Bragg Family South

As I'm worrying away the last few hours between the NFC Championship game between my beloved Packers and the evil Chicago Bears, I figured I'd take advantage of this opportunity to do a blog posting. Yesterday was a lovely day, and I had an Arkansas Archeological Society executive committee meeting up at Toltec Archeological State Park, so we made a family trip to the Little Rock area. We had some time to kill, so we decided to take the kids on a trolley ride around the downtown Little Rock/North Little Rock area. Kenny and Beth had ridden the train before in years past, but we hadn't taken Stephen on it in some time (perhaps ever over the course of his 3 years). Below, Stephen awaits the arrival of the trolley: Here it comes! Beth and Kenny were pretty excited, too, but y'all will remember that Stephen is the kid who goes around constantly carrying his little toy trains. Stephen is absolutely in love with the Thomas the Tank Engine animated series, and spends h...

You may be wondering why I'm posting another blog, so soon after the Christmas/New Year's one... Well, it is because we're enjoying a rare snow day here in south Arkansas... More on this later. First, a few pictures from over the Christmas visit that I didn't get the last blog because they were on my cell phone. Pictured below is Coty (with the ice auger) and Kevin Skinner and Kenny in the background by the snowmobile. On the last full day we were in Wisconsin (Sunday), Kenny and I joined Kevin and Coty up at Kevin's parents' house, which is located on a lake near McNaughton, Wisconsin. We were going to watch the Packers/Giants game with the Skinner family. While we were up there, Kevin and Coty drilled a number of holes in the ice on the lake (which was about a foot thick) and set up some tip-up fishing poles. Below is a broader perspective of this effort: Here, Kenny is helping out by scooping the ice out of a newly drilled hole: Kenny also got to spe...

In the picture above, Beth and Stephen react to some sage advice offered by their father... Actually, they're catching up on some sleep, as we had left at about 2 a.m. that day to start driving up north for our annual Christmas/New Year's trip. This time, we also brought our cats Bella and Draco. Below, Draco assumes his favorite riding position, slung across my arm: We left so early that morning because we wanted to drive all the way to my sister Laurie's house near Cross Plains, Wisconsin, in time for supper (and a Packer game, of course). Brother in-law Mark Valasky prepared a nice supper and helped entertain. My brothers Bob and John, who also live in the Madison area, stopped on by and helped watch a close loss by the Packers to the Patriots. Below, Laurie (aka Lulu) and I ham it up with Beth and Kenny: No, that's not one of Lulu's many pets attacking my face--for those of you who we didn't see while up north, I decided to grow a beard starting in ...

Just so y'all realize we, too, will get snow here... The trace we got a week ago pales in comparison to the amount that my sister Lisa got in western Wisconsin, and the "cold" that has come this week (low of 21 degrees ABOVE zero last night) is not particularly impressive, but it's winter for Arkansas! We've been extra busy for the holidays, with the kids attending multiple birthday parties. The next couple pictures are from one of these parties, which had a race car theme (the one grandfather is into drag racing). Below, Kenny and Beth peddle around some cool "cars": The children also got to sit in grandad's racecar (a heavily modified Camaro): Last Saturday night, we had a different treat--we went to a concert on the UAM campus. It was a Christmas program given by a men's choir out of Little Rock, the River City Men's Choir. Most interestingly, my boss, Dr. Jim Guldin, is a bass singer with this choir. Here he is hamming it up aft...

Look, there was a little boy under all that dirt!! Just figured I'd post a rare picture of Stephen without his face in a scowl or his tongue sticking out... We've had a busy couple weeks. Hope's parents came down for Thanksgiving, so we had a big turkey dinner that day, with all the fixings (wonderfully prepared by Hope). The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Kenny, Rich Pruden , and I went canoeing on the Saline River: We have been very dry this year, so the river is considerably lower than usual. Below, a bunch of mussel shells, presumably opened and eaten by otters or raccoons, litter one of the gravel bars: As you probably know, we love to stop on these gravel bars to search for bits of petrified wood. We found a large quantity in the short canoe trip we took this day. Below, Rich and Kenny show by their wet pant legs their dedication to the search for petrified wood: After the canoe trip, Hope's parents had to drive back to Michigan so Rich would be rested ...

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...