Bragg Family South

Does this look like the face of a little girl excited about opening Christmas presents?  In all fairness, Beth had just woken up...  All three of the kids started opening gifts with less enthusiasm than their mother expressed: But, of course, they got into the swing of things pretty quickly: We spent the first week of our northern Christmas visit with Hope's family.  Christmas day started with opening gifts at the grandparents house.  Here's Hope's parents, Rick and Ann Pruden, sharing a conversation at our stop later that day--the Pruden family Christmas and Hope's cousin Kevin's house: Below, Beth and Stephen share a goofy smile with their cousin Tatum: Here is the craziness that was the kids' table for the Christmas dinner: At a quieter moment, Hope's grandparents Don and Kay Pruden posed with their great-grandchildren who were at this party: And, of course, our little camera-lover Beth with her cousin Alexandria Prude...

Just so y'all didn't have to look at a forlorn Kenny until I got around to posting the post-Christmas pictures, here's a few we took of the events leading up to the holidays.  In the picture above, we had Kenny's birthday party the first Friday in December.  You can see that this was after he had broke his ankle--note the crutch by him.  In addition, now that it was officially December, I relented on the holiday activities, so that included cookie decorating.  Below, Stephen gives decorating his all: Beth also concentrated hard: Kenny and our neighbor friend Jessica also made a number of colorful cookies: Last week, Kenny's fourth grade class went to the Arkansas state capitol to learn how the government works.  Here is the capitol building itself: Hope and Stephen accompanied our still hobbling boy on this trip to help Kenny get around and to help supervise a bunch of excitable 10-year-olds.  Below is a sculpture dedicated to the...

So how does Kenny go about celebrating his 10th birthday?  Why, with a bunch of horseplay--and a broken ankle!  Yep, last night after CCD Kenny twisted his ankle pretty good, and limped around the evening.  Apparently, today at recess he had some kid "accidentally" land on this sore foot, making it much worse--the school nurse called Hope and told him he should go to the doctor.  Hope took him in immediately, and x-rays later showed he had chipped his ankle bones...  So for the next two weeks, Kenny will be using these crutches and in this walking boot... Happy Birthday!!!

We returned last weekend from spending most of the week in Florida on a business trip (we made it a family trip, too).  The kids had a couple days off of school, and we figured we'd take them out a couple of additional days--we did this with a clean conscience, as we always take the kids to educational stops, as well as fun places, on our trips.  Our first major stop, for example, was Horseshoe Bend National Military Park (http://www.nps.gov/hobe/index.htm) in Alabama (the visitor center is pictured above).  This was the site of a key battle in the War of 1812 between troops under the command of General Andrew Jackson and a number of Creek Warriors known as the "Red Sticks" who were attacking American (and allied Indian tribes) interests in the region.  Although in a well-fortified position, the Creeks were surrounded and the warriors were killed in large numbers--over 800 died in this battle for their lands (the largest number of Indians killed in a battle with t...