Food, Friends, Football, and Fun

These past couple weeks haven't really been too hard, but they haven't been too easy either. This was the first week where I felt more at ease! Here is what we have been up to.

 #1 ) Food: We have been cooking lots of food! We are staying at Mary and Russell Guilfou's house and have had tons of REAL cajun food! Homemade!! It has been fantastic!! Monday we had red beans and rice, Thursday we had jambalaya from Jason and Russell's work jambalaya cooking contest, and this weekend we had the most AMAZING gumbo!! Here are some pics!

#2) Friends: We have the most AMAZING friends!! Our Jefferson Ward friends came out to help us gut our house and worked so hard! Our amazing friends the Davis family evacuated with us and then still aren't tired of us! (that is amazing!!) And, we have stayed with our amazing friends the Loaders all last week. And now, we are staying with our amazing friends Russell and Mary! They are so great! Mary and I have now become sister wives...in the sense of cooking, cleaning, working, shopping, and taking care of the kids...no husband sharing though lol We have played volleyball, games, xbox, etc. and have had a blast. Keaton even loves his little friend Marie. She is only a week older than him and they get along so well....well Keaton follows her around all day...but I think they will be lost without each other when we leave. :) They are just so cute! Yall check it out...

You can see what a great influence Keaton is on Marie too ;) 

#3) Football:  The house is filled with football talk on the weekend! I have been thinking of making a canvas art piece for the house that says "we interrupt this marriage to bring you...FOOTBALL"! Thankfully I have a sister wife to keep me company! :) and the kids. 

We recently ran the Saints Season Kickoff 5k. It was great! My first 5k ever...and it went pretty well...despite: 

1. me never running more than 2 miles at one time in my life 

2. never have run in the morning 

3. leaving the house at 6:30 a.m. and not going to bed the night before until after midnight haha 

4. not eating breakfast before we left because we thought there would be some 

5. wearing black while running in the Louisiana heat and the sun beating down

6. me not having a set pace yet...since I didn't get to finish my training program before the race due to Hurricane Isaac.

We did finish in a decent time...Keaton slept the whole race...and Jason got #1 in the 40 yd. dash out of 4,080 people!!! Here are some pics.

#4) Fun:  We have just been having lots of fun here! Between crazy running errand trips, games, sports, cooking, mud baths, regular baths, rain baths, football, and just playing...we have had a blast! Keaton has for sure! Check out the little ham.

I need to think of a good way to sign off every time I finish a blog...it's gotta be cajun/southern/fun!... I got it!

Holla Back Y'all!

Lately

So much has gone on these past 3-4 weeks! I can't believe we have been basically homeless for that long lol Lots of good, bad, ugly,happy, sad, fun, etc. has been happening.

I will fill you in!:

1) News of hurricane Isaac hitting Louisiana came and we decided to evacuate. This definitely proved to be a good idea. So, we packed our things and our friends Aly and Michael Davis and evacuated to Hattiesburg Mississippi. We thought at the longest we thought we would be in Hattiesburg for 2 or 3 days. We were there for a whole week.  This was fun, but as Aly said in her blog, there wasn't much going on haha we just kind of relaxed.

 Saturday September 1st, we came home to discover that our new home (we bought 9 weeks ago) had been flooded. The neighborhood and whole town was affected and looked so sad. It was a long, hard weekend of work getting our house taken care of. We couldn't have done it without our friends, the elders, and members of our church. We thankfully and luckily got the whole house gutted in about 3 days!! We definitely lost a lot of temporal/personal belongings...most would say we lost everything. I feel that way, but at the same time...I am not sad. I am so happy that I made it out with my family, and that is what is most important to me. Things will all work out! We are so lucky that we have flood insurance, good friends to stay with, and lots of love and support!!!

We have been fortunate to have our contractor already come and look at our place and we hope to sit down with him to make a plan and start work on Monday or Tuesday this upcoming week!!! Our advance from insurance has come in, we have a wonderful place to stay with friends, and things are going great!  I feel like it's going on forever and it is, but at the same time it is all going so well! Being patient is hard, but I know it will be worth it and all work out in the end :)

2) I got to spend some time with my sister Amanda and my mom last weekend which was much needed! I definitely needed their emotional love and support. They drove all the way down just to see me! I am so lucky to have the best family ever! They have done so much for us in demolishing our house, taking and helping salvage some of our clothes and things, coming down whenever we need them, and just coming down to make sure we are ok. I love them sooooooo much!! I am eternally grateful for them :)

3) Staying with Russell and Mary Guilfou is so wonderful! We have so much in common and our kids are only one week apart! They are loving being each other's playmate and having someone to share snacks and toys with lol. They are such a wonderful family! I have no idea how we will repay them (or anyone who has helped us)! Mary and I call each other "sister wife" and I am definitely going to miss her when we go back to our own homes. There home is set up pretty much just like ours, so we feel right at home. They even have the exact same bed that we had at home in their spare room!! I am so eternally grateful that Heavenly Father has placed them in our lives!!

4) We are making so many great memories this summer...and now fall....I don't know what else to say. All the little things going on are going well...these were the big things. I haven't blogged in so long! I don't know where to start, and where to end. haha

Later! ;)