TUESDAY-MUSEUM

the museum we went to today was in four parts...gardens-house-bible museum and then the coke cola part....first we went to the coke part of it and what made this family famous was thatt they were the first to start bottling the coke..the recipe was first made in atlanta which that is one of the things atlanta is know for...saw a short movie about the family then we talked to a lady who gave us some history..we then were pointed to acoke machine where we could get an 8oz bottle of coke for a NICKLE yep i said a NICKLE as you can see in the pictures...there was a ;machine in the museum then also one in the garden...so we both had acouple of cokes now i can't tell you when the last time was i had a coke..as i hardly drink soda/pop any more...there is a southern cuntom that when you open up a coke and take a drink from it you then fill the bottle with peanuts..lar had heard of this but i nver had...we didn't have any peanuts so we didn't try it..

after that we took a tour of the house a beautiful house but not one we could live in way to fancy haahahahhaha..

off to the bible museum which startted when the father gave his daughter a bible she then became fascinated by it..

garden was next and most of the spring flowers have come and gone so all we saw was dead petals laying around

all in all it was a good day...

DAY AT THE ZOO

here we are in monroe and wanted to go to a military museum looked in our book of things to do for the times an days it was opened...and monday was on the list of opened days so off we went...after making a trip to the post office to get our taxes sent back to ithaca for the accountant to do for us...found the museum but guess what is is NOT opened on mon..

time to put our heads together and plan another adventure and we came up with the zoo...we haven't been to a zoo since hawaii so we thought why not...so off we went...i must say it was a very clean zoo and had lots of animals nothing out of the ordinary..must be spring break for the schools in the area as there were lots of kinds with parents also checking out the zoo...there was even a boat ride around the outside of the zoo where they had other animals you couldn't see from the trails...we spent over 4 hrs there and never thought we could spend that much time at a zoo..it was a fun day..lar even got to see what a turkey looks like fanned out so that really put him the mood for turkey hunting...another month and that season starts...his sister judy even told him when we talked to her last that a flock of turkeys went thru the back yard in falconer....

sjpending another day here before moving on to little rock and meeting up with roy and carol..

all's well here

SUNDAY

today we slep in till 7:30 and it was nice not to get up an alarm and then not to have any plans that we had to hurry up and get going either to go to work or to move on...had a relaxing breakfast then decidced our day...a couple of the museum we wanted to go to were closed on sunday...soooo we put together another plan and that was to go to find me a place for a hair cut/trim..so what store might be opened on sunday for hair cuts..wal-mart it was...then after that we went to a national wildlife refuge and spent 3 hrs looking for wildlife...saw a few birds and a couple of alligators but nothing exciting or diffferent..it was nice to be out and about..

then we decided to eat a late/early lunch/dinner out and went to a restaurant called cheddars it is a chain or at least we see lots of them in the south...had a good meal and it wasn't fired southern style...i had salamon and lar had catfish...it was very good and we will put them on our list to go to again...

not sure if wse wwill move on tomorrow and stay put for another couple of days we need to look at a map and plot our travel...

LAST BON FIRE

after thursday night t/storms we never thought we would be going to work on fri but we did...i sure rained thurs night but the storms have now moved on ...

the work site was a mud hole in the morning but it didn't take long for it to dry up...the house we spent most of our time working on got all the molding put on there is a wee bit more to put on but that has to wait till the kitchen cupboards are in....the floor got put in when the kids were here...

so ends another habitat build and we feel good for all that we got done..

then it was time for the last bon fire...no fire as it is too hot for that but we all just like to relax and enjoy each other...and we talk about the day and what everyone thought about the day ...we all feel good that as much got done...

now ot think of where the next build might be..

moving on this morning heading to northern lousiana before meeting up with roy and carol in little rock...

WEATHER

we did not work yesterday due to the rain... os it was wa day off for us and we got caught up on stuff like get the taxes ready to send back to our accountant...

during the night there was alot of thunder and lighting enough to bring me right out of the bed...lar slept thru it...it was the loudest i've heard in a long time and alot of it..some of the thunder sounded like it was right over us and loud enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck...it has rain hard all night and right now we aren't sure if we will work today or not...

areas have gotten way over 10 inches and the last report for us has been over 4 inches but that ws before the rain in the night so we might be up to 6 or more--haven't heard any report yet thismorning...

the important thig is that we are all high and dry in our rigs...amen..

