Be our guest

Our week began with a couple wild events. Tuesday a tornado touched down between my office and Bryan's. Wednesday there was a chemical fire and explosion at the plant adjacent to Bryan's. It released chlorine gas into the atmosphere causing Bryan and everyone within the parish to take shelter. The Department of Homeland Security called his office and recommended they seal themselves in. They used duct tape to seal the doors and had respirators in case gas leaked into the building. After three hours they put out the fire and contained the gas leak but roads remained closed for the day. His car is now spotted with ash and acid which may lead to a new paint job...

Picture from the news.

Starting Thursday evening, we were able to hang out with Bryan's friend Justin who was in Baton Rouge for work. He was able to spend the weekend with us and tour some of New Orleans.

We stopped by Bryan's work to show Justin Gary the gator. Just a baby.

Justin and Bryan on the trolley

Thanks for taking this picture Justin! We had wanted a pic with the trolley.

Getting flowers at the "Spring Fiesta Parade"

Old fashion New Orleans brass band in front of Cafe Du Monde.

One of the many weddings we saw. I thought their fleur de lis umbrellas were so fun!

The many people crowded around the street entertainment in Jackson Square.

We ended the weekend today with a little shopping and a very exhausting bike ride around the lake at LSU. We are now counting down the days to our weekend trip to the beach this weekend!

Spring Pilgrimage

What wonderful weather we have had this weekend which made for another wonderful weekend outside. This weekend was the Spring Pilgrimage in St. Francisville, LA. It was $30 per person to tour plantation homes, churches, and gardens from the early 1800s. I had been wanting to go see plantation homes ever since we moved here but wanted to wait until the spring when all the beautiful flowers were in full bloom. Our first stop was the Rosedown Plantaion that was built in 1835 at the cost of about $13,000.

Rosedown was my favorite.

This was the Old Barn where visitor's carriages were kept.

Old carriage from Natchez, Mississippi.

Yes the lady has a goat on a leash.

This was the dining room. The thing above the table is called a shoe fly. A slave would be standing where I was taking the picture pulling on the rope creating a fan for them as well as shooing away the flies.

The view from the master. Yes please.

The prettiest room. The newborn and its parents would sleep here. 

I want this azalea bush.

The view from the second story porch.

Tons of tulips!

I thought I matched the flowers.

We then went to the Afton Villa Gardens. There once was a plantation home here but was burned in 1963. Many houses would burn due to fires in the kitchen. This is why they would build them separate from the homes.

This was a garden maze and little girls were playing in them. It was cute.

A statue from the old home.

The breeze made this live oak look really neat.

They told us that a lady who lived in the home planted all kinds of daffodils all over the property among the white azaleas. Amazing.

A sweet old lady felt sorry for all the solo pictures we were taking so she took one for us.

A little bridge surrounded by an abundance of flowers.

So serene

A panoramic picture of the pond. It think if you click on the picture to enlarge it you may be able to see it better.

So many daffodils and the white azaleas looked like cotton everywhere.

The following pictures are more plantation homes...

Highland. Like most plantations, including Highland, were built from  trees on the property and bricks carved from the clay soil and baked in the sun. A family lives in this house currently. 

Woodland

Oakley

Oakley framed under another live oak.

An old slave house about 1,000 feet from the Oakley plantation.

Inside the slave house

The other side of the slave house. They said this was a generous house for them.

I hate to end on a sad note so here is a picture of a beautiful azalea. I told Bryan I will plant them all over our house one day.

We really had a great day being outdoors, smelling the beautiful flowers (mostly from the honeysuckles), walking through the antique sales, while being surrounded by people in authentic dress of the 1820's. I felt as if I was in my heritage of dress class again. I hope you all have a wonderful week!

More Louisiana

I don’t know if I have mentioned much about the Cajun food here because I have never liked seafood. However, my parents were right and a few cajun dishes have grown on me. My absolute favorite being crawfish etouffee. On Thursday night Bryan’s boss took us all out to dinner to celebrate the success of there project at a restaurant called Sammy’s on Highland. I of course ordered the crawfish etouffee but John and Brittinee ordered boiled crawfish... 

This is quite a difficult meal to eat.

The leftover shells

These pictures are supposed to make my dad and brother jealous so they will come visit! ;) 

So as you may know as of Thursday Bryan and I are moving to New Orleans. I will try my very hardest to see this as exciting, however, I want to be honest because I want to look back at this one day and remember how we truly felt. So no I am not thrilled, I miss having my family and friends close, I don’t want to throw money away on another apartment, and I want a dog. I think that sums it up. We drove down yesterday to find an apartment or house to rent. We were spoiled in Houston with so many options of nice new apartments. Now we have overpriced, old apartments in a safe (as far as we know) part of town or nicer overpriced apartmets in SKETCHY parts of town. Of course the pictures online look great but they also are not showing the run down neighborhoods, that have not been rebuilt since Katrina, surrounding the hotel style apartments. We toured two town homes and one apartment and that is about all I could handle. We then met John and Brittinee in NO to have dinner and show there friends that were in town, the French Quarter. Yes New Orleans is a fun place to visit but not so much a place to live. Well, I don't live there yet so I will try my very hardest to make the best of what God has given us. I will continue to remind myself of Jeremiah 29:11. Have a wonderful week and enjoy the extra daylight we have in the evenings!!! 

Another quick update

My weekend was pretty uneventful; however, Bryan’s was a little more exciting. After he got off work he went to New Orleans to see his friend Elliot who was there for work. As for me, after work I got straight in the shower and put my pj's on. I then cuddled up in bed watching friends until I fell asleep. Saturday was nothing to exciting either. Bryan and I ran a couple of errands and hurried home where it was warm. I think it was like 55 or 60 degrees! That is some cold weather we are not used to here! Sunday we skipped church so Bryan could make his flight to Houston. I know he will only be gone for one night but I have never stayed the night in our apartment alone. So Sunday I spent the day doing laundry, cleaning…just normal wifely duties. I then ended my evening again sitting on the couch watching mindless TV while eating junk food and painting my nails. This really just made me miss all my girlfriends.

So today after work I went for a quick jog around the lake to enjoy what was left of the beautiful day. I am hoping to talk Bryan into moving our workouts outdoors from now on. After looking at new recipes this weekend I am excited to try something I think Bryan will love: bacon wrapped pork tenderloin. I love cooking pork tenderloin because it is so easy and we both like it and this just sounds yummy.

A side note: A lady at work got a picture text from a friend of Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and Suri eating an early lunch in Perkins Rowe.  The rumor is they will be staying at the hotel/apartments there, which is only 3.5 miles away from our apartment. Now I know I can keep my eye out for the little Cruise family. Looks like I will be doing a little more shopping and eating at Perkins Rowe. ;)