Strange things lurking in the night

This evening when Jordan and I returned from Bible study the sun was already down so the backyard was pitch black. We were walking up the stairs to our back door...me in front and Jordan behind me and we were busy talking when I caught something out of the corner of my eye that moved at the top of the steps. It scared me so I yelped pretty loud. Jordan just thought I was being scared easily. When I reached the top of the stairs I could see what it was and found it (a black cat with white paws) clawing at the railing of our deck trying to get out. I think my yelp scared him more than he startled me. Just as soon as I stepped back from the stairs the cat made a break for it speeding past Jordan and disappearing down the stairs into the night.

I need to find out what is attracting the cat to our patio because the other day when Jordan was pulling in our plants to protect them from possible freeze in the night the same cat snuck up the stairs and surprised him. He is a very skiddish cat though because he was pretty frantic after being discovered to get off the porch ASAP.

Do cats eat gecko's? If so we might have to keep him around to keep those creepy things away.

Weekend Update

This past weekend my parents passed through after their week of traveling to Tennessee and Georgia visiting family and friends. They stayed with us Friday and Saturday evening so we shopped at the Redstick Market on Saturday morning and then relaxed at home watching Texas Tech beat up on the Kansas Jayhawks. GO TECH!!! I am really looking forward to their face off with University of Texas this coming weekend. Hopefully we will keep up the winning streak.
After the game we went to New Orleans to eat at our favorite little bar that serves BBQ Shrimp Po-boys and visited my Dad's best friend's family before heading back.
On Sunday we bought our Louisiana fishing liscense and Jordan went fishing that afternoon near the capital. He got a new open reel fishing pole for his birthday so he was anxious to try it out. He said he got a few bites, but he wasn't so sure that they were fish. They felt more like turtles. That evening we joined the Earl K Long emergency residents at P.F. Changs for a resident/spouse dinner.
Tonight we are hosting our first interview dinner. One of the medical students that is interviewing with the Family Residency program will come to our house this evening for dinner so I am busy planning the menu, cleaning house, and shopping for the food today. Jordan and I are looking forward to meeting her and telling her all out the program.

Costumes and Corn chips

Jordan and I attended our Sunday school costume party last night. We had Frito pies and lots of great finger snacks provided by each couple. It was a great time getting to know the couples outside of the Sunday school setting and seeing their creativity in their costumes. Some of our friends had some really great ideas.

I have to confess I took a different man to the party last night. Some of you may know him as NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. Jordan was hilarious from head to toe. He was complete with the curly fro, old school glasses, out of date jeans and moon boots. I accompanied him as Deb (the girl in the movie that he had a little crush on). I even took my camera and offered free photography by "Deb's Glamour Shots". I have included a few photographs I took.


Napoleon Dynamite and Deb

Michelle and Lance as Bonnie and Clyde. Check out those guns.

Ashley and Chad as Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley in the Chippendale SNL skit. Hilarious....they even did the dance.

Here is the whole gang.

Happy Birthday Jordan

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JORDAN

This weekend we celebrated Jordan's birthday. We left on Friday evening for Natchez, MS and more specificially the Natchez State Park. When we arrived we found that the park had no vacancies except the primitive camping area. In English that means no water or electricity and distant showers in another camping area.

The first night was great...a bit chilly, but very cool. Jordan made a fire for us and then we cuddled up in our tent. Saturday morning after hitting the warm showers down the road we went to the Mississippi River Annual Balloon Race Festival. The festival was somewhat of a bust but the downtown of Natchez is super cute and we hit up the Cock of the Walk for a steak dinner and flippin' cornbread. Since we were at the balloon festival of course we had to see the balloons take off for their evening race over the Mississippi. That was beautiful. They are so colorful they just light up the sky.

On Sunday after sleeping in and having a pancake breakfast cooked on the propane stove we headed back south....but just before leaving the campsite Jordan was loading the car and stops in mid load and says "I lost my ring"....ring =wedding ring. Uh Oh! The search began.....and continued as we paced over the campsite turning over leaves and looking under the car. After being unsuccessful in the search we began to unpack the car so first we pulled the tent back out...no such luck. Next Jordan suggested we take the air mattress back out and behold....the ring was in the bottom of the duffle bag. What a relief for both of us.....it is definetly time to get that thing made smaller. You should ask him about the time we disassembled Jordan's trunk because his ring came off when he was changing his tail light!!!

