Bragg Family South

You know it's the end of the summer in the South when the surprise lilies start appearing in the yards. The foliage of these intriguing flowers is really only visible in the spring, before the grass starts to green up (surprise lilies are "spring ephemerals " is some sense). Their leaves then disappear, and the plant goes unnoticed until the late summer/early fall, when it shoots up a flower stalk from its underground bulb with these curious but beautiful flowers: It is surprisingly difficult to find surprise lily bulbs at plant nurseries--most people apparently get them by sharing the bulbs, which split frequently. The surprise lily above is the first to appear in our yard since we transplanted a few out of our church's yard 2 or 3 years ago. Hopefully, we'll soon have more from other bulbs. You also know it is the end of the summer when the county fair rolls around, and all the events that go with it. Below are some pictures from the parade that celebrates the...

Do you remember what you were doing, 12 years ago on this very exact day? I was in the process of girding myself for what would be the biggest day of my life (at least to that point). On September 21, 1996, Hope and I were joined in holy matrimony, apparently to the consternation of Rich: Actually, I think they were pretty happy to see us married--Rich's dour face in this photo is more because people were actually getting to see him dressed up in a tux... I've always loved this picture of Bill, who is posing so formally for the photographer (Uncle Chuck Bayer). It's hard to believe Bill was only 12 when we got married--what a trooper! The "Parade" magazine that comes in our Sunday paper had a survey on the state of marriage in America. According to their polling, only 56% said they would definitely marry the same person all over again. This surprised me. After 12 blissful years of marriage, with far more good times than bad, I can honestly say that I'd ...

Here's the next contingent of big-time Packer fans getting ready to watch last week's Monday night win over the Vikings... Last Friday, I hit the big 3-8. Hard to believe how fast the time has gone, and it seems we've hit a new high gear with the arrival of the kids. As a child, I remember how the years seemed to drag on--now they fly by at light speed. Nothing like age to give you perspective... Here's a new perspective on cleanliness-- a baby with a birthday cupcake: Stephen and his siblings helped me celebrate my birthday on Friday with a tasty grilled tuna dinner prepared by my blushing bride, followed by frosting-laden cupcakes. We didn't do much on my birthday, just a quite evening home. On Saturday, we drove to Little Rock. Hope took the kids to the zoo and a museum while I returned to help on that archeological dig. I've made quite a few visits to help out on this dig, in part because of the urgency of the need--the company developing the land...

I have just uploaded 17 pictures from Jenny Bayer's wedding this August onto our Flickr account. You can access these pictures most easily by clicking the "Bragg Family South Flickr Pix" link on the right side bar of this blog. These images are 200 to 400 KB in size, so they should be good enough to make small to moderate size prints of without taking up too much webspace .

Why is this little girl so happy? Cause she's going to her dance lessons! Beth has started taking some big steps in her young life. We wanted to get her more involved with activities earlier than Kenny because Beth seemed noticeably more shy as a toddler (surprising to some of you, I'm sure!). We also wanted to ease her transition to school, and help with her academic and social development, so this month she started a two-day per week preschool at the local Methodist church (no, we're not converting--they just had the best program in town). So, not quite reminiscent of Lisa's recent blog posting on her first day of school, we dropped Beth off at her preschool a rainy morning last week. I joined Hope and Stephen (Kenny had already been dropped off at his school) in the effort. Beth's classroom is small (only 12 kids in her class) but full of neat things, and this seemed to help her transition. Our fears that she'd have a meltdown when she realized we were leavin...

Just a quick note to those of you wondering how Gustav has treated us... We've been under Gustav's influence for more than a day now, and we are blessed that by the time tropical systems have reached us here in southern Arkansas, there fury is largely spent. We have received quite a bit of rain (at least 2 inches, and counting) and some gusty winds, but nothing severe. Our area will likely see some flooding as Gustav stalls in our neck of the woods for a couple days. The Monticello area has seem some limited minor wind damage, mostly from small trees (like my beloved sumac in the back yard) that are being broken or toppled, and we've had a few brief power blackouts. To the kids, the abundance of water in our backyard is a treat: Notice how effective the ditch I dug a year or so ago is in draining the backyard... So, we are doing well, and we expect to get through Gustav with little in the way of real damage. We will pray for those along the Gulf Coast who received t...