How sweet it is!!

So what does the title of this blog post refer to?  The fact that Hope and I now have been blissfully wed for 26 years?  Or the wonderful bread pudding we indulged in when celebrating this event?  Both, really!  Hope and I took an evening off, let the kids get their fast food dinners, and then drove out to a local steakhouse named Taylors, in the middle of the boonies near Dumas, Arkansas, for some "dead cow" (as Hope so elegantly puts it!) and their renowned bread pudding...You can't imagine from this kinda blurry picture how good that dessert was!!!


This fall has included some archeology, including some rather warm time manning a booth at a local fair to help promote our local archeological society chapter, to a later lab day or two, such as the one pictured below:

to some site survey work on a historical cemetery and then the state-level Arkansas Archeological Society meeting...but more on that later!  Stephen has been heavily involved in marching band this fall, playing the baritone at high school football games:




Beth's been busy being a senior in high school...some of which includes comforting our cat, Bella, who wasn't quite so sure about the robot vacuum cleaner we got this past year:


She was also good about giving me a scolding eye at a "Blue Man Group" concert we went to in September in Little Rock (we weren't supposed to be taking pictures, but this was before the show and before they started performing...in my defense!):


After the concert, we took advantage of being in Little Rock to go to our favorite Tex-Mex place there, where Hope will quite literally eat their salsa straight up:


We weren't the only ones dressing up this past month--Stephen and some of his buddies decided to do so one day--and he looked very nice (if still sleepy!):


We actually got dressed up several times, including when Hope and I went to the Arkansas Governor's Mansion for a 4-H award ceremony:


and about a week later, we dressed up again (me in my class 1 USFS uniform) to attend a ceremony for a new forest business center at the university we are stationed at:


And yes, we did get to meet Governor Asa Hutchinson, again, but more intriguingly, we got to finally meet the gentleman below:


You may be amused to note that this is the "other" Ken Bragg from Arkansas!  This Ken Bragg is a state legislator...and a forester...and we all had a good laugh about our stories how these Kens sometimes get mixed up by people that know us!

Today, we got back a couple hours ago from a multi-day Arkansas Archeological Society meeting where Hope attended in her role as past-president for the Society, and I as a speaker.  We also attended to see our friends and archeology colleagues in person, and to wish one well in her retirement.  Marilyn Knapp (in purple on right) was one of the first people we got to know when we joined the society well over a decade ago, and she has been a part of the Arkansas archeology scene for nearly 3 decades, from a volunteer like us to eventually a member of the Arkansas Archeological Survey (she has an anthropology degree).  If you notice the cake, it has a couple square "test units" lined up:


We have long been grateful for Marilyn (and her husband, Paul), for all they've helped us with in archeology...some of the many very special people we've met over the years!  (Same could be said for the young lady in the red dress, Dr. Michelle Rathgaber, who we've known for years as a grad student and now Survey employee (and former cheesehead, too!).

People like Marilyn, Paul, Michelle, and many others are also why the award I got this weekend, pictured below, is so special to me:


This recognition of my efforts this past (and previous) years was made possible by all of the help, encouragement, and opportunities I have received in my over 15 years of participating in the Society and helping the Survey, and I am deeply honored that they saw fit to recognize me for this!

Today's wrap-up for the meeting was a brief visit to the Faulkner County Museum in Conway, AR, that had help host our annual meeting.  They had a number of really nice exhibits, including this old log cabin, kept in really good shape:


The museum main collection is in the building below, built around 1890 to originally serve as a jail, then later as the county library, and now as the county museum:

Well, I better wrap this blog post up--it is almost Packer football time!


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