Yesterday

Yesterday was one of the craziest days ever! My stomach started to ache after dinner on Tuesday night but I didn't think much of it since I have digestive issues and stomach pain quite often. Since it was my half birthday (June 23) I wanted to celebrate a bit. Damien took me to get ice cream from the Creole Creamery and it was delicious. I had peanut butter chocolate which tasted just like a creamy Reese peanut butter cup! I went to bed that night and didn't sleep well at all. I tossed and turned because my stomach was in so much pain. Finally I got up around 2:10 am because I felt like I was going to throw up. And I finally did at 2:30. I haven't thrown up for quite a while. In fact, I don't remember the last time I threw up. I felt better after that though! I went back to bed but woke up around 7 am because my stomach hurt started to hurt again and Damien had to get up to get ready for an early meeting.

Rita and Tricia are putting an apartment in the basement for us to stay in and other when they come to visit. So the guys putting up the drywall also arrived at 7 am and began their drilling and banging. As if the loud noise wasn't enough, next door there was a concrete slab left from the house that was demolished after Katrina. Apparently they are getting ready to build a new house over there because they demolished the slab that same day.

It stared out with a huge machine drilling holes into the platform everywhere. Then followed by the large orange beast of a demolition machine with a large scooper on the front that dug chunks of concrete up and grabbed the pieces to load into the back of the dump truck. I don't know if you have ever been a matter of feet from one of these machines while sick on your stomach laying in your bed watching them out of your window, but it is quite scary. Especially when the big demolition truck thing is slowly tipping over while trying to rip off a too heavy of a chunk of concrete and getting closer to your window by the second. As if this wasn't scary enough, while fearing the demolition beast is going to come through your window and squash you to death, the ground has been shaking for hours as if in an ongoing earthquake. The light fixture and mirror were shaking like crazy and I thought they might drop to the floor from the rumble.

This is kind of what the demolition machine looked like except it was orange.


And they demolition crew didn't finish yesterday. They were back at it early this morning. Finishing the clean-up of the concrete and then they used a bulldozer to plow down all of the dirt that was left at the demolition site. After one hundred sweeps across the dirt and the dishes in the house shaking like made they have finished for the day. I am sure that the next little bit will be great when they start pouring the new foundation next door and building the house!

P.S. I am finally feeling better today and even ate breakfast this morning!

Father's Day

I know Father's Day was a few days ago, but I have been thinking about some of the fun times we have had with my dad. My family was able to take quite a few trips when we were growing up and I was remembering one trip that was especially fun and memorable so I thought I would share it.



It was winter 1996, I was in 4th grade and Bean was in 2nd grade. My parents had secretly planned a family trip to Disney World in Florida. The night before we were to leave on our trip was the beginning of the Spokane ice storm. Things had started to melt in previous days but temperatures dramatically fell and everything froze. Snow fell on top of the ice and tree branches and power lines were down everywhere. Our power went out the night before we were to leave.



The day of our trip, which would have been a school day, but all the schools were closed because of the ice storm, my parents woke us up early. They asked us if we wanted to go to Disney World that day. I thought they were just saying that to try and get us out of bed. But no, they were telling the truth. We packed our suitcases and left for the airport that morning. Our plane made it out of Spokane even though the airport was running on a generator and the runway was all icy.

Once we made it to our hotel in Florida, a guy trying to sell my parents a time share approached us. My dad wanted to get rid of him and so he agreed to get a free breakfast the next morning and listen to his presentation. When the guy asked for our room number so they could give us a wake-up call my dad gave him the wrong room number on purpose. I feel bad for whoever was in that room because they had an early wake-up call!

The first night in our hotel room my mom woke up during the night to go to the bathroom and stepped into a couple inches of water. Our condo was flooded. We had to pack up everything really quickly and go to the front desk to get a new room. This all took place at about 4 am.

While we were driving around looking for dinner, which is always stressful because we all can't decide on one place to eat, my dad suggested that we go through the Taco Bell drive thru naked! How gross would that be! (My family has a fascination with suggesting we go places naked.) But sometime after that trip, we came across an article about some guy who really did go through the Taco Bell drive thru naked and I think the workers called the police on him or refused him service. My family had a good laugh about that!

The whole time while we were in Florida enjoying ourselves, the power to our house had been off. I think it came back on a day or two before we arrived back. We didn't miss much school either because it had been canceled for a while because of the ice storm. And our plane landed safely on the runway and they barely got the door gate out to our plane, but we made it safely home. It was the perfect time for a trip!

Pictures from Nola

I copied some pictures from Rita and Tricia's camera onto my computer from the summer thus far and so I thought I should post a few of them. And talk a little bit more about what we have been up to.