FORGOT

yo i forgotto mention what larry and mike are doing...we are the oly ones who don't happen to have a smart phone or an i pad/pod or what ever those new fangled phones are...several have been keeping track of the storm and usse them..some of you know how they work so larry and mike thought they ought to have something in their hands and pretend to be checking the weather or stock market or whatever needed to be checked....

THE STORM

this morning while listening to the weather we had a tornado waring/watch going on and as we were leaving the campground the skies sure looked threatening and we weren't sure what the day had in store for us..

arrived at the work site to sorta blue sky but also some really dark clouds moving bvery fast go by..we started with our assigned jobs and by 10am and break time the skies opened up and i mean opened up and it rained hard..not sure how much we got but it rained enough that after lunch we all went home..it was way to muiddy to be working and besides it was still raining but not as hard...so of you know how this mud is here in lousiana...the mud just stick to the bottom of your shoe and it is very hard to get it off...we are doing most of our work inside so we would have had to work in stocking feeet and it would not have been a easy job to get to the houses...we remember the muck we worked on in slidell...ugh to that stuff..

tonight we are going to go out to the 1920 house for seafood....suppose to be one of those quaint places and it serves some wonderful seafood...a real cajun place ...we are looking forward to going out...haven't had much seafood since we've been here aahahahahahahahah...

GEICO'S

yesterday at lunch there were a couple of geico that seemed to be playing on the screen one was on one side and the other of course on the other..it was fun watching them...

TONIGHT'S ACTIVITY

at the national park here in town they have cajun music so we thought why not go get some culture..so off we went...a short happy hr as the music stated at 5:30 so we all had to take showers and clean up after a days work...so off we went to listen...they sang the songs in french and that was the language that was spoken in the early yrs...good music and a fun time.

at the work site today there was only the 8 of us ...so there was some cleaning up to do and one of the houses got some doors put in and also the molding was started....

more of the same tomorrow...

THE STASH

this is what we caught this afternoon at the parade...14 cabbbages--lots of carrots--turnips etc...so we took enough for us to enjoy but then gave some away to people here in the campground

ST PATRICKS/ITALIAN PARADE

today we decided t oattend the st patrick/italian parade and we were told that they throw cabbage-carrots-potatoes-onions-turnips-etc...veggie to be able to make a stew...we just couldn't believe that they really threw veggies at you..but they do...no bands...the parade lasted about an hr and we did catch ltos of cabbage and other veggies...we gave alot of it away...it was a fun thing to do and would we attend one of these parades again ...YES ...fun...

tomorrow back to work ugh...twas nice not having to get up with an alarm these last couplf of days..

ALL OF US

ok here are a couple of group pictures one of course is with all of us and the other one is just of the kids....tonight they are going to new orleans to do a flash mob..and we are going to go out to listen to some cayun music...we decided not to go out to dinner as we have been eating way tooooo much and need to eat up some of our leftovers...

MORNING TREAT

one of the volunteers has taken some courses at the culinary school in hyde park , ny and and what he likes to do is bake bread...so this morning as it is thalast day for the kids he decided to make fresh bignets for breakfast..(like a donut)...so he did and they wer to die for...mmmm good...

LUNCH

it is crawfish season here in lousiana and so guess what we had for lunch today....oh my they were delicious...the affilate bought 2 bags of them there things and someone boiled them up along iwth the sausage--potatoes--corn on the cog and even cabbage...so lunch today was a real treat...this has been one of our better builds that rank up there...

tonight the kids have invited us to come for dinner with them as they have alot of food they want to get rid of before they leave...not that anyhone is hungry i'm sure not...but we will go to be social...

sat is st patricks day so the group is cooking corned beef and cabbage...aqnd then on sunday there is to be a parade that we will go to...

all's great here in the bayou!!!!!!!!

WORK CREWS

at the house site every day we break into crews and go to different housses to work..the original plan was for the kids to split up everyday but they all seem to like the ones they are working with and have asked to stay with their crews...there is the grouting crew working on a kitchen floor...then there is the flooring crew putting down hardwood flooring the floating kind...then of course the painting crew and then one more crew the hoe digging crew that will be only one day and joey got that job...

APPRECIATION DINNER

ok here we are at the dinner...some of the students and of course some of the carre-a-vanners...and a wonderful time was had by all...

tomorrow we understand that we are to have a crawfish boil for lunch...something lar has been looking forward to... several yra ago we did a build in galliano but this one sure is different...

will we come back...i must say it is on the list of places to rfeturn too...

WEDNESDAY DAY 3

TODAY WE SPLIT UP INTO 2 GROUPS SOME OF THE COLLEGE KIDS WENT OFF TO PAINT AN OLD STORAGE WAREHOUSE that habitat is going to used fro something i don't remember what but something...then we had three houses we toook others kids to work on..some did flooring in one house..one did caulking and otheres painted trim work...i was with the paint crew along with mem...

the college kids oly worked a half day as they were going on a swamp tour ..so after lunch they left as a matter of fact we are running out of work and it got hot so we also took the afternoon off...lar and i went to sam's and wal-mart to buy more supplies...

tonight the affilate was having an appreciation dinner and of course we were all invited...we of course wonder did we really want to go but it was decided we did...we of course were very glad we did...we just got a great feeling that we are very muych appreciated for being here...we each were given an lunch bag aliong with another t-shirt a wondcerful dinner nd ev en entertainment...a DJ so we did one dance with some of the kids...just a fun evening...

FIRST DAY IN HOUMA

today was the first day of work here in houma so of course we had ameeting the went over alot of safety issues..about habitat--the history of the affilate here...

we are working with 20 kids from st louis university and they are a good bunch..this morning they were sent over to a warehouse to paint but this afternoon they worked with us older people on 2 houses...one of the houses is a redo...habitat had to do a foreclosure on it...after which is was broken into and trashed...we worked with 2 different home owners ...mary knows which house she is getting but kobi and his wife need to gett n 100 hrs before they can pick out their house..so today was productive and we are exhausted for real...

got up this morning to the clock radio and heard the rosary in french...then they sang the star spangeld banner in french so we know for sure we are in cajun country...we may leave it on the same station to see if tomorrow morning is the same ahhahahaahah..

CROSSING THE MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI

YESTERDAY WAS OUR DAY TO CROSS the mississippi not in baton rouge but on our way to houma....and i was even talking to my sister chris at the time we crossed it so she not only crossed us but she got the full narritave of the crossing...

PICTURES

ok i hope the pictures go...

we have now arrived in houma and will be here for the next 2 weeks...working ugh ahahahahha..

HORSE SHOW

we decided to stay in baton rouge till the weekend as there was a collegiate horse show right here in the park we are staying LSU being the host college...why not never have seen a collegiate horse show before and the price was right...we didn't really understand everything they were dong but we watched anyway thought we might learn something...which i think we did alot of down time between classes or what ever they are called...besides the weekend forecast was for a rainy weekend so we also thogut at least we could dod something and attend the show...we also have a grand nephew that now has his own pony and is taking riding lessons so we thought we might learn what he is doing or going to do later on...

we saw some jumping today tried to take a picture or two but they all turned out blurry...there was some group riding and they were told what to do and when to do it at the end they were told to walk the horrses and put their backs to the judges which of course they did...then the judge called off names in the place they won..starting with the last place....

the collegiate teams were of course from lsu-texas a&m-tulane-and rice...no one we knew were in any of the meets.or what ever they are called...

also spent the weekend getting caught up on laundry--filling up the fridge with "grub" and getting ready to move on t omorrow..

on to houma and the start of a 2 week build (althou we are getting used to this toursit thing haah)..but it won't take long to get back in the swing of things like getting up with an alarm...darn...

i've tried to postpictures but they have taken over a half hr so i will hopefully post them at another time...

WEDNESDAY

this morning we took a nice bike ride and coming back we were in some good head winds and i told lar glad we didn't go any further some of the time i felt i was gong backwards instead of ahead...

then after a shower we had a lgiuht lunch and then off to visit some gardens we thoujght were kinda going to be like the plantations at cornell...were we surprised nothing to compare them too... as a matter of ffact there wasn't much but we did see some trees we hadn't seen before so that was good..

then a trip to sam's club and to fill up big fella as he was getting a tad hungry we founf diesel at sam's for 3.79 and felt lucky as we had seen it on the way for 3. 89 and up...

now we have a decision to make do we stay here or not..heard this morning that there is to be a collegiate horse show here this weekend and the price is good FREE...we know we can still find things to do but we just need to decide if we want to go to the horse show or not...oh such thing to have to make a decision while on vacation...