New Orleans A Year Later

Last week I attended a conference in New Orleans. A friend of a friend who works for a relief agency down there took us around town and explained about cleanup efforts. We started in some of the nicer parts of town, and ended in the ninth ward, which was right below a levee which broke. As you can see, not a lot of progress has been made.




We came across this boat that was still in the street.


Many people are still emptying out their homes and trying to make them livable again.


Quite a few homes have FEMA trailers attached to them while the owners try to repair them.



Spray painted messages from the rescue efforts still adorn many walls, indicating where where bodies were found, were help was needed, and even where pets were found.



And although there are signs like these:


There are more signs like the one on the door of this house.


I stayed downtown in the French quarter just off Canal and Bourbon street, and although that part of town is doing well (it wasn't hit nearly as hard), you can see that the rest of New Orleans has not fared so well. Every one of these pictures (and I have dozens more) represent someone's life, and someone's personal tragedy. I'm not posting these pictures just for "disaster tourism" purposes. I thought that it would be good to show as many people as possible how bad things are for people both in New Orleans and in many other parts of the world that have experienced disaster, or just daily economic hardship. As you can probably tell from these pictures, many of the people were living in hard conditions prior to the hurricane. It's easy to forget how bad many people have it, and how blessed we are. If you are motivated to do anything to help, here is a link to the Red Cross, and one to the LDS Philanthropies, where you can donate to multiple funds designed to help people around the world.

So Many Pictures, So Little Time

This seems to be a recurring pattern. Whenever we visit family, or have family visit, we take so many pictures that we have a hard time deciding which ones to use, and we end up not posting for a while. Here is a random smattering of some of our favorites.










We had a lot of fun on our marathon vacation, but are glad to be back in our quiet apartment for a little while.

An Inconvenient Truth

We were planning on going sledding on the mountain by Mike's parent's house, but there wasn't as much snow as we were hoping for. When we were younger we always used to go sledding and skiing by Thanksgiving, but now that never happens. We watched Al Gore's documentary on global warming with Mike's family, and figured out what the problem may be. We did end up playing in the backyard and Megan had a great time with her cousins in what little snow there was. Hopefully it will still snow in Utah when Megan gets older.

If At First You Don't Succeed

We had all the makings for a good family picture (an important event, a new haircut, well coordinated outfits, an attractive family, etc.) yet somehow we just couldn't seem to get it right. In this one Mike's sister (our photographer) said "I kind of cut your head off, is that ok?" Nope, it wasn't. Plus, Mike should have been crouching down by us.


We switched to a better position and tried again. In this one she said "I think you're kind of closing your eyes, is that ok?" No again. We tried for a third.


By this time Megan was getting a little tired of it all (and maybe just a little tired in general.)


So we tried a different pose. This final shot we got the coup de grace; bad lighting, Megan crying and blocking me entirely, Mike looking as stiff as a board, and my pasted on smile as I struggle to not go crazy.


Finally we gave up and tried again later in more comfortable clothes. What a cute family picture.

This is Why Mike Loves Utah

If you've never had the joy of experiencing the greatest snow on Earth (or if you've been stuck in Texas so long that you can't remember what it's like), check out this video. I had to film it with my poles in one hand and no glove on, so it is not too death defying. I did about have to amputate my frozen paw afterwards.





Me in the foreground, my dad and brother in the background. I've discovered that the beard is not ideal for skiing. What were all those mountain men thinking?


Me in the foreground, my dad and brother again in the background.


Megan is loving her first real encounter with snow, and we are so happy to be able to wear all the warm clothes that have been hiding in our closet in Austin.

An Early Start

Since we are leaving for Utah this week we thought that we'd celebrate Christmas a little early so that we wouldn't need to drag any more luggage through the airport than necessary. Here's a video of Megan playing with the kitchenette set that Grandma and Grandpa McFadden got her. She loves it. She keeps saying "I cooking."




She sure is cool.




At night we went to see the lights at Zilker park with the Abernathys (Mark, Monica, Yale and India). The city tried to stiff us $8 to park, but little did they count on us not having a dime to our names. They didn't take Mastercard either, so we parked about 7 miles away and hoofed it into the park. It's a good thing that Grandma and Grandpa Frost got us this carrier for Megan last year, we use it all the time.

Burnet Nativity

The good town of Burnet (about 45 minutes to the northwest of Austin) hosts an annual nativty reenactment the first two weekends in December. We went last year and had such a great time that we made sure to go again this year. Of course a cold snap hit as soon as December got here, so we had to break out Megan's new Christmas coat a little early.


It was actually nice to be out in the cold, bundled up. It made it seem like it really was Christmas time.


As you can see, the Burnetians are pretty serious about their nativity scene. Even though it is only two weekends a year they have constructed a permanent copy of downtown Bethlehem next to the grocery store. It is quite authentic, and there are volunteers dressed up as artisans, residents, thiefs, Roman soldiers, and craftsmen. It is all very crowded with the people participating and those who came to watch, which gives it an air of reality. I thought this camel must be freezing to death.


After the hustle and bustle of Bethlehem, you finish by walking quietly by the manger where Mary and Joseph had to stay.


And of course you get hot chocolate and cookies on the way out. It was a great way to kick off our Christmas season.

Christmas Time is Here

As soon as Thanksgiving ended, Kimmie was ready to put up the tree. I dug it out of storage and we got to work. Megan was out of control. She was so excited.



She helped Mom with a tangle in the lights.


And she put the star on top.


Megan also helped Mom make the gingerbread cookie ornaments (in her new warm pajamas now that the cold weather is here.)





Everything turned out great, although we have been avoiding making our usual popcorn strands (it hurts my fingers to push the needle through the popcorn. I think I need a thimble).