It's Spring Time! Well not really.

 
By looking at these pictures you would think that it was fall. But it is not. It is spring. Unfortunatly I put up all of my sweaters last weekend when it was 80 degrees. Anyway...my friend Jesse is moving out this weekend so we have a little going away get together last week after class. I wish I had known about the fire pit before now. I would have been out there alot more often. It is a nifty little area not far from the building I live in.
 
Aren't Sarah, Molly, and Abby soo cute! They were a little chilly so they had to huddle to keep warm. We had another party last night at Sarah's house. Hopefully pictures from that will be coming soon. It is the end of the semester so things have been a little hectic trying to finish everything up.
 
According to Jesse this is my L.L.Bean look. I think I just look like I am trying to stay warm. We also had smores at this little get together. It was great fun. I really just enjoy the roasted marshmellows but everyone else enjoyed the smores!

Happy Birthday Susan!

 

Stanley Cup Here We Come!

I am officially a hockey fan now. Some of us decided during the Super Bowl that we wanted to go to a pro hockey game because several of us (me included)had never been to one. I had never even watched hockey on television. I must say...it is quite exciting. There were no big fights today with the players but we did see several screaming matches between some fans. It was also very obvious that the New Jersey Devils HATE the New York Rangers. They were playing the Boston Bruins so there was no need to mention the Rangers but ever so often the crowd would scream, "The Rangers Suck." I still can't figure out how they all new to do it at the same time. I guess I will just have to go back to investigate further. The Devils are actually really good. They are pretty much the team to beat right now I think. We had nose bleed seats but they are actually the best because we got to see everything that was going on. If you ever get a chance to go to a pro hockey game I would take it! It is way fun. Our next pro game will hopefully be a Yankees game. Opening Day is tomorrow! Go Yankees!

NYC Day 2

Today started out with a sprint to catch our tour bus and ended with better than expected seats for Phantom. Further explanation will hopefully come later.

 

 

 

 

This is for you, Uncle Don!

 

 

 

 

I Heart NY...our day in pictures

As requested(uncle don), here are a few pictures from my first day in NYC with Aunt Connie and Heather. They got here yesterday for thier spring break. We are going on a Tv/Movie tour tomorrow so check back later this week for more pictures. We are exhausted from walking all over Manhattan today and tomorrow is going to be even later so don't expect pictures tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snow, Snow, and more Snow!

 

Yipee! We love snow and we love snow days even more!I think that we figured out we got about 10 inches. You don't see that in Alabama!

 

Who says all we do is study?

 

The Girls: Me, Sarah, Amy, Abby, and Katie

 

Now the fun is over, time to dig out the cars. It was rather humrous today. Almost everybody that lived on our street were outside digging thier cars out at the same time. Seoki, bless his heart, dug 6 cars out. This involved driving them out of the parking spot himself. Believe me, I am glad he did it and not me. I still haven't quite gotten used to the whole snow thing.

NOLA 1 1/2 Years after Katrina

This was Mrs. Roberta's house that we worked on all week. We put up dry wall, and lots of other little things around the house to help her move back in a little quicker. Mrs. Roberta has lived in this house for 64 years. Her husband built it and she raised her 10 children in the house.

Brittany and I helped ALOT!!!! Well, we tried our best anyway. We were much better at gutting a house than building it.

This house is across the street from the 17th street canal levee break. You can see the water line at the top of the windows. The girls worked on gutting this house one afternoon. The owners of this house just left it because they could not deal with the amount of loss they had suffered. A friend of the original owner bought it from them and is now working on it himself. It was very eye opening to see people's things still in the home. We could tell that it was once a very nice and warm home.

This was one of the most troubling things that I saw while I was there. This house is directly behind where the levee broke in the Lakeview District. The back of the house is completely gone. In this picture you can see the patio furniture and a mound of mud is now in the what was the living room. This house has not been touched since Katrina. All of thier furniture and appliances are still in the house. Thier spices and kitchen utensils are outside of the kitchen window. I have sooo many more pictures but this is just to give you a little idea of the amount of damage that is still there a year and a half later.

This is a house in the 9th ward. It was completely taken off of its foundation and floated next door. We even saw one house that landed on a car. Most of the 9th ward is completely demolished. Most houses have been completely torn down. Some are still holding on to them in the hopes that they can get something for them from the insurance companies or the government. They aren't having much luck with that.

Just a taste of Perth, Australia

  

We worked a little...but it didn't seem like work.

 
Tuesday we had the opportunity to cook dinner for the women and girls living in Esther House. Stacy, Jay, and I had the fun job of shopping for the dinner. We had a few things to learn, such as a bell pepper is called a capsicum.
 
Cooking was so much fun. The girls were soo helpful and appreciative. It was nice to get a chance to sit down and talk to them as we ate. After dinner we went to a worship service with them. Ingrid Davis, my prof's wife preached there. It was a wonderful serman and I think the girls were truly bless by it. I know that we were blessed by meeting the girls.
 
Barry, the community outread pastor gave us a tour of some of the ministries that Witford church (our host chruch) had going on in the community. We went to the Op shop(or thrift store)that is run by volunteers from the church. Our host family helps run the shop. It is a wonderful ministry. A few of us even came home with some goodies from there.
 
Hillary's Boat Harbor is the location of an annual New Age Festival. Witford Church sets up a tent there every year and Barry is friends with the man who organizes it. We prayerwalked the area and claimed it for Christ. We are excited to hear from Witford church about how the festival goes this year.
 

It wasn't all work

 
This was our entire group at Kings Park. Think the Perth version of Central Park. It was beautiful. It runs right along the Swan River. We got a good view of it on our river cruise.
 
Nithin and Jordan (my prof's son) certainly kept us entertained during the trip.
 
Sometimes Nithin's entertaining got to be a little too much. Chuck(my prof)had to keep him under control
 
The River cruise was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. It took us about 3 hours to go down the river and back up to Perth. We saw some spectacular scenery. Mostly big beautiful houses and sailboats! If you look closely you can see the Perth skyline behind me.
 

What did you do on your snow day?

That was the question of the day on Valentine's day here. Answer...I studied! But I had something to look forward to...Summer in Australia!!! I am leaving for the airport in just a few minutes but I wanted to post a few pictures from the winter storm from the past week. If you don't hear from me for the next 10 days don't worry. I am alive...I'm just on the other side of the world.
 
I took this picture at the height of the storm. You can't really tell ice is falling from the sky. I was looking forward to going out and playing in it but I decided against it. I had to go outside to move my car so It would not be covered in snow from the snow plow. I was out there for about 10 minutes and that was enough for me. I like snow, but ice is no fun.
 
You know how in the south people paint thier windows at Christmas time to look like they have snow on them. Well...I had the real thing. This is the snow on my window seal.
 
This is the snow on Thursday night. It is not as much snow as chuncks of ice. We can walk right on top of the snow without even sinking into it because it is so hard. It's not fun to try to get your car out of this kind of stuff.