Bragg Family South

Look at Beth's excited face--you can sure tell that she's missed being in school this summer!!  So far, the kids have been in school about two weeks, and both are doing very well (Stephen has only just started his preschool).  Last weekend we drove up to one of our favorite Arkansas locations, Petite Jean Mountain, so I could attend an archeology meeting.  Hope took the kids on one of their favorite trails at the nearby state park: This park is full of neat rock formations, including the narrow "slot canyon" below: We didn't have the luxury of lingering, because we needed to get back to Monticello by suppertime that evening so we could participate in the send-off party being thrown for Father Pius, our parish priest for the last 14 months.  Here's a picture of us with Father Pius: Father Pius has been reassigned to another parish in Arkansas as a part of a restructuring.  We are getting a new priest, Father Raj (he's from India) and the res...

Before I get too far along in this part of our summer vacation description, I want to recognize the 4 th birthday of our youngest, Stephen. The picture of the chunky newborn above was just a hint of the bundle of energy and spirit that we got with Stephen: The picture above shows him about to blow out his birthday candle yesterday, when a bunch of his friends came over to help him celebrate. Now back to our vacation trip... We left my mom and dad's on a beautiful Monday morning and drove eastward across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. As we approached the Mackinac Bridge, we stopped along one of the gorgeous beaches on the north end of Lake Michigan for the kids to run in the water a bit: The water temperature was spectacular, and the skies clear, sunny, and warm, and the kids just loved it! Unfortunately, we did not have a long time to spend--we still had hours and hours left to drive. But the kids got some much needed seagull chasing in: While we headed down I-...

Stephen, a lover of trains, was fascinated by this model at Fort Donelson National Battlefield in Tennessee, our first major stop on our summer 2011 vacation to Wisconsin and Michigan. After stopping at this Civil War battle site, we then drove an area called "The Land Between The Lakes", which is a national recreation area between two large reservoirs on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. Below, Hope poses in front of a large iron kiln built in the 1840s (or so): This large structure was used only briefly before it closed, but has been beautifully preserved. After staying the night in a nearby Tennessee town, we drove the next day to the Madison, Wisconsin, area to have a visit with my sister Laurie and her husband Mark (thanks Van and Judy Valasky for the use of your home that night!). The next day (Sunday) we traveled to the city of Baraboo for some sight-seeing, including the near loss of daughter Beth to an angry hippo: Obviously, this isn't real--it was a...

Blueberries, anyone?? The weekend after the 4 th of July we went with our friend Jessica Howe to some other archeology friends who have a nice patch of blueberries. They grow far more than they can every eat, so they let their friends come pick them for free. We got a couple quarts in short order (before the heat and bugs drove us off) and then a nice lunch at a local diner. Our next big event was the re-shingling of our roof. You may recall we've gotten some storm damage over the last few years--well, this year Hope called the insurance adjuster , and he determined that we needed to get our roof replaced. We ordered the shingles in June, and last Monday, the crew showed up before 6 a.m. to start tearing off the roof before it got too hot (that's why this picture seems dark--the sun wasn't up yet). It was impressive watching the speed this crew worked at. They were able to use most of the old felt paper, and only had a few things to repair, so they made really good p...