Happy Easter!

Beth...er...the Easter Bunny...wishes y'all a Happy Easter from Bragg Family South!  Another busy month has rolled on by, so I really need to get this post in before I fall too far behind.  Beth is also the star of the image below, pictured with some of her friends from a 4-H Day of Archeology Hope helped host recently:

Hope and UAM Station Archeologist Jodi Barnes put together an interesting program in the McGehee area featuring the Japanese-American World War II internment camp museum and field site, pictured below (that's Dr. Barnes in the picture with her arms raised):

The archeology event was well attended (for being held during Spring Break), and the weather was windy but largely cooperative (the rain didn't fall until afterward).

That weekend, Kenny was off to a Scout camp in northwestern Arkansas, so Hope, Beth, and Stephen went with me for a day trip to Hot Springs for a little shopping.  We had thought about going to the horse racing track, but the huge crowd that showed up that sunny Saturday deterred us, and we went for the next "best" option instead--ice cream!

(Needless to say, Stephen approved!)  The following weekend, we had the whole family back together, so we took advantage of beautiful weather to take out our pop-up camper and spend some time camping and doing Scout activities.  Stephen below is tending the fire he made (one of his required Scout lessons):

We had a lazy evening around the camp fire, reading and enjoying the lack of biting insects:

The next day was cool but bright and clear--a perfect day for more scouting, including further lessons on fire starting and a long nature hike:

Since we were camping close to Monticello, our boys were joined by boys from others in their pack.  We had a good time in the two nights we camped, but the last night Stephen had developed quite a cough, and within a few days most of us were sharing in his cold!  Now, a couple weeks later, we are largely back to feeling normal, so we took advantage of another nice weekend to head up near Little Rock for a walk through history put on by one of the state agencies.  Below, the kids were less enthusiastic (yes, Kenny's reading a book!):

We didn't stay for the whole program (only about half), but we did get to see some of the equipment in one of the now-unused cotton gins in the small town we were visiting:

I was particularly intrigued with the old, weather beaten cypress boards that covered many of the gin buildings.  Below is a close-up picture of one of these old boards; the vertical lines are actually some of the growth rings, most of which were about as thick as a piece of cardboard!

We also got some antiquing in, and walked around one of the nicer malls in the Little Rock area before getting an ice cream treat and then returning to Monticello.  We squeezed enough time into last night to color Easter eggs before bed:

Today, Kenny and I will go out to rustle up some firewood, and we're just going to putter and chill out by the house the rest of the day.