Post Vacation Blues

Well, most of you will know by now that my parents came to Louisiana to surprise me. It was a fun visit. They were here for a week and we were able do some neat things, see some of the sites and best of all, eat some cultural food. If you haven’t tried gumbo with whole pieces of chicken, crab and shrimps, you are missing out.

If you check out our Flickr page, you’ll notice some photos that we’ve already posted. We plan on adding more at the beginning of next month because we’ve used up all of May’s upload time.

Okay, so here are some of the things we ended up doing. We went to Cameron Parish, a county right on the Gulf of Mexico that was heavily damaged during Hurricane Rita. The sites that we saw were very impacting. It’s crazy to realize that there had already been about 8 months of clean up work already done and it was still a mess. We saw houses that had nothing left but the foundation, cars that were completely ripped open, destroyed churches, hospitals and much more devastation. One town called Holly Beach, which was obviously a beach town right on the Gulf, had been completely wiped off the face of the planet. Upon our tour, we saw that they were already beginning to rebuild and power lines had been installed and pilings or stilts for houses were already being put up. (Because of flood waters, storm surge, etc. many people decide to actually build their houses about 8 to 10 feet up in the air to hope avoiding any such catastrophe. Dess and I have actually seen an entire elementary school that was built on stilts.)

We also went on a tour of Avery Island, the birthplace of “Tabasco Brand Hot Sauce”. The factory itself was interesting because they showed how the peppers were chosen and picked, then how the peppers were processed. Our tour guide wasn’t very enthusiastic about it though. The big deal of the island is actually the “Jungle Gardens” which is a scenic tour of various landscapes. They had bamboo and azaleas, holly and ivy, trumpeter vines and live oaks. Not to mention the living creatures. There were plenty of dear flies that wanted a piece of Dess and my meat. The coolest part was when Dess almost stepped on an alligator. It was a small thing, only about 4 feet long, sitting next to the path. It was near the “Bird City” a habitat and nesting grounds for white egrets. Dess was so excited to see the egrets from the lookout station that she was about 3 feet away from the gator before we could stop her. The gator barely flinched and just opened its mouth and hissed to ward Dess off. Mom was really bummed that the batteries on the digital camera had died and was unable to capture the moment. In fact, the batteries died right after coming out of the Tabasco factory, so she missed a lot of good opportunities.

We weren’t always on the go. We did take some time to relax together as well. Candling Dad’s ear was quite the bonding experience. So was the time when Dess offered to help Mom replace her nose piercing. Dess figured it’d be a cinch. Dess has had her nose pierced for like 8 years, so she could do her own nose no problem. But after taking out Mom’s piercing it took what seemed like forever before the new piercing could be forced into place. Talk about bonding.

Mini golf and bowling were also some of our distractions, not to mention shopping. All in all it was a great week with lots of adventure and tons of stories to tell. Now Dess and I are back in the lull of having to work and not having much fun on a day-to-day basis. We need to find ways to spice up our lives. Well, it’s was great seeing Mom and Dad. We hope to see you soon too, whoever you are that may be reading this!

Check out our Flickr Site!

Hey Everyone!

Just wanted to let you know that we've started a Flickr site. Check out the link on this site. That's all that i want you to know for now.

bye

The long awaited update

Hi!

I want to start by apologizing to anyone who regularly was checking our blog. I'm sure you aren't anymore with the way that we are keeping this updated. For our defense, it's been a pretty crazy time since our last post. Not that our lives are so full that we can't take the 30 minutes to blog every once in a while, it just more slips our mind than anything else.

Well, the Hope and Mersea have sailed off. They left May 2nd. Already they have done about a week of medical mission in Haiti. I thought that when they left that i'd sort of be free to work on my own projects. Boy was i wrong. Instead, Mary put me in charge of all the new male crewmembers. These are guys who may have been involved with Friend Ships for like 2 weeks or less before the ships sailed. So they had no idea where things are, how we work, the rules, etc. I became the mentor or babysitter, depending on how you look at it. At first it was pretty bad. I'd have to walk around showing them where things were, where to park, what to burn in the burn pile, not to drive trucks on the grass, how to show up on time for work, etc., etc. They pretty much have the routine down by now which is nice. But i've been keeping them so busy with work that i don't really have a whole lot of my own work to do.

Don't get me wrong, i'm extremely grateful for the help that these four men have been here around the property. We wouldn't be getting any work done without them. I just am having a hard time being a supervisor because they are spread out everywhere and i can't really get too hands on with the work they are doing. It leaves me feeling defensive because i'm not feeling like i'm accomplishing much, but i'm expecting a lot from these guys. I guess if i'm going to be a supervisor, i'd prefer to be more hands on and not have such a large spectrum to oversee. Because since the ships left, i've been made responsible for two more departments specifically and a whole lot of other stuff indirectly. I like being able to help out with the "leadership load" but i also like to get things done myself.

Okay on to another topic all together. This will be a quick side note because i don't have much to say about it, i just want to comment on it. The other day i went to Wal-Mart. At the front entrance there were two men sitting behind little tables asking for money. The men were dressed pretty nice in button up shirts with ties. The strange thing to me is that they were asking people going into and out of Wal-Mart for money for their church. Since being in the South, i've learned that tithing and money are important matters to the churches down here. Most new people to the South will comment that they don't like how they preach on tithes so much. It is a pretty different world down here when it comes to how pastors will try to coerce money out of their congregation. It's not too often that you'll hear about how we should be giving with a joyful heart. At some churches they even give a mini-message on tithing each time they take up offering. This can be a 5-10 minute ordeal which is led by one of the elders, deacons or ministers. I have a quote from my friend Matt who attended one of these churches. The elder stood before the congregation and said "You've got to give up the GREEN... not that stuff that jingles in yo' pockets... you've got to give the GREEN!!!" While saying this he took out a beautiful $50 bill and stuffed it into the offering basket. It just wouldn't fly in the North.

Back to life passing us by. Well, we got to go to Galveston Island for the weekend two weeks ago. That was a nice day, just sunning ourselves, playing mini-golf, book shopping and relaxing. It's pretty unusual that we get a long weekend, but Friend Ships gave us a day off after all the long hours we spent getting Hope and Mersea ready. It was a huge blessing. We've also been spending our weekends in an apartment off the ship. That's been nice. Central air, kitchen, bath tub, our own frig, leather lazy boys and lots of other wonderful treats. Dess was wonderful enough to do all the cooking. She made up spaghetti sauce from fresh vegetables. She's got skills.

It's been a busy month or so since we've last written. I hope you can forgive us for taking so long to write. I hope you'll continue to check our blog. We'd also love to hear you comment from time to time. Well, that's all i got for now.