September fun

It's hard to believe its been almost a month since my last blog posting, but looking at this picture of Stephen with his shaggy, pre-September hair, it is obvious that its been a few weeks. I guess part of it has been because there hasn't been much going on for Bragg Family South, with the school routine in full swing. Hope and the kids hatched and released several monarch butterflies their Great Aunt Diane had sent them from Michigan. Below, Beth carefully holds one butterfly as Hope puts an ID sticker on its wing:

Beth was pretty amazed by the release:

Hope also had a carport sale to help reduce the clutter in our house:

She did fairly well, given that she didn't advertise the sale in the local paper, and only posted signs the night before--it was a very pleasant, clear Saturday morning after a long, hot summer, so I think a lot of people were just out driving around, looking for sales. Kenny and Beth tried out their business skills, setting up a Kool-Aid stand:

Judging from her look in this picture, I think Beth was BY FAR their best customer. The kids always have fun hanging out with Hope while she does her sales, and this allowed me time to work on the inside of the house some (more on this later). That weekend, we got out the "cornhole" game that I made this summer:

Cornhole is a game that is kind of a cross between horseshoes and bean bag toss, and is becoming increasingly popular at tailgate parties and family get-togethers because its challenging, safe (the bags you toss are usually filled with dried corn, hence the name), and easy to play, even for little kids. Well, at least most kids--in the picture above, Hope and Kenny are watching his last throw climb into the stratosphere (but not towards the target at the other end). The objective is to throw 4 beanbags per person (you can play either one on one, or with two person teams) towards the hole cut into this angled platform that is 2 ft by 4 ft. The hole is the size of a small saucer, and the top of the platform is surprisingly slippery. Below, you can see Hope getting ready for her turn:

If the bean bag lands and stays on top of the platform, you get one point, and if you get it into the whole, you get three points (first to 21 points wins). We added some Packer flavor to our platforms:

The game was easy and cheap to build, and has provided a lot of safe fun for us, so be prepared to play some when y'all come visit!

Now, back to our latest home improvement projects... We're still finishing up some of the interior work that we started earlier this year, which involves a fair amount of sheet rock work and some painting. Since we've decided to host a dinner in early October, we decided to kick it back into high gear. So, we've basically finished repainting our front room (the office where we keep our computer), and we've widened the door leading into this room, since eventually we plan to feature this as the main entrance to the house. Below, I am finishing painting this room (you can also seen the yet untrimmed doorway in the left foreground):

Now, before you grimace too much about the color, keep in mind that the digital camera that took the picture did a lousy job of capturing its true color. Rather than the pea-green that you see, it really is more like a sage green that is much easier on the eyes. Tonight we finished painting our dining room a new color, and later this week we start to finish the walls and trim in our living room. We'll eventually put in new floor coverings in all these rooms, but that will probably wait until early next year. We also took a trip to Greenville, Mississippi last weekend to get some building supplies, and to drive across the recently opened new concrete bridge across the Mississippi:

No, it really wasn't that foggy as we crossed--the camera lens was covered with drywall dust from our remodeling... This bridge took years to build (and several hundred million dollars), but it makes crossing the river here much safer and more comfortable than the narrow old steel bridge that used to span the river. Well, we've been busier than I thought, but mostly with small, unexciting items, therefore I haven't been tempted to post much. However, Stephen had such a cute sleeping pose this afternoon that I decided to share it with y'all:

He's not faking--he was out cold!

p.s.: Its still very much summer-like here--it's 6:45 p.m., and the ice cream truck just drove by!!