Bragg Family South

Last Friday, in addition to the Monticello Billies (the local high school football team) winning a state championship in their division, Bragg Family South took Kenny and a number of his friends to the local bowling alley for some serious pin action (can't you tell by the faces in the picture above?). Our local bowling alley offers a good deal for kids to have bowling birthday parties, including light-weight bowling balls easy for the kids to roll down the lane. Below, even lil ' Stephen got into bowling (at least for a while, and with a little help from Mom and Dad): Kenny really gets into bowling, even though his technique needs some work, and his body English wasn't helping much: We also had cake and ice cream and other treats. The kid on the right with the big smile is Kenny's friend Peyton McBride: Peyton stayed the night at our house that night--we let Kenny have one friend over for a sleep-over on his birthday celebration. Here are some more friends of Kenn...

Whew!! We just survived a very long week of travel, family get-togethers, and Packer football... The picture of Beth above is at my sister Laurie's (aka Lulu's) house in Cross Plains, Wisconsin (just outside of Madison). Our kids have always loved their adorable and well-trained Llewellin setters Mingo and Lily. They patiently let even little kids like Stephen pick at them: And of course, they loved all the extra attention they got. Below is a picture of Mingo with Kenny: Lulu and her husband Mark were very gracious and indulgent hosts, and bravely tolerated the disruption of their schedule and messes left by our little kids... Below, Lulu takes a short break to talk with my brother John (aka Jojo) while Beth begs for another book to be read to her: As you can see, the kids of Bragg Family South weren't the only ones there. My sister Lisa brought her three children. In the picture below, Lisa holds her daughter Leila and my son Stephen while Beth and Lisa's da...

Those of you who follow Hope's postings on Facebook already know that our long weekend camping trip did not come off as planned. Things started very well--we had beautiful sunny weather, got to our first night's campsite just fine, and made a nice visit to Pea Ridge National Battlefield in extreme northwestern Arkansas. The picture above is of Kenny and Beth posing next to a cannon at the visitor center, and they are picture below outside of Elkhorn Tavern, site of some of the pivotal fighting in the Battle of Pea Ridge: Pea Ridge was an early Union victory, and one of the few successes the Union had west of the Mississippi River. Although small relative to the engagements further east, this 1862 battle basically allowed the Union to secure control over Missouri for the rest of the Civil War. Below, Beth hides behind a large oak leaf she found while we hiked along a trail at the park: After registering and dropping off our camper at the campsite, we had driven straight up t...

Is Kenny stealing that flag? Nope... As one of the tallest Cub Scouts in the second grade, Kenny and a friend get the honor of raising and lowering the flag every day at his school--a job he's quite proud of, and, according to Hope, he's quite good at. Now that it's finally stopped raining and we have nice sunny skies (at least for a while), we've been trying to enjoy the weather. For those of you who haven't been paying attention to my constant whining about it, we got 8.72 inches of rain in September (most coming in the last two weeks of the month) and a whopping 19.73 inches in October! That's over 28 inches in the last two months!! Rivers are flooding statewide, the farmers' fields are unharvestable bogs with the crops rotting away, and I think the soil in my back yard will be gooey for months. We've still tried to enjoy the nice days while we can--Kenny has the next two days off from school, and we're finally taking our new pop-up traile...