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...