It's Getting Hot In Here...

Hi Family and Friends,

Well, summer has arrived. Officially it starts in 1 more day, but when you wake up in the morning hot, walk outside and break a sweat, and yearn for water... Summer is here! Justin and I have found a few ways to enjoy the hot, humid New Orleans summer. Snowballs are a must. There are numerous snowball joints here in New Orleans and everyone has a favorite. We have found ours, Plum Street Snowball. They were recently featured on the Food Channel and they are amazing. The ice is perfectly fine, they make all of the juices in house and are only 2 bucks to pop!! Don't get mad at Jamie, but she says they are better than Bud's!

Justin loves the King Cake Snowball

Another wonderful thing we have discovered is the produce dude, "Mr Okra". When we moved to our new place, we started hearing this strange sound. It was a man driving around the neighborhood calling out on a loudspeaker "I got tomatoes. I got bananas. I got plums. I got squash...etc." We can hear him enter into our neighborhood every week and finally after weeks of searching we were able to buy some produce. We were so excited, like we were waiting for Santa Clause! The squash and zucchini were great and made a fantastic dinner.

Mr. Okra!!

Recently we started watching the show Treme. We know we are late onto this bandwagon, but it finally made it to Netflix. It has been really neat to watch the show and see so much of the city that we already love. From one of our favorite po boy shops, to the local diner we like, to places we love to go listen to music, to musicians that we listen to... One of the focuses of the show that we haven't yet experienced is the Mardi Gras Indians. We tried to find them on Mardi Gras, but couldn't find them. Then St. Joseph came around and I had to work. It is one of our top priorities for next Mardi Gras. Ironically, one of Justin's summer jobs is doing some projects for the Guardians of the Flame, one of the Indian groups. He has met the widow of the Big Chief and the mother of the current Chief.

Photo by Michaelgirl Lamendola

The warming of the weather meant a few more things. The slowing down of festivals, which saddens us because we love the food at festivals, the music at festivals, the art at festivals.. we simply love festivals! Justin finished another semester at Tulane and another great building experience. Lastly the warming temperatures meant that the city (well parts of it) was filled with the sweet scent of jasmine. Every evening the scent hung heavy in the damp air. Maybe this city is starting to really grow on us.. ;)

Justin's participated in Tulane's Design/Build program and helped to build "affordable" modern housing

Crawfish bisque bowl.. yummy!

Best things about our old neighbors.. their house was lined with tall jasmine shrubs.

The other thing we are doing to avoid this NOLA summer heat is travel somewhere else: Texas (of course), Colorado, New Mexico and maybe a few weekend trips to the the Gulf Coast. Well, we are hoping to stay cool, stay dry, and further explore this beautiful city during this summer.

Love,
Team JJ


P.S. In case you are curious how Justin looks in a kilt, not a skirt!