Well, I'm home again, after being gone for over three weeks. Its good to be home, I guess, but I sure do miss the beautiful weather in New Orleans and Phoenix. I had a great time, travelling and seeing the sights. The problem is, the more you get around, the more you realize what all there is to see. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to go again sometime.  

  Here are some pics from New Orleans. The rest of the family was there for a month, working under CASP, a division of CAM. Don't ask me what CASP stands for, I forget. Anyway, I was only there for a week or so, so some of these pictures were taken before I was there, but I wanted to give ya'll an overview of what our group did. The rest of the group was there for a month too, so I was just kinda a part timer.

 A picture of the base we worked out of. We were actually in St. Bernard, which is a suburb of the city, further south.

  The group of guys that did the work.

  The staff that cooked the meals, did the laundry, and kept us in work.

  Working? :) in the kitchen. The guy in the background chompin on a donut was the secretary there and has been there since November.

  Here is one of the houses we worked on. I'm not sure how many jobs they worked on as a group in the entire month, but I worked on three while I was there, and I know there was a number of other jobs that were going on at the same time.Most of the damage was done by water from the storm surge and the levees that broke but there was some wind damage as well.

  We didn't do any work on this place, but you still see a lot of this down there. Notice the empty lots on each side of the house. Many, many people still are nowhere close to being able to move back into there homes. There are still entire neighborhoods that are almost deserted and have only a few people living there.

  Our group worked mostly on drywall,

 drywall finishing,  

flooring and trim,

  and painting. It wasn't unusual at all for Kendall to come back looking like this in the evening after work.

  It wasn't all work and no play though. I mean, what do you expect with getting twenty guys together for four weeks?

" I couldn't help it daddy, I just had to go."

 One of the ladies we worked for had this pool, so one afternoon, all the crews hung it up early and stopped by for a swim and some sun.

We went up to the french quarter on Saturday to just kinda snoop around, and then again on Sunday to sing in the public square. They had some kind of festival going and it was full of people. I have never seen so many people and so much alcohol together in one place. People weren't drunk necassarily, but there was an awful lot of drinking happening. There were bands playing and all sorts of attractions. One of which was this-

the national oyster eating contest. How many raw oysters could you eat in eight minutes? This woman downed thirty-one dozen to come in at second place out of fifteen or so contestants.

The winer was this man with thirty-five and a half dozen raw oysters down in eight minutes! That is a lot of slimy stuff sliding down your throat! It was kinda neat to watch, although kinda sickening at the same time. One of the contestants had a "reversal of fortune" in the middle of the contest. SICK

 Here is a picture of the crowd across the street from where we sang on Sunday afternoon.

 How long will it go until New Orleans is back to normal? Many people are already well on there way, while hundreds more have not even started. There is still a lot of work to be done.

  Well, I guess winter has come back again. Not as in cold, although we did have a colder snap again. It almost hit zero a couple nights ago. I think we had 4 degrees here. Thats the coldest it has been yet this winter here, but the snow and ice is worse than it was before. We didn't get a lot,only about 10 inches total, in the past week. It was just kinda ugly winter weather. I think it snowed or rained every day so far this week. And last week wasn't a lot better. Its raining again here, but at least the temperature is above freezing. O well, I guess the snowmobilers (is that a word?) had fun. Can you tell I'm not a winter person? I prefer the sun any day over snow\freezing  ain\wintery mix. I guess i've had to work in that stuff too long. I can't complain though. We've had it pretty good as far as working in winter weather this year.    

This is a picture of or house yesterday while it was snowing. No, its not foggy. Its snowing. Ok, it was getting dark too.

  Here are a couple quotes from the book, In a Pit witha Lion on a Snowy Day. No I'm still not done with it, but I love some of the quotes.

  "If you were to always act in your greatest self-interest, you would always obey God."

  "There are basically two types of people in the world: complainers and worshipers "

   "There are basically two approaches to life: playing to win and playing not to lose"

   "There are people who get out of the boat and walk on the water. And there are people who sit in the boat and criticize wate walkers"

   "Maybe its time for Christ followers to put on crash helmets and play offense"

   "We need to stop criticizing culture and start creaing it."

  Wow, I love those quotes. In a way. In another way I don't. It's a very challenging thought process. 

  Those are just a few of my favorite quotes. There are lots more.

    Have a great week, everybody.

   For those of you that knew that Sam was building a cabin - Here are a few pics of it. We framed it last summer and they are just finishing it up now. Its a nice 'cabin' -Some over 4000 square feet. For those of you coming for the wedding , if you ask real nice, Sam might take you through it. It is beautiful on the inside. Dad has been pretty busy over there trying to get it finished up.

This is a shot from right out front.

Here's a view as you come down the lane.

This is a partial shot of the back side of the cabin.