Bragg Family South

I am once again negligent in my blogging duties, and have to cram too much into a single posting to catch up...Since the last Bragg Family South posting in mid-May, we've done a lot...I've done some business travel, including a trip to Asheville, North Carolina, which took me through the scenic Smoky Mountains (pictured above).  Even though short, this trip allowed me a short visit one evening with a high school friend, Tim Grotenhuis, who now lives with his family in Asheville.  Shortly after I returned (I made this trip alone; Hope was doing a 4-H program in archeology for some of her students, and our kids were still in school), we skipped out of town for a week's long visit to Wisconsin in the week of Memorial Day.  Our first Wisconsin visit was with my brother Bob and his girlfriend Nancy.  Below, Bob is showing off his "new" hobby; fixing up old Wheel Horse yard tractors: We also had a nice visit that same day with my sister Laurie and her husband Ma...

It has been a while since I've posted to this blog; it is not that we haven't been doing things...just too many things going on without a handy camera or photo opportunity.  I've pieced together a few things for this update, starting first with a quick Easter weekend visit by Hope's parents.  Rick and Ann Pruden have made a bit of a tradition of coming to Arkansas before Easter to help decorate eggs.  Below, Ann inspects the messy hands of the kids: We also feasted on crawfish boil on the last Friday of Lent, walked around in the pollen-filled haze that was the atmosphere of southern Arkansas, and enjoyed some warm days before the rains came and cooled things back down.  The following weekend, Bragg Family South traveled slightly north to southern Missouri to help celebrate a wedding.  Below is a picture of the stone facade of the small Catholic Church in West Plains, Missouri, where the wedding occurred: The groom, Will, was the son of my boss, Jim...

Well, it wouldn't be spring in the South without daffodils (or at least it wouldn't be a spring teaser blog without me posting a picture of said daffodils), so here it is!  We've had another fairly quiet, if busy month.  We managed to sneak out before a late February snowstorm and get up to Tulsa, Oklahoma to take in a Gordon Lightfoot concert and see a few art museums.  The big event in March was the visit by my brother John (or Uncle Jojo, to the kids).  When John landed at the Little Rock airport, he landed to fairly warm temperatures--and a few inches of snow on the ground, which had fallen just a couple days before!  We had less snow (more sleet) in Monticello that particular event, and the return of spring quickly melted the frozen precipitation.  John was staying with us for a long weekend, so I took the following Monday off, and John and I toured parts of southern Arkansas, including Lakeport Plantation, an antebellum cotton plantation about an...