Anywho...Sunday after a very eventful adventure lead by our GPS system we explored the Clark Creek Natural Area where there are suppose to be waterfalls of which we only found one very tiny one...I'm not even sure that it can be called a waterfall but more like a trickle of water over a rock. We were a little short on time to hike around more because of the GPS adventure, but maybe next time we will find the real waterfall.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend. Enjoy!

The Southern most point of Louisiana and back in one day...

It's true. You can get to any part of Louisiana within a days drive and for most parts of the state you can go and come back in one day. It's definitely not Texas where you spend a whole day driving just to get to the other side of the state.

This weekend my parents came to visit and we attended my Dad's high school reunion (class of 1962). He graduated from a tiny town in south Louisiana called Buras. He and my Grandparents moved there from northern Louisiana so that my Pappaw could work for Chevron.

Wait....I should preface this weekend story with the fact that I had my wisdom teeth pulled on Friday (#1 and #32 to be exact). Not a good idea to schedule this before my parents came in. Somehow Amoxicillian, pain medicine and driving in the car for an 1 1/2 hours do not make a good combination. By the time we arrived at the park where the reunion was being held I quickly exited the car, found a nice patch of grass, and that's right you guessed it .....puked! After that things were much better.

After the actual reunion and lunch we took a stroll with my Dad down memory lane as we drove to the southern most point of Louisiana just past the Chevron plant that my Pappaw worked at. Well he actually just went in and out of there on boats as he worked with the off shore drilling guys. This area of Louisiana was hit extremely hard by Hurricane Katrina and many of the residents and businesses have not returned, so the reminiscing down memory lane mainly consisted of my dad saying, "right about here...". It was sad actually to see how was missing. We did however get to see the high school that my dad attended, but now due to hurricane damage is a condemned building.

After the trip down memory lane we stopped off in Bellechase, LA to visit a very old family friend, Mrs. Desell. She lived across the road with her husband and three children during my Dad's high school days in Buras so she had a story or two to share about my Dad and his mischievousness with automobiles.....all i have to say is a car with a parachute tied to the back were involved in that story. I wish I would have heard these stories before my high school days. I might have reminded him of those times when I was getting into trouble.

Here are some fun photos of my Dad in high school...The bottom photo is of my Dad chatting it up with some old high school classmates...my how they have changed.

Welcoming the Fall Season

This past weekend we invited a few friends over for an impromptu pumpkin carving. Circumstances happened and it ended up that only one of our friends showed up, but we had a great time carving and visiting. We discovered that Jordan has a hidden talent for carving pumpkins. His pumpkin is the one with the cat carved in it. It's amazing. He just sketched it out and went to town carving. I guess if this doctor thing ever falls through he could take up pumpkin art. Other than our pumpkin carving on the weekends we are diligently looking for new living room furniture. Our challenge is just agreeing on style since we figure we will have this new furniture for as long as I had the previous set and 10 years is a long time to live with a piece of furniture. I think we are also expecting some unrealistic things from this new set of furniture. Oh well the journey continues to find the perfect set.

We are getting a new roof today so I am working around the house to the sound of the guys banging on the room and at times I do believe it sounds like they are falling though the roof. I usually do my quiet time on our patio in the mornings so I attempted that today for about 10 minutes and then realized the possibility of getting a nail or piece of tar thrown at me the way they were moving to remove all the old roof. They arrived at 8:15 this morning and they have already started laying the new tar paper and hammering down the new shingles. These guys don't play around. It is much louder inside the house, but I feel somewhat safer.

A day at the Louisiana Medical Society Alliance Convention

Today I joined the LMSA at their mid-year meeting/convention. The alliance works alongside the Louisiana Medical Society to promote the medical profession, health. The physicians belong to the LMS and the spouses of physicians join the LMSA which is all the state level of the American Medical Association. Anywho....I don't want to bore you with the details of the organizations but when we lived in Fort Worth for med school I was active with the AMA on the local, state and national level through Jordan's medical school spouse organization and found it to be very rewarding being active in the medical community as well as building some life long friendships. Some of our closest med school friends are a result of our activity with the SAA in Jordan's first couple of years of med school.
So, back to today...I am very excited about jumping in and getting involved. The alliance has some wonderful things that they put on throughout the year as well as causes they promote. In fact the council of legislation particularly caught my eye. I find all the bills dealing with health care fascinating and getting to be a part of some of those decisions would be super cool! I can see it now the Dawn bill and then the Dawn law.....totally joking. During lunch today Louisiana State Senator, Dr. Bill Cassidy (yes he is a physician) spoke to us and then entertained questions. He is currently running for Congress so it was neat to hear his take on things and if you know one thing about Louisiana it should be that everyone talks politics here. Interesting huh? It seems no matter where we go someone brings up the topic of politics and particularly state politics. Apparently the local elections around here are quite entertaining.
Dr. Bill Cassidy's speech during lunch was also cool because he mentioned Senator Gerald Long and my thought was, "Hey I know that guy" why you ask....because he is our friend Richard's dad and he is a cool dude. we met him this past weekend.
Beyond the meeting and Dr. Cassidy's speech at lunch I have to brag on the ladies that I met a the meeting today. They were all so welcoming and made you feel just right at home. Maybe I will make some friends for life in the alliance here too.
Thanks for reading my randomness :)

The Number One Haunted House in the US of A

According to the travel channel the Myrtles Plantation is the number one haunted house in America. Jordan and I decided to check it out this past Saturday since it is only about 30 miles north of us. The Myrtle Plantation is located in the quaint town of St. Francisville where the streets are lined with large oak tress and historical houses alongside adorable antique shops and bed and breakfast. It would be a great weekend getaway. Surrounding St. Francisville are several Plantation homes that are open for tours. We chose to make reservations for the mystery tour at they Myrtles Plantation. The tour kicked off at 7pm in order for things could be extra scary so we spent the afternoon walking around the town looking at the old historical homes. The visitor bureau offered a walking tour that you could do on your own.

They provided us with a map and detailed information about each home. So, I became the tour guide reading as we walked. That is a difficult task walking, reading, looking, and breathing as we rounded the streets and the hill.

This is my dream house....I think Jordan should become a family doc in St. Francisville because I love the selection of houses and the peacefullness in the streets.--->

The Mystery Tour...the story behind the haunting of the plantation is that back when slaves worked the fields of the plantation there was one young slave girl named Chloe and she was the owners mistress as well as the housekeeper. She misbehaved the owner one time and she was put out in the fields to work with the other slaves. In her effort to regain work in the house she baked a birthday cake for the owners children and laced it with a poisonous plant. She thought it would be just enough to make the children sick, but she put a bit much in the cake and it ended up killing all of the children. When it was discovered what she had done she was hung in one of the big oak trees in the front yard. When she was pronounced dead they weighted her body and put her in the Mississippi river. The story says that she haunts the house as well as the children and some confederate soldiers that also died on the premises.

On the tour of the house the guide told us the history of the family and architecture of the house as well as different events that took place in each room. She said that guest that stay in the house today claim that they hear the piano (that has broken keys) play at night and walking around and moving of objects as well an old grandfather clock ringing (is has no moving parts). Crazzy! They had pictures that showed shadows that they claim are of the ghost. It was amazing to Jordan and I how many people on the tour were really buying all this. it was fun for us though. We joked around and thought how funny it would be to start playing the piano in the hall when everyone else moved to the next room. we even played along and took the pictures when they said to see if we could capture one of these ghost in our photographs and become famous. Here is one taken in front of a mirror that they said sometimes reveals a confederate soldier in the back of the person. If you look really close you can see a ghost in a green polo standing behind me. Oh! wait that's Jordan. Ha Ha!

I think I see the same ghost behind the statue----------------->

The plantation also had several black cats wandering around and a bounty of moss growing on the trees that added to the spooky feel of the place.

The plantation was beautiful and had some really neat architecture and history behind it, but the mystery stuff is a bit silly if you ask us.