Bragg Family South

Saturday morning I drove (by myself--Hope had a baby shower to go to, and the kids were watched by their favorite babysitter) to a small town in central Mississippi called Belzoni approximately 2 hours from Monticello. I was to meet up with another guy (Gary Smith) and we were going to look for some big trees we've heard about in this area. Even though there was a chance of rain, the day turned out to be warm, sunny, and dry--not exactly what the farmers in drought-stricken Mississippi wanted to see, but a fine day for hunting for big trees. We got in Gary's truck and cruised the back roads to find the first tree of the day--the national co-champion baldcypress. As we traveled down the dust farm roads, I realized that many of you probably have never seen cotton in the fields, so here's a good picture: The cotton bolls are just starting to become obvious--you can see a few round white puffs in these plants--those are the bolls. Cotton does better than corn and other crop...

Elizabeth had quite an adventure earlier this week. She was invited to her first formal tea party at the house of some family friends (Rebecca and Mark Spencer). This party was hosted by the 10-year-old daughter, and included a number of little girls age 2 to 5 (or so). They all got dressed up and munched on treats including chocolate covered strawberries, cake, and other sweets (at least that was the plan--I don't think they actually ate much). This tea was held in one of the most historical homes of Monticello--the Allen House--recently purchased by these friends. Here is a link to a Monticello website with more details on this property: http://www.monticellolive.com/?p=103 The Allen House is quite well known in this town--partially for its impressive (if decaying) grandeur, and partly because it is rumored to be haunted... Hope's impression: it is a beautiful home, that needs a lot of TLC due to neglect over the years. These friends of ours have spent many years fixing ot...

I know we've been adamant over the years (certainly with Kenny and Beth) that we didn't want to know what they were before they were born, and we were overjoyed when each arrived in our lives. Today we have taken a different tack... When Hope went in today for a routine ultrasound, we still intended to let the baby go full term before finding out what gender it was. However, during the ultrasound, the technician passed by a certain part of the anatomy (accidentally, mind you--she knew we were trying not to find out). Anyhow, it was very obvious to me what we were going to have. So, after dwelling on whether or not I should let Hope in on what I saw, I told Hope that it was up to her if she still wanted to keep it a secret. She immediately said she wanted to know--I knew this was what she wanted from early on, so I wasn't surprised. To make an already long story short, we are having a boy! Mom and baby are still doing fine, and we are still anticipating an early Septem...

We are beginning to plan the Christmas get-together in south Arkansas. We'll try to schedule it so as many people can make it as possible, but to do this, we need your help. We are tentatively thinking about doing it the weekend before Christmas Day (December 21-22-23, something like that). This would allow people who need to be at other family functions on or immediately after Christmas to get to those. However, this is not set in stone--we can adjust it to different periods as well, if the group consensus dictates it. Also keep in mind we are happy to go to the Little Rock/Memphis airport(s) to pick people up and drop them off, if flying would be preferred to driving to Arkansas. Usually, its not much more expensive to fly into Little Rock than Memphis, but either is viable for us. When you decide what you're doing, email us a note so we can figure out how many to plan for, and what lodging arrangements to make (we have room for a number of people).

Yesterday, I accompanied one of our student workers to a property near his hometown of Des Arc, Arkansas. Brother Bill may remember Des Arc--the last time he visited us, we went to this town after our morning at the archeological site to see their "Steamboat Days" festival. For the rest of y'all, Des Arc is probably about an hour or less east of Little Rock, north of I-40. This property was on the banks of the White River, a rather large river that flows out of the Ozarks of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri onto the Mississippi River Delta lands in eastern Arkansas (including the Big Woods area, which has the White River and Cache River national wildlife refuges, home of the ivory-billed woodpecker). We were there to see some of the big timber in this property, including a tree that the student believed was the new state champion. After a couple hour drive through the rice, cotton, soybean, and corn fields of eastern Arkansas, we arrived at the property. We drove p...