Bragg Family South

Just so y'all realize we, too, will get snow here... The trace we got a week ago pales in comparison to the amount that my sister Lisa got in western Wisconsin, and the "cold" that has come this week (low of 21 degrees ABOVE zero last night) is not particularly impressive, but it's winter for Arkansas! We've been extra busy for the holidays, with the kids attending multiple birthday parties. The next couple pictures are from one of these parties, which had a race car theme (the one grandfather is into drag racing). Below, Kenny and Beth peddle around some cool "cars": The children also got to sit in grandad's racecar (a heavily modified Camaro): Last Saturday night, we had a different treat--we went to a concert on the UAM campus. It was a Christmas program given by a men's choir out of Little Rock, the River City Men's Choir. Most interestingly, my boss, Dr. Jim Guldin, is a bass singer with this choir. Here he is hamming it up aft...

Look, there was a little boy under all that dirt!! Just figured I'd post a rare picture of Stephen without his face in a scowl or his tongue sticking out... We've had a busy couple weeks. Hope's parents came down for Thanksgiving, so we had a big turkey dinner that day, with all the fixings (wonderfully prepared by Hope). The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Kenny, Rich Pruden , and I went canoeing on the Saline River: We have been very dry this year, so the river is considerably lower than usual. Below, a bunch of mussel shells, presumably opened and eaten by otters or raccoons, litter one of the gravel bars: As you probably know, we love to stop on these gravel bars to search for bits of petrified wood. We found a large quantity in the short canoe trip we took this day. Below, Rich and Kenny show by their wet pant legs their dedication to the search for petrified wood: After the canoe trip, Hope's parents had to drive back to Michigan so Rich would be rested ...