Our genius pup!

Peeper is barely 4 months old and can already count to four! We have an Einstein pup! This video is proof!

French Quarter Sights

Last night, Travis and I ate at Red Fish Grill down in the French Quarter. We are helping escort the people who are on campus doing accreditation stuff so Dr. Searcy invited us. Travis and I went down a little bit early to take pictures and check things out since we haven't been down there since Katrina made landfall. To view all (10) photos we took, click on the title of this post, "French Quarter Sights" and you will go to our photo album. If you are familiar with the place (and even if you aren't) you can tell there isn't really too much structural damage in the quarter. However, if you ARE familiar with the area, you will notice the lack of people on Bourbon Street. That is the street the restaurant was on. I took a picture at about 6:00 p.m. and then another at 9:00 p.m. and there isn't too much change in the number of people out and about. I have also included a tongue-in-cheek funny picture...the re-elect Nagin billboard. They are everywhere! I don't know how someone who says New Orleans is supposed to be a "chocolate city" can expect to "reunite New Orleans." I guess we shall see...if he gets elected. Enjoy!

French Quarter Sounds

The two mp3 files below are recordings (not that great) of musical sounds from the French Quarter. The top one was cajun music playing in a store I was in and the bottom on was a jazz band playing in a restaurant. The sound quality isn't all that great but I just wanted to share some sounds from the French Quarter. The two places were across the street from each other and I think that is why there is a bit of interference in the 2 recordings. The next time I go, I will video and post that because I think that might sound and look better. I will post pictures later tomorrow.

An ATM that doesn't dispense money

Ok, so who has ever heard of an ATM that doesn't dispense money?! Travis and I haven't either until this afternoon. We did a mystery shop and had to pay with cash. We didn't have enough on us so we just did what any normal red-blooded American would do- we went to the ATM. As you can see from the picture, the ATM wouldn't give us any money! Maybe it is one of those "new-New Orleans" quirks, I don't know but it was kind of strange and I thought I would share it with our blog-reading friends.

Lamberts

Thursday afternoon, I received a call from a friend of ours, Ginny and Kaleb, from Knoxville telling me that she and her husband were going to be in Gulf Shores, AL this weekend. I got excited, needless to say, and we made plans to meet at Lambert's Cafe in Foley, AL. Lambert's is probably one of the few restaurants Travis and I would be willing to drive 3.5-4 hours to eat at, so you know it has to be G-O-O-D! Not only is the food delicious (good ol' country home cookin') but the atmosphere can't be beat. There is a guy "the roll thrower" who walks around throwing HOT rolls at whoever wants one. It is great! The guy can throw rolls really hard when he has to (i.e. throw one across the room to a pair of outstretched hands.) but our guy mainly went around tossing them at the people at the table when he walked by. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the roll he just threw in the upper right corner. Kaleb, Ginny, Travis, and I all caught our rolls (from across the dining room I will let you know!)Kaleb ordered the largest salad I have ever seen! It came in a bread bowl (that Kaleb pointed out could double as a hat after you ate the salad) and was piled HIGH with everything you could possibly think of putting in a salad. It was a great time to hang out with old friends we haven't seen in several months and a great chance to get back to a great restaurant. They are coming again in July for a family reunion, does that mean a reunion for us again at Lambert's? We shall see...

What an Anniversary!

Today is our anniversary. However, due to orchestra practice tonight, Travis and I decided to do our "anniversary dinner" last night. Travis decided to surprise me and take me to the "warehouse district" of New Orleans. Neither one of us had ever been there before. Talk about fancy! There were NICE restaurants just stuck in old abandoned warehouses (hence the name) which was weird but typical "New Orleanish." He had made reservations for us at Emeril's restaurant. To go to the website for that restaurant click here. To start the evening off, we had complimentary valet parking! Neither of us has ever done the valet parking thing before so that was nice. After we sit down, they brought us a complimentary hors' devours (I KNOW I misspelled that- sorry!)which was a toasted piece of bread topped with a piece of bacon, sun-dried tomatoe, and a sunny side up quail egg (they called the egg something other than "sunny side up" but that is what it was.) The whole thing was about the width of a silver dollar. It was good. I ate the white of my egg and left the yolk- not too big on the runny yolk taste.

