Bragg Family South

  Nothing says spring like some of the first fruits of this year--in this case, some beautiful strawberries we bought from some friends near town!  These berries were perfectly ripe for eating that day we got them...and, of course, we had to buy too many to eat in one sitting!  So we froze some and then Hope and Kenny made a quick strawberry jam for the remainder.  Delicious!! What also made it memorable was it was the spring of our covid vaccinations; this coming week, Stephen will get his second shot, and all of Bragg Family South will be fully vaccinated before the summer of 2021!  We are looking and feeling so much more hopeful than we did a year ago, not sure what the year would bring us... Fortunately, much of our spring was pretty normal (for us), such as decorating Easter eggs... We found the time to help a young man from our church finish his Eagle Scout project (a walking rosary)...It is amazing to me how much time some of these Eagle projects can take...

  Early April and I haven't posted a new blog update since late January...my excuse:  spring fever, or the lack thereof!  This spring is still haunted by a global pandemic, which is (hopefully) lightening up for Bragg Family South with vaccinations starting to happen.  We are doing our part to embrace what we can as the world around us starts to emerge from emergency shutdowns and other pandemic measures.  We went to the Little Rock Zoo for the first time in a long time back in February...the crowds were thin, probably more due to the cool weather than anything. The weather has been typically weird (again) this year in Arkansas.  We started out 2021 on the warmish and relatively dry side, enough to start bringing the daffodils out in early February (fairly typical for us)...and then winter returned to south Arkansas with a vengeance!  First, we got hit by an ice storm: Mercifully (for us, at least) this was just enough ice to make things kind of pretty...

Well, the 2020-2021 holiday season was about as different as Bragg Family South has ever experienced, as so many others also experienced.  We counted our blessings for a healthy and safe holidays this year, and hope for that to continue until this pandemic subsides.   The pandemic has led to many changes in how we live our lives, some rather trivial--like spending more time at home for school or work, as can be seen by Stephen having to do more of his classes at home (this is him practicing with his baritone, something he'd done at home regardless of the pandemic): We were also able to take our time around home over the holidays to do a few other things, too.  Out of our 20 holiday seasons since moving to Arkansas, we've actually only spent 1 or 2 in the state--usually we're up north visiting family and friends.  This year, since we didn't go north, we spent some time exploring some interesting corners of the state, such as this long abandoned concrete weir on a...