoor capacity in case of rain (thank goodness it didn't rain!).  Below, Hope's dad Rich Pruden speaks with my dad:

And there was plenty of time to visit with family and friends while eating vast quantities of good food:

(Don't worry--Emma's got a close eye on the baby!).  Mom and dad had a great time, and everyone enjoyed their anniversary cake:

More happy people:

For anyone interested, we've posted a number of pictures I've taken at this party on our Flickr site:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/28202537@N02/albums  Look for the picture of mom and dad at their wedding for these images, which you should be able to download freely as fairly high resolution pictures...and feel free to browse the other "albums" on this site.

Our other big news from this trip is we now own a parcel of the Northwoods!  We've purchased the bulk of my parents' property just outside of Rhinelander, with the intention of building our retirement home there probably a couple decades from now:

We are so excited!!