That was followed by an appetizer- roasted tomato and garlic bisque soup. This also had a piece of strange bread in it which Travis liked. Then we got our meals- I had Mississippi raised quail with mashed potatoes and fried okra. Travis had rack of Colorado lamb and mashed potatoes. They were both delicious! It took forever for me to determine what I wanted to eat because the menu had lots of French words in it that I didn't know what they meant! I finally decided that I knew what quail was and I like quail so I ordered that. I just didn't know what else it came with. I was quite impressed (as was Travis!) After that, we split a bananas foster cheesecake(New Orleans dessert.) It was rum cheesecake (I think) with caramel sauce and then sauteed or fried (not sure which) bananas. It was heavenly! Our waitress (the one who came most often to our table- we were assisted by about 7 people during the meal) brought it out with a candle that she lit and wished us a Happy Anniversary! Aww...how sweet!

That was our anniversary dinner! It was a totally new experience for both of us and one we enjoyed tremendously! I hope you enjoyed us sharing it with you. I wish I had taken pictures but it was kind of dark inside and I am not sure how they would have felt with me taking pictures like a tourist. HAHAHA!

Seattle, WA Skyline

Most everyone who reads our blog are aware that Trey, Travis' brother, is in underwater welding school in Seattle. We have been pestering him for over a month to send us pictures. Well, he finally did! We also have bought a disposable camera that we are going to mail to him so he can take pictures and mail them back to us for us to develop. Once I get those pictures back, I will probably upload some of those to our blog as well. Anyway, I am posting the 2 pictures that he has sent us. One of his buddies has a digital camera and took these pictures. They are both taken from roughly the same spot but at 2 different times of the day. Hope ya like!!

GA Aquarium Videos

Here are the 2 videos I uploaded from our recent trip to the Georgia Aquarium. To give you a bit of perspective with regards to how big the whale shark is in the 2nd video- he is a baby and is only 14 or 16 feet long right now. When he is full-grown he will be 40 feet long and be the size of a school bus! That is huge!

We're Going Back!!

Ok, so we just found out about 20 minutes ago that we are going back to NEW ORLEANS!! WOO HOO!! We are excited and a bit overwhelmed. We are overwhelmed because I (Stephanie) have to be at work at 8am Monday morning in New Orleans! Today is technically our last full work day here in Decatur. We are going to NC tonight (probably will arrive fairly late) and then come back here late Wednesday or early Thursday to pack up the office and then drive down Friday. Yay! If you want to mail us anything here is our address:

529 Papworth Avenue
Apt. B
Metairie, LA 70005

We will still have the same cell phone numbers for right now and our home number is: 504-834-6608. Yay! We will post pics as soon as we get Internet access to our apartment. Until then...

Pupillary Distance

Ok, so I (Stephanie) have a scratch on one of my lenses. I have had scratches before on my glasses and they haven't caused problems. However, this is a clump of scratches in one spot- right where my right eye looks out through the lens! Therefore, everything is clear for my left eye, cloudy for my right eye, and thus I end up with a headache. Not too much fun! Well, I ordered a "backup" pair of glasses today from this website and it asked me for my pupillary distance. That is the distance from the middle of one pupil to the middle of the other one. When the person who is fitting you for glasses puts that thing up to your face and tells you to look straight ahead that is what she is measuring. So anyway, I got Travis to measure that distance for me. My pupillary measure is 58 mm. I fall in the "97% of all people will be between 54 and 74" category. The average is 62 mm. Ok, so then I decide to measure Travis' pupillary distance- 75! That makes sense to me because as you will notice in the picture with this post, his head is much larger than my little bitty head. I think it is kinda funny! To measure pupillary distance, you have someone hold a ruler (with millimeter markings) directly under your eyes and you stare at a spot straight ahead (but not at the person measuring!) and they count the number of millimeters from 1 pupil center to the other. That is your pupillary distance. I want to have a contest (aka science experiment) to see which of my friends & family has the largest pupillary distance. Therefore, I leave everyone with this question...what is your pupillary distance? To leave your measurement just click on "comment" below this post. THANKS!

Notification from Just the Wright Basket

Woo hoo! I have finally done it! I have started posting pictures of my various baskets on the "Just the Wright Basket" blog site. Please look at them. I am not done posting pictures (hopefully, I will finish that either Monday or Tuesday night) and if you have any questions or would like one of your own there is a link on the left side of the page where you can email me!

Filet o' fish anyone?

Well, this weekend we had some friends (Anthony, Alyson, Lorren, and Jordan) come down from Dandridge to visit for a little while. They homeschool their children so they "used us" for a field trip. We went to the Georgia Aquarium. It was awesome! I could live inside that building and never have to come out- there are fun fish everywhere! It is the largest aquarium in the world and also boasts 2 of the largest fish in the world. That fish is the whale shark. They have two baby boy whale sharks right now. They are small...haha...they are each about 14-16 feet long! When they are full grown they will be 40 feet long! How insane is that? They will be the size of a school bus! We had lots of fun at the aquarium- there were exhibits where you could pet different animals (rays are slimy by the way) and an underwater tunnel that takes you through the "heart of the ocean." Needless to say, I loved it a ton and want to go back! To see pictures from the aquarium you can either go to our online photo album (link is on the left side of this page) and click on "Georgia Aquarium" or you can just click the lighthouse beside the title for this post.

After the aquarium, we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was quite interesting to say the least. Our waiter was VERY INTERESTING and that is all I will say about that. Travis and I had to get hurricane glasses for his mom and cousin. They both collect them and neither has one from the HRC in Atlanta- even though they have New Orleans, Myrtle Beach, Gatlinburg, Atlantic City, Houston, Nashville, Memphis, Branson, Orlando, Nassau, and other cities that are farther away than Atlanta. Here is a picture of the Hard Rock here in Atlanta:

We had a great weekend and hope they will visit again once we move back to New Orleans (by the way, that might be in the next couple of weeks!)

Mardi Gras Weekend

This past Friday, Travis and I went to New Orleans/ Mississippi for a long weekend. We returned to Smyrna yesterday (Tuesday.) We had some fun, did some manual labor in my parents' house, met with a pastor of a church who needs a Minister of Education & Administration, hung out with some First Baptist Dandridge who were also working on my parents' house, took Peeper to the beach, drove around on NOBTS' main campus, and got to sleep in our apartment! It was quite a busy weekend! I have pictures from the weekend and as I tell about a few things I will include links to click on an see accompanying pictures.

The first thing is the interview at a church. The church is in Baton Rouge (1 hour west of New Orleans) and is within commuting distance. The pastor, Tommy French, is a trustee at NOBTS and was very adamant that Travis continue PhD study no matter what. We really appreciated that. They have an orchestra and handbell choir which I really appreciated. They average around 500 or so in worship and 375 or so in Sunday School. To visit the church's website click here.

First Baptist Dandridge sent a disaster relief team to my parents house for this week. They are hanging insulation and drywall. We took some pictures while they were working Monday and you can see those pictures here. Travis and I helped out while also keeping up with Peeper. We mainly carried the sheetrock from the tent out in the front yard to the back of the house where they were working. Hopefully, I will get more pictures later of all the work they finish and I will add those, but for now these are the pictures from Monday. Monday was also Earl McCosh's birthday and we had a small birthday party for him at the church that night. His birthday cake was a King Cake which is a New Orleans' traditional Mardi Gras cake.

Tuesday after we left my parents house to head back to Georgia we drove down the street and took Peeper to the beach. He has never been to the beach and so we thought it would be fun. He was kind of scared of the beach and didn't like the water. You can tell that by looking at some of the pictures. We also included a cute shot of him riding in his car seat. Anyway, hopefully, he will get used to the beach. Once we move back down there (hopefully soon) we will be able to take him more often and he will get used to the water. But for now, you can view pictures of his first beach trip here.

This coming weekend, we have some friends from Dandridge coming in and we will be going to the Georgia Aquarium this Saturday. I am excited! I will definitely post some pictures of that in our online album and might put a few on here in a post. Until then...