When we arrived in New Orleans, Eden was still visiting so we got to spend some time with her! In the picture below, the three of us were helping out by doing some of the dishes. We had all just gotten out of bed that's why our hair looks so nice.


Tricia took Eden and I each on a motorcycle ride. Damien is still waiting for his ride.


Damien trying to catch a lizard on the back fence. They are too fast for him though.


Here I am on my motorcycle ride with Tricia.

We went to The Palace Cafe for Mother's Day to celebrate. For dessert Damien and I shared banana's foster, which they made table side.


And here is Eden with her dessert. I think she had something like chocolate mudslide cake. She let me have a bite and it was delicious!


Damien and me with our banana's foster. Yum ;)

Here is the group. From left to right: Paw Paw, Maw Maw, Tricia, Rita, Grandma Judy, Eden, me, and Damien.

Another group shot on the staircase.

Maw Maw bowling on the Wii. She was really concentrating so she could get a strike.

Paw Paw taking his turn bowling.

Eden, Rita, and I went to the River Walk and did a little shopping. Here Eden and I are out by the river.

And here we are again by the rainbow colored Volkswagen bus.


Damien wanted a haircut so I was trimming it up.


I always miss a few hairs and so I trim them when Damien finds them.


A typical morning.

He found another long hair that I missed.


Rita and Tricia have Wii Fit so every morning we wake up and take a body test to see how much damage was done the night before at dinner.

We got to go to the Greek Festival and Damien decided to model Rita's hat. He looks like a country bumpkin.


If you look behind us you can see the lambs roasting on a spit.

Rita, Damien, and I walking around at Greek Fest.

We got two boxes full of delicious Greek desserts including baklava. The one Damien is trying here tasted just like baklava with the syrupy walnut filling, but instead of the phyllo dough, it was wrapped in stuff that had the texture of shredded wheat.


The Hellenic dancers.

We also took a tour of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral there at Greek Fest. These pictures are from inside the cathedral.



Me, Damien, and Tricia outside of the cathedral.


Damien's face looks very ridiculous in this picture so I have to explain who he is imitating. We watched the last few episodes of American Idol in New Orleans and Rita and Tricia always said that Chris Allen looked like he had monkey lips when he sang. From then on we referred to Chris as Monkey Lips. While we were at Pupuseria eating lunch one day, yes it was the most authentic Mexican food you can get in the United States, we were talking about American Idol and Damien and Tricia were imitating him. Here is the picture of Damien.


Don't the faces look similar?

We have also been to the World Market. They sell some cool household decorations, food, and hats. Here is Damien modeling one of the hats!

The World Market also had this bacon chocolate bar. It looked disgusting.

While being down here in Nola we have also had the privilege of trying many delicious restaurants. One of them is called La Thai and they have really good food. As you can see in the picture, Damien is very excited to try the pineapple fried rice.

Here is one more picture from our swamp tour. We thought the boats weren't going to be covered so we brought our hats. The boat ended up being covered though so it wasn't too hot!

Coldplay Concert

We had a great time at the Coldplay concert! Howling Bells started off the concert, with the amazing Snow Patrol following them, and then of course...COLDPLAY! Here are some pictures from the concert.

The New Orleans Arena


Howling Bells


Snow Patrol: They were great!


Before Coldplay got on the stage these four guys climbed up this tiny rope latter and then had to crawl across the metal to lower themselves in these chairs. In the picture below you can see the one guy climbing towards his chair. There were two of them on each side and they were so high in the air. They stayed up their for the entire Coldplay performance.


Also while they were getting the stage ready for Coldplay a worker that was sweeping the stage started to break dance to the music and one of the spotlights was on him. He was quite good!


COLDPLAY: The picture behind them was really pretty.


For part of the show they had these lasers shining out into the audience.


A better view of the gorgeous picture behind the band.


Chris Martin came out on the end of the stage! He was jumping and running around the whole concert without very many breaks.



During the song Yellow they threw all of these huge yellow balloons out over the audience and when they popped they flung yellow confetti everywhere.


They had these huge balls that lowered down from the ceiling and had pictures on them. At some points during the concert, they were live video of the group members singing.


Chris Martin playing the piano for us.


They had a mini band set-up on our side of the stage and they performed a few songs over there.


Coldplay also crossed the audience and went into the back of the audience and performed there. It was great. Will (the drummer) played the guitar for a few songs and Chris also played the harmonica. It was a great performance!

During Lovers in Japan the crepe paper butterflies came drifting down from the ceiling just like in their music video!


And that is why my Coldplay tee shirt has butterflies all over it. Damien and I with our Coldplay tee shirts on!


Coldplay is giving away a free CD album. Just follow this link to get to it!