An Eagle [Scout] has landed!

Next time you see him, make sure to congratulate Kenny on achieving the rank of Eagle Scout!  Last night Bragg Family South had the honor and privilege of attending his Eagle Scout banquet, where he and 7 other young men were recognized for the years of effort they made to earn this rank.  It was indeed a long time in coming, but something Kenny (and his mother!) worked hard to achieve.

This was indeed a whole family affair, with his brother Stephen helping out on the flag honor guard:

Next week, Stephen "crosses over" from Webelos into the local Boy Scout troop, hopefully likewise on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout.  Beth also served as a supportive sister...which mainly meant putting up with her picture-happy dad:

We were only one of a bunch of families attending this banquet, which featured a catered fried catfish dinner (yes, we live in the South!) and an appropriately decorated sheet cake:

While the spotlight focused on the boys, the true unsung heroes of this achievement are the parents--which in our case mostly means Hope--who provided all the needed support and patience for this to happen.  Below, Hope and I posed with our new Eagle:

(note:  he's taller than me mostly because he's wearing hiking boots and his youthful, spiky hair sticks up more than my thinning top...).  Kenny plans to remain active in Scouts into the foreseeable future, as we all will (with Stephen just starting, we've still got years to go).  Congrats again, Kenny!

You may recall my last blog post from early January mentioned the government shutdown...which at that point was only at about midway through its record length...  Mercifully, we now have a budget for the rest of this fiscal year, so we can finish picking up the pieces and move on with stewarding the public trust.  During my furlough, I worked on a variety of projects around the house, volunteered on some archeology work, and still checked on government property (I was one of those federal employees that still had to occasional report in).  What I didn't do was take a lot of pictures--hence, this will be a brief post!  We did have a number of events, including one that I did take pictures at...Stephen again did well at the local Pinewood Derby:

His silver, hot rod-style car won first in his age division, and placed in the top 3 overall.  A somewhat bittersweet moment...this was the last time he could compete in the Pinewood Derby (Boy Scouts do not compete), so we are now out of that part of scouting...

We had a few colder days over the last couple months...nothing like our friends and family had up north, but enough to start some fires in our fireplace--much to the joy of our cats:

We are starting to see good signs of spring down here, with some of the early flowers like daffodils and Callery pear trees starting up...so take heart, all you frozen, snowbound Yankees--it'll reach you someday!