January fun

Just thought I'd start this short blog post showing Beth's "typical" night-time headgear...Draco, our tabby!  A few quick updates from our fun-filled (and rapidly over) month of January...  We started out "snowy"--the dusting of snow shown in the picture below may be all that we get here this winter in southern Arkansas:

Who says all teenagers like to do are take selfies?  The hand you see is of Kenny, who wanted to remain anonymous:

We were at Hope's annual 4-H thank you banquet:

Hope does these to recognize the students, parents, and other volunteers who help her with her Desha County 4-H program.

We also managed to sneak out of town one Saturday to visit some friends in nearby Ruston, Louisiana, and join them for their son's third birthday party (hence, why Stephen's enjoying all of the balloons):

The little boy getting ready to blow out his candles is the birthday boy, and our godson:

On the way back from this birthday party, we stopped to take some pictures of this replica of the Statue of Liberty, found in a small town about an hour from Monticello:

Beth had her first band concert in January--as you can see, she's a tuba player, and proud of it!!

Another January favorite activity of ours is attending our church's annual International Dinner.  I usually only make my pickled eggs, but in addition this year I made a Ghana sugar bread to go with a number of other Ghana dishes Hope was making:

Why Ghana?  Our priest, Father Mark, is from this west African country, and we wanted to make something from his homeland in his honor...Not really sure how close we got to what these foods were to how they taste in Ghana, but they all were very delicious, and seemed popular at the International Dinner (everyone brings food to share). 

We also had a nice visit one evening from an old friend from out west.  Kent Huston, pictured with the Bragg Family South crew, was a soil scientist on the Shoshone National Forest until his retirement a few years ago.  I worked for Kent one summer when I was a PhD student at Utah State University back in the 1990s, and a few years back we reconnected on Facebook.  Kent was return from a trip to the coast of the Carolinas, and swung through southern Arkansas to visit for a few hours.  It was great to see Kent again (in person), and we had a really nice visit!

On February 1, Bragg Family South joined a number of fellow parishioners of St. Marks and helped with a food program offered in the local school district:

This program takes donations and puts together packs of food to give to needy kids who may not otherwise reliably get regular meals outside of the school system.  In the picture below, Kenny helps put together these packs, which (hopefully) sustains the kids for the weekend:

While the food may be packaged and is deliberately low-maintenance (in case the kids receiving it have no real way to prepare a more complex meal), the message our kids hopefully get is that there is need in many places and it comes in many forms, and that serving others comes with its own rewards.

Well, better wrap this up--need to get lunch, and then start putting things together for our annual Super Bowl party!