Bragg Family South

Beth and Stephen participated in their first "hunt" today... With Hope and Kenny gone to see the new Harry Potter movie, and the Wisconsin Badgers victorious against Michigan, I had some time to kill this afternoon. This morning, I took Kenny along with me on a hunt on our hunting lease property south of town. Stephen protested that he wanted to go along, but there was no way I could take a noisy 3-year-old with any possibilities of doing any real hunting (Kenny and I saw 4 deer this morning, including one buck, but no shots). I had to leave Stephen behind then, much to his chagrin. Well, this afternoon, the weather was nice, so I figured I'd take both Beth and Stephen out for a drive along the gravel road that leads through the leased area. We didn't see any deer (don't worry, y'all, I didn't even take my gun, and the kids didn't get out of the truck), but I think they had fun, and they can claim their first "hunt"!

Today, y'all get a bonus blog posting... Well, in reality, I just completed one post when I realized that some pictures from last month didn't get in it--just didn't pay enough attention to the organization of the images, I guess. Anyhow, rather than skipping them or adding them after the fact, I figured I may as well add a separate post. So as you can see in the image above, I acted like a kid for a bit during the homecoming festivities at UAM , shuttling Beth and Stephen around on an over-sized tricycle. Kenny and Beth also got to try out a fancy jumping contraption: UAM also played a football game, but I don't remember who won: Beth celebrated her 6 th birthday in October, and here are a couple pictures from her party. First, Beth and guests got to decorate miniature pumpkins with markers: They also got to decorate their own cupcakes (instead of birthday cake). And, of course, the gift opening, which some of Beth's lil ' friends seemed to enjoy more...

Yet another month has passed, and yet again I vow to myself not to let so many days pass between blog postings... October and November have been busy for us again. In the picture above, Kenny and some of his friends pet a rabbit at a special fundraising hay maze his school put on this year (they're trying to raise money for new playground equipment). Kenny was also an honor roll student (hopefully, the first of many), for which his pleasure on receiving this award (and blue ribbon) is quite clear: Kenny earned all A's, for which we were particularly proud, and his (generally) good behavior also got him a different award. Of course, the big excitement in October (after Beth's birthday, of course) is getting ready for Halloween. Below, Beth and Kenny dig into pumpkin carving: Stephen also gave it his all: The net result was pretty scary, especially given the way our little camera blurred the image: Below are our trick-or- treaters , including lil ' Beth as a witch, K...

It's been almost a month since our last posting--we have been busy, but not with things that were terribly photogenic (that's my way of saying I've been too lazy to update like I should...). Last month, Beth got to ride on the float her elementary school built for the parade associated with the Drew County Fair (it had a construction theme to it...). Shortly afterwards, we made a trip to Hot Springs one weekend so I could give a talk at the Arkansas Archeological Society's annual meeting. While I was in this meeting, Hope took the kids to some stores in Hot Springs to buy some building supplies for our most recent remodeling effort. The Lowe's store they went to had a build your own wooden toy fire truck with the local fire department, which the kids enjoyed: Last week, Kenny's third grade class got to make a field trip to Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park near Little Rock. You may remember this park--it was where the Arkansas Archeological Societ...

It's hard to believe its been almost a month since my last blog posting, but looking at this picture of Stephen with his shaggy, pre-September hair, it is obvious that its been a few weeks. I guess part of it has been because there hasn't been much going on for Bragg Family South, with the school routine in full swing. Hope and the kids hatched and released several monarch butterflies their Great Aunt Diane had sent them from Michigan. Below, Beth carefully holds one butterfly as Hope puts an ID sticker on its wing: Beth was pretty amazed by the release: Hope also had a carport sale to help reduce the clutter in our house: She did fairly well, given that she didn't advertise the sale in the local paper, and only posted signs the night before--it was a very pleasant, clear Saturday morning after a long, hot summer, so I think a lot of people were just out driving around, looking for sales. Kenny and Beth tried out their business skills, setting up a Kool-Aid stand: J...

Above: Deadeye Spear Chuckin ' Hope, showing proper form (especially with the tongue sticking out) in the use of the atlatl ... We started our most recent epic journey with a visit to Hopewell Culture National Park in Chilicothe , Ohio. This is a Woodland Period set of mound complexes: We left Arkansas on a Friday, and drove to Lexington, Kentucky, for our first night. The next day, we went to this park in Ohio to see the mounds and to meet up with Hope's parents. We did not expect to see a woodchuck that had climbed a tree: I had never seen this behavior in woodchucks before, but apparently this fairly young woodchuck was hiding in this tree to avoid some large bird of prey which had been circling the field in which we were walking to see the mounds. I swapped vehicles with Rich and Ann Pruden --they accompanied Hope and the kids to their house in Whitmore Lake, Michigan, while I continued onward in their car to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for a meeting. Below is the s...