Back from New Orleans
Last November we went to New Orleans to help gut homes for a week. Less than a month later, we returned to stay for six months. Our role (through a non-profit organization) was to coordinate the 75-150 people that came each week from all over the country. They were broken up into work crews of 5-20 generally and we matched those teams up with work that needed to be done.
It was an awesome experience getting to do a small part in impacting thousands of people’s lives, helping them move forward once again. As hard as it is to believe, almost 10 months after Katrina, there are still thousands of homes that haven’t been touched. I just heard about an elderly gentleman from N.O. who ended up here in Rockford. Long story short, he hasn’t been back since Katrina and has no idea what the state of his house is. I’ll be returning soon for a week and have promised to go by and get pictures for him so he can see what is left.
Needless to say, we weren’t doing much in the way of work on our house in Rockford, IL. We were, however, helping my cousins (who live in the