One Year in NOLA

I don't have any new pictures to post, so I thought I'd walk down memory lane for this post. Speaking of lanes, it has been one year since we moved from our house on Gettysburg Lane in Fredericksburg. It's hard to believe that it's been a year since we've seen many of our friends from Fredericksburg and Richmond. Last year, at this time I was seven months pregnant and boarding a plane with my two-year-old son bound for New Orleans. Jon had driven down in our Envoy with his dad taking the items that the moving company refused to load in the truck (including Boo, our Shih Tzu). Unfortunately for Jon and Ed, they had to spend a little extra time in Mississippi due to Hurricane Gustav and contraflow (the roads out of LA were all being used to evacuate people, so there was no way to get in). I stayed back in VA while first the packers came and made the house a box maze and then the movers came and emptied our little house in a matter of hours. My parents stayed to help since I was pretty dead on my feet, and they knew I would be pretty emotional. Each "goodbye" was harder than the next, and pulling away from our first house for the last time was quite difficult. But I was also getting weary of being sad, so I was anxious to get down here and be reunited with my husband again. We had to stay in a hotel for a few days because our belongings were a little tardy because of the Hurricane, and there was no power in the house for a few days. It was almost impossible to find a hotel available, but thanks to my mother-in-law's powers of persuasion, she managed to get us a room until we could rest in our new house...

It was really quite an adventure getting down here, but things have settled down quite a bit now. We love our home and neighborhood. We love living on the Northshore, although Jon gets weary commuting across the Causeway everyday. We have found a great church, and we are making new friends. This week we have been taking advantage of our new YMCA membership, and we have been enjoying the pool there. We are hosting Jon's parents for the weekend, so I must stop the reminiscing and get some chores done. We have had an exciting first year here, and although it is still difficult to be far away from family and friends, we are happy and healthy and very very blessed in Louisiana!