Bragg Family South

Hard to believe 2016 has come and gone, and we're now almost a week into 2017!!  Bragg Family South had an enjoyable if all-too-brief Christmas and New Year's break this year.  Once we got past the mid-December adventures (see the last blog post), every thing else went pretty smoothly.  As you can see from the picture above, Christmas in southern Michigan worked out to be a snowy white one...The image shows Rick Pruden and his grandkids enjoying the slick surface of his frozen pond.  We had several Michigan area-related adventures, including a quick day trip to Canada to get poutine for lunch, and a later one to Toledo (Ohio), to see the Detroit Red Wings-affiliated Toledo Walleye minor league hockey team play.  The picture above shows our dinner stop that night--Tony Packo's for Hungarian-style food.  The hockey game turned out to be an exciting (if losing) effort by the Walleyes, for which we had great seats: Our kids also had a great time...

So why the hornet's nest from Michigan?  Bragg Family South made an unexpected trip to southern Michigan in November to attend the funeral of Hope's grandmother Kay Pruden, who passed away at age 94 the week before Thanksgiving.  While there, we had a chance to visit a few places, including Eastern Market in downtown Detroit: Belle Island, just upriver from the Detroit skyline: Below, Stephen and Rick Pruden, the "third child club", enjoyed some quiet time together: The extended Pruden family and friends gathered at a local Italian restaurant following Kay's funeral service (Kay's husband, Don, is in the wheelchair): On our return trip, we made a brief detour to check out a natural area along our route called Hemlock Cliffs Natural Area on the Hoosier National Forest in southern Indiana.  This steep box canyon carved into the sedimentary rocks of this part of Indiana contains isolated populations of eastern hemlock, a tree more common...

First, I'd like to wish my girl a happy birthday!  Beth is turning into quite the young lady...  The end of October kept Bragg Family South plenty busy...in addition to Beth's birthday, we also had an award ceremony for Stephen and his all A's: (He insisted on wearing his suit for this ceremony). We also enjoyed another brief visit from Rick Pruden, who came down right before Halloween to taken in one of Kenny's marching band performances during a Monticello Billies football game: We also took advantage of some gorgeous weather to make a visit to southern Louisiana.  It had been some time since we had gone this way, so we opted to make a stop to pick satsuma oranges: Satsumas are small, not impressive looking oranges, yet are remarkable sweet and juicy, as all good oranges should be...They are definitely a Bragg Family South favorite! Of course, this was in a pretty rural part of the state, with some interesting highway signs: It was primaril...