Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans??

This past week was full of emotion for New Orleanians.  Saturday August 29 was the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  

Just like every other family in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, my family lost everything.  

They were fortunate enough to be able to get out of the city before Katrina made landfall. 

 My father, who was a homicide detective in New Orleans at the time, had to stay. 

My mother, brother, aunt, uncle and 3 cousins all came to Tennessee where I was living at the time.  

They were all able to return to New Orleans about 3 months later to begin rebuilding their lives.

Over these past 10 years, my entire family was able to return home and rebuild. 

 Many of their homes are nicer now than they were before Katrina.  

I wish we could say the same about many parts of New Orleans. 

 Most of my family lives in the Gentilly area and they are still in need of basic necessities found in most neighborhoods in this country.  

It is disheartening that most people have to drive at least 15 minutes to get to a decent grocery store or to a restaurant.  

Don't even think about any quality shopping, unless you are looking for a Dollar store!

Even though New Orleans still has a way to go, it has improved tremendously since Katrina.

 It is plain to see that the folks running the city want it to look entirely different than it did pre-Katrina and for the most part that is a good thing.  

What isn't a good thing is how slow the progress has been and how only certain areas of the city are being revitalized.  

New Orleans is my home and if one day the stars all lined up correctly I would love more than anything to move my family back, but that is not something I can see happening in the near future.

I will continue to pray for my city to get back to the wonderful place we all know,  love 

AND MISS!!

Florida Fun!!

As soon as school let out for the summer we hit the road. This was my first time leaving Denver since we moved here last summer.  We flew to NOLA on a Friday night and Saturday morning my family of 4, my parents and my brother made the 4 hour drive to Destin, Florida.  

We rented a beautiful house in Miriamar Beach, right off of Scenic Highway 98.  The house was in a great location.  We were in walking distance to the beach, a short drive to restaurants and close lots of activities and shopping.  

In addition to enjoying lots of rest and relaxation, we ate A LOT!!  Living land locked in Colorado all I wanted was seafood so I definitely wanted to steam crabs.  They were delicious.  I also ate seafood at every restaurant we went to.  

One of the best restaurants we ate at was called the Surf Hut.  Not only was the food delicious, the service was awesome and the drinks were amazing. The restaurant was right on the beach so while you wait for a table you can spend time in the back playing corn hole, enjoying the view or having a drink. 

  

Beach Bucket Margarita :-) 

The view from the Surf Hut restaurant

This was the first time the 7 of us took a vacation together and we had WONDERFUL time.  Everyone hated to see our week to come to an end.   

 You can see from these pictures why Destin is part of the Emerald Coast.  The water is so clear and the beaches are sandy white.  

I've already started looking at the calendar to schedule our return visit next year :-). 

Where have you been????

It has been a while since I've written but these last 16 months have been a whirlwind for my family. At the beginning of 2014, Hubby was offered a wonderful position in Denver.  Even though Denver was not on our list of places to settle down, he could not pass up such a great offer. So, very reluctantly, we put our Texas home on the market and began the process of moving.  By the beginning of the summer we'd sold our home and were headed to Denver.

And the journey begins...

The view from my window as we drove from Texas to Colorado

When we first arrived we were leasing a home until we got the lay of the land.  When our lease was about up we bought a new home which we all LOVE!  July will be a full year for us in Denver and I must admit it was the best move for our family.  We have made so many new friends, our kids love their schools (and so do we) and you couldn't ask for better weather.  Even though I was not happy about moving, I am so grateful we did. I pray our family will live here for many years to come.

Now that we are all settled in and my life has returned to normal I will be able to share all of our fun adventures once again.

Renee