A Christmas Holiday in 3 Parts - Act II

We spent the second week in the States in New Orleans. Now, NOLA holds a special place in our hearts. It's where some of our best friends live. It's where we spent the first 3 years of our marriage, where we worked in our first church, where we got our Masters Degrees, and where we developed our love for Mardi Gras.

Atlanta is home, but NOLA is special.

Jackson Square!

We made the long drive from Atlanta to NOLA, and reconnected with John and Lauren. They were the amazing friends that graciously let us live with them for the last almost 4 months that we lived in NOLA, after the seminary kicked us out of married housing and we had nowhere else to go. Since we've been gone, Trindon is almost 4, and a bit more calm than the crazy 2 year old we left in 2013. They have also added a fourth member to their family, Sweet Caroline, and they are all so precious to us.

Caroline!

Pretty sure there were some sappy girl tears
shed during the fireworks just before this!

A few days later, we met up with Matt and Elise, and did all the usuals: Pizza Delicious, Faubourg, Pearl Wine Co., New Years lighting things on fire on the Bayou, grilling and playing Mexican Train. We even legit sat around an entire day and just watched football. It was magical. We made our way into the French Quarter as well, and enjoyed balmy 75F/25C degree weather, wearing shorts and no socks... IN JANUARY.

It's so funny how different this was than what I expected. I thought everything would be different: our friends have moved on and made other close friends, our friends with kids have had MORE KIDS, everyone's growing up. But it was almost like we had never left. Our friendships are just as strong, we still laugh hysterically together about the same stuff, and we still love each other so much. I love this.

I'm always terrified of losing people. I'm awful at keeping in touch because my ADD brain only sees the people here now and what's going on right here. With the way technology is now, I can skype or facetime or facebook, or text, or tweet everyone in my life, and yet, I neglect this. I've always felt like I deserved to lose friendships because I'm so terrible, and yet, they continue to love me, and continue to put forth effort to keep in touch. This is huge and I can't even begin to describe how blessed I feel because of it.

This may look like Scotland, but don't let it fool you.
Those are Kentwood cows!

We spent our last day in Louisiana in Kentwood at The Lord's Church. I cannot tell you the amount of love that we have for this place. We relate so much of our Scotland lives to our Kentwood lives. Country people really are the same no matter where you are. And our TLC family loves us like no other. Over the years, we've heard so many horror stories about ministry work from people we've known through seminary and beyond. Church people are not always the best people to work with. But we were blessed to have an amazing church family, who loved us despite the fact that we were far away and that Clay threw their children into garbage cans and wrestled them to the ground. This place and these people are so special to us!


After church, we trucked it back up to Atlanta in Little Yaris. Only 1 week left to go!

Tom Maloney - a great boss who, despite his happy face in this photo,
was ready to go hunting and said he 'needed to go kill something.'

Carm