Bragg Family South

Our Thanksgiving week for 2008 was as busy as ever. The week started on Monday with an Arbor Day program organized by the chairperson of the Monticello Tree Board--Hope Bragg! Hope volunteered a few weeks ago to help Monticello achieve its Tree City USA status with the Arbor Day Foundation, and one of their requirements is to officially recognize the program with an official declaration by the mayor. This presentation was done for Monticello Elementary School, who worked on setting things up: Hope led the students through a lively performance: which was capped off by a visit from Smokey the Bear: Here Hope is with the official decree signed by the mayor, along with a gentleman from the city's development council and an urban forester with the Arkansas Forestry Commission: The tree planting (that is a small black gum that they are standing by) had to wait for a drier day--the heavy rain we got that morning put a damper on having this ceremony outside. This ceremony was only one part...

Well, when you're in the South, you live, breathe, and eat football. This weekend we went to our first Monticello High School (the Billies, as in goats) football game. The Billies are in the state football playoffs, and Hope needed to take her Cub Scout den to a game to help them with their badges. What better excuse to hang outside watching football? Stephen thought so... We actually only watched the first quarter of the game--a cold front dropped in unexpectedly, and the kids weren't really dressed for how cool and breezy it got. Fortunately for us, Monticello easily defeated their opponent 42-13, and we got to see an action-filled quarter. High school football games are big social events in these southern towns--far more so that I remember them being in Rhinelander. Admission is relatively cheap, and there's plenty of excitement in the air. The Monticello Billies are the team in blue. The Monticello High School stadium is larger than the one at UAM, and nicer in ...

This was a relatively quiet week for us. Don't get me wrong--we had a lot going on, but less compared to the next few weeks, with the myriad of meetings and other events we are scheduled for... The picture above was taken at a class singing performance by the first grader's at Kenny's school. They had a number of patriotic songs, timed (presumably) to roughly coincide with election day. Unlike his kindergarten recital, he didn't have an active part, just one of the chorus: but he put his all into it, and we enjoyed the effort. We also attended a local archeology society chapter meeting in Hamburg, a small city about a half-hour south of Monticello. As local chapter president, I was called upon to run the meeting, which largely meant I introduced the speakers and acted as a host. This meeting was held in the home town of a couple now deceased members of the society--Ed and Patsy White. The Whites were actually founding members of this chapter, and they had been...

Happy Halloween everyone! We've had another busy week, most of which revolved around one of the kids' favorite days of the year... As I mentioned in the last post, Hope's mom and dad were coming down for another visit. They arrived on Wednesday, and helped Hope get various Halloween events put together. This included carving pumpkins the day before Halloween (you can see one of the products above), as well as picking out the pumpkin seeds for roasting: and even just acting as a distraction for the kids: With the beautiful weather we were having, Rich and I decided to make a canoe trip along the nearby Saline River. I've canoed this river with several of my siblings, so you may remember it... Anyhow, we put it off the Old Warren Road and headed downstream. The morning was clear and crisp, but not really cold, and the bright fall sun lit the limited fall colors we have, like these baldcypress just beginning to turn: Baldcypress are a deciduous conifer, kind of like th...

Doesn't Beth's face say it all? Little girls about to embark on a big adventure... Beth and her preschool class went to the local pumpkin patch for an exciting trip. They got to play on all sorts of things, took a hay ride, and picked out their own pumpkins: We were happy to see the nice weather for this day, because the trip had been postponed a week earlier due to rain. We also enjoyed beautiful weather this last weekend, which really helped make our camping much more enjoyable. We left Friday afternoon for Petit Jean State Park ( http://www.petitjeanstatepark.com/ ) in central Arkansas. We've done a blog posting on this park before--we visited it in August. The reason we were here was so that I could attend an archeology workshop (learning how to work in an indoor lab during a beautiful fall weekend). Fortunately, we did get to enjoy some of the outdoors, as you see with Kenny at this overlook: and here I am with the kids: Our goal for our first evening (Friday night) w...

Am I talking about the Packers, who spanked the Indianapolis Colts today? No--check out this video clip... He'd been getting closer and closer every day, and he finally made the first real effort this evening. We'll still have to convince him walking is more efficient than crawling, but watch out world!!

Here's a few more pictures from Rich and Ann's recent visit to us here in Monticello. The picture above shows Kenny and Ann enjoying a lighter moment at the church picnic (Kenny is wet because of a water balloon fight he had just participated in). Below, Beth was NOT pleased with how fast her Bumpa was running the boat on Lake Monticello... Today we celebrated Beth's 4 th birthday. Her actual birthday is Wednesday, October 22, but we're so busy that particular day (and the rest of the week), we figured it would be better to have her party and her little friends over this morning. The picture above shows Beau Kuttenkuler playing "pin the kiss on the frog" (her party had a princess theme...). They also spent time decorating cookie "wands" (above) and fighting a dragon by popping its bubbles with glow-stick "swords". Lil' Stephen was too small to participate in the games, but once he got used to strangers, he started have at least so...