MARCH MADNESS!

The last week of February brought an end to the Mardi Gras festivities. The beginning of March marked the end of my internship. It was such a great experience – I learned a lot about what I’ll be doing in the future, met some great people, and got to travel to some exotic locales (and by exotic I mean backwoods Louisiana).












At the end of my internship I was offered a full-time position, so I’ll be starting work as a Staff 1 in the fall of 2010. I’m so excited and, given the current economy, blessed to have this great opportunity.



Me and my handy dandy audit trunk -->







Throughout the month I had several visitors, including Frankie (featured in the St. Patrick’s Day blog and video) and Dean, a friend from church, who brought his friend Jessica. It was fun hosting these friends during their first trip to the Big Easy.



During March, Matt was busy with church and school – mission teams, ministry events, Bible study, leading weekly prayer meetings, tests, papers, and all that jazz.He spent most of his Spring Break in Mississippi helping lead worship at a Youth
event with Rob and Andrew.


At the end of the week, we took a trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama to enjoy some time at the beach. It was only a three hour drive, which is much better than the seven or so hours it takes to get to the beach from Knoxville, and the water was beautiful and blue. It was, however, extremely windy and a little cool. We walked along the beach some, ate our picnic lunch, tried to read (made difficult because of the gusts) and eventually packed up and headed to the nearby state park, where Matt napped for a couple of hours and I finished reading Jane Eyre. For dinner, we drove a short distance to Foley, Alabama to try Lambert’s Café, a highly recommended eatery. I don’t know what we were expecting, but the sight that greeted us when we got there was not what I thought. The place is similar to Cracker Barrel, with lots of good Southern home cooking. It is known as “The Home of the Throwed Rolls”. Indeed, this means that every five minutes or so, someone comes out of the kitchen with hot rolls and throws them to you. The food was good…at least mine was. Matt was told by his friend Luke, a Mississippi boy, to try the hog jowl. Well, it turns out this stuff is glorified bacon, thick and fatty….yum, right? He ate maybe a quarter of what they brought out….it was pretty gross. We won’t be taking any recommendations on dinner selections from Mississippi boys anytime soon.



Obviously, this is not hog jawl. It's just Matt enjoying some ribs (his fave).

A sign inside Slim Goodies, a fabulous diner in Uptown.

Matt and I are continuing to perfect our culinary skills. We grilled steaks on our George Foreman one night – not too bad if I do say so myself. The highlight (or lowlight) of the month occurred last week, when I was making grilled cheese sandwiches. Sounds simple enough, right? Not so. I decided to try using one of the fancy stainless steel pans my landlord provided. Well, something crazy happened - the pan heated up too fast or something - and I burned the sandwiches, and set off the smoke alarm. I called my landlord and she said she would send someone from maintenance right over. In about two minutes there was a knock at the door. It wasn’t the maintenance man. It was the New Orleans Fire Department….I was mortified! It was an experience though. And I learned a couple of important lessons: 1. Register for nonstick cookware 2. Open a window when you are cooking in this apartment, or have Matt flail his arms around like he’s being attacked by a nest of hornets to fan the smoke 3. Meet the Fire Dept. downstairs.They don’t know the code to get in, and they are not too happy when they have to call the office to get the code.


On the wedding front, we have started looking at places to register and things to register for. We went to Williams-Sonoma last week to look at kitchenware. Let me just say that even though I grew up in a house where there was always something going on in the kitchen, I had no idea how much stuff there was out there, or how many variations of each item there are – coffeemakers, toaster ovens, crock pots – so many sizes, options, choices…crazy!




All in all, March was a fabulous month down here in the Big Easy. We hope your month was awesome as well.I’ll be back in KnoxVegas in a couple of weeks.