Bragg Family South

As I'm worrying away the last few hours between the NFC Championship game between my beloved Packers and the evil Chicago Bears, I figured I'd take advantage of this opportunity to do a blog posting. Yesterday was a lovely day, and I had an Arkansas Archeological Society executive committee meeting up at Toltec Archeological State Park, so we made a family trip to the Little Rock area. We had some time to kill, so we decided to take the kids on a trolley ride around the downtown Little Rock/North Little Rock area. Kenny and Beth had ridden the train before in years past, but we hadn't taken Stephen on it in some time (perhaps ever over the course of his 3 years). Below, Stephen awaits the arrival of the trolley: Here it comes! Beth and Kenny were pretty excited, too, but y'all will remember that Stephen is the kid who goes around constantly carrying his little toy trains. Stephen is absolutely in love with the Thomas the Tank Engine animated series, and spends h...

You may be wondering why I'm posting another blog, so soon after the Christmas/New Year's one... Well, it is because we're enjoying a rare snow day here in south Arkansas... More on this later. First, a few pictures from over the Christmas visit that I didn't get the last blog because they were on my cell phone. Pictured below is Coty (with the ice auger) and Kevin Skinner and Kenny in the background by the snowmobile. On the last full day we were in Wisconsin (Sunday), Kenny and I joined Kevin and Coty up at Kevin's parents' house, which is located on a lake near McNaughton, Wisconsin. We were going to watch the Packers/Giants game with the Skinner family. While we were up there, Kevin and Coty drilled a number of holes in the ice on the lake (which was about a foot thick) and set up some tip-up fishing poles. Below is a broader perspective of this effort: Here, Kenny is helping out by scooping the ice out of a newly drilled hole: Kenny also got to spe...

In the picture above, Beth and Stephen react to some sage advice offered by their father... Actually, they're catching up on some sleep, as we had left at about 2 a.m. that day to start driving up north for our annual Christmas/New Year's trip. This time, we also brought our cats Bella and Draco. Below, Draco assumes his favorite riding position, slung across my arm: We left so early that morning because we wanted to drive all the way to my sister Laurie's house near Cross Plains, Wisconsin, in time for supper (and a Packer game, of course). Brother in-law Mark Valasky prepared a nice supper and helped entertain. My brothers Bob and John, who also live in the Madison area, stopped on by and helped watch a close loss by the Packers to the Patriots. Below, Laurie (aka Lulu) and I ham it up with Beth and Kenny: No, that's not one of Lulu's many pets attacking my face--for those of you who we didn't see while up north, I decided to grow a beard starting in ...