A pandemic holiday season

Well, the 2020-2021 holiday season was about as different as Bragg Family South has ever experienced, as so many others also experienced.  We counted our blessings for a healthy and safe holidays this year, and hope for that to continue until this pandemic subsides.  

The pandemic has led to many changes in how we live our lives, some rather trivial--like spending more time at home for school or work, as can be seen by Stephen having to do more of his classes at home (this is him practicing with his baritone, something he'd done at home regardless of the pandemic):

We were also able to take our time around home over the holidays to do a few other things, too.  Out of our 20 holiday seasons since moving to Arkansas, we've actually only spent 1 or 2 in the state--usually we're up north visiting family and friends.  This year, since we didn't go north, we spent some time exploring some interesting corners of the state, such as this long abandoned concrete weir on a small stream in the Ouachita Mountains:

We continued to look for opportunities to educate our kids, such as hauling our own little telescope to the top of Rich Mountain during the "Great Conjunction" of Jupiter and Saturn in December:

(The conjunction itself was a bit of a bust, but the experience was irreplaceable!).  We also got an extra month or so with Kenny, who had to finish his first semester at Michigan Tech at home because they closed their campus to in-person classes during the late 2020 COVID surge.  Below, Kenny joined the rest of us in decorating (and eating) Christmas cookies:

Christmas morning at home started early for us this year, as Beth was too excited to wait long to open presents:

We would later join our cats on a lazy day of napping in the warming glow of a fire:

Hope's dad joined us for the better part of the week over Christmas, and below he and Stephen played on the boys' new air hockey mini-table:

As with many others, we did our family Christmas visit via Zoom, which worked out surprisingly well:

Beth was happy to bake various Christmas-themed sweets, such as the cake below (those are Christmas trees on top of a snowy landscape):

One of the neat places we visited during the holidays this year was Mt. Nebo State Park, along the Arkansas River Valley in western Arkansas:

We took Rick Pruden to several places in this general area as well, which have a family connection for the Prudens (some of Rick's grandparents--Hope's great-grandparents--lived in this part of Arkansas until the 1920s, when they moved to Michigan).  Below is an old country church that these Pruden family members helped build and attended:

We went to a couple cemeteries in this area (near Dover, Arkansas) that have the burial plots for numerous relatives of Rick and Hope.  Below, Rick stands next to the grave of several kin, telling stories about his memories of what he was told:

Speaking of memories that have gone long untold...below is a picture of a water tank base that was built in the 1930s by a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) crew to support an experimental forest that operated for a number of years in the 1930s and early 1940s:

This stone and mortar structure is part of little that remains of this facility that once held so much promise, but got truncated by the onset of World War II.  Today, this is all but forgotten in a lonely pine stand in western Arkansas, but men labored for years in this area to learn more about how to manage forested landscapes.  You can feel the memories walking around those ruins...

And you want to talk about dedication?  Below, Hope allows Beth to use one of those home facial kits on her...

We have had a taste of winter in Arkansas.  In early January, we had a 3-4 inch snowfall in Monticello that shut down the town for a day or so (but melted very quickly):

This snow wasn't enough to keep us from having to run Kenny back up to Michigan Tech for his second semester.  His classes are largely virtual this semester, but he's going back to Houghton to get the broader college experience.  The picture below is of Hope and Stephen watching Kenny unpack in his dorm room:

Our trip to drop Kenny off was very short--basically, a long weekend, but we did get a chance to make a quick visit to our property near Rhinelander:

and we did get some safe visiting with my folks:

To help make this visit safer, we rented a nice AirB&B and had the fun of watching the Packers win their first playoff game this season...

Speaking of which, I'd better sign off to prepare for this week's game--GO PACK GO!!