Whew... boy are we tired! The last few months have been crazy. Justin has finished his first semester at Tulane University with flying colors. In studio (the big important architecture class) Justin was part of a team that designed and built an extension on a woman's shelter. This week (3 weeks after the semester) he is still at the site finishing up the building. Justin's baby was the roof, which was a butterfly roof which drains into a nearby garden, hence its odd shape. Despite warnings that butterfly roofs leak, Justin took extra precautions to make sure that this roof was a "dry" success... which it is! Jamie has been
working at an ER on the Westbank (the other side of the Mississippi River). (Note: NOLA people put a huge emphasis on the East versus Westbank). She is enjoying the job and making friends amongst her co-workers.The New Orleans fall was lovely with lots of festivals, secondlines and cooler weather. We have found a few great restaurants and a few halls to dance to great music. We are excited about going to listen to some zydeco music soon. New Orleans has tons of festivals. In fact there are more NOLA festivals than there are days in the year. We explored a small sampling including: art, po'boys, city festivals, cajun festivals (please see photo, on the plates on the bottom.. they even had fried coon!) We had some family and friends come and help us explore the city.
Justin found an interesting cultural gathering called a Secondline. During a secondline, a brass marching band and tons of people gather to march/dance through the streets in colorful costumes. These used to be primarily part of a funeral, but now also celebrate businesses, marriages, etc. Next time you see us, remember to ask Justin for a demonstration of the Secondline dance! Speaking of festivals, Mardi Gras season starts tomorrow! We are excited to discover all the city holds with parades and celebrations. We are even trying to get into a ball. Wish us luck!
For Thanksgiving we headed
to Florida to spend the holiday with Justin's family. We stayed with his Aunt and Uncle who just finished their dream house. Justin's uncle is a pilot, so they built their house along a private airstrip with other pilots. We slept in a hanger and even took a quick flight in their beautiful 4 seater plane. It was great to see everyone and hang out. We even learned that Justin's youngest cousins are some great beer pong players!
For Christmas we headed back to Texas! We stopped in Austin to pick up some of Papa's old tools (Justin's grandfather) before heading to San Angelo. We had so much fun hanging out with Sevi and the Park family. Patty revealed to me the recipe for Justin's favorite sweets, Magic Cookies! Now we are eating the nearly every week. Well, at least until we started our new year resolutions! Then we headed to Fort Worth to hang out with Jamie's family. We celebrated Christmas with all of her s
iblings and watched Landon open up his favorite Christmas present, a Rocket!
On Christmas day, we were presented with a hard challenge... we were alone! Normally, we are surrounded by our family. So we decided we were going to do it our style. We stayed in our PJs all day, had Parisian hot chocolate and crepes. We watched movies and did nothing productive at all! It was an interesting change and very relaxing, but boy we missed our loved ones.
So far the hardest part of being in NOLA is finding time to actually "live" here. We have been so busy cramming our school/work into abbreviated time in NOLA so we can go travel to see our friends/family. It has been difficult to find the time and energy to enjoy and explore living in a new city. So this has become our goal for the spring... Discover NOLA!
We started today by exploring some plantations along the Mississippi River. The houses were so large and beautiful surrounded by majestic, old Oak trees. We toured one plantation where they still had some original slave quarters. They had listing of how much slaves cost in today's dollars. It is hard to imagine how things were back then. Some of the descendants of the plantation slaves lived there until 1977 farming the land. They we went to the Oak Valley Plantation which was picturesque with huge 400 year old oak trees lining the drive. We had lunch along the bank of the river before heading back to the city.
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Stay tuned for more Team JJ NOLA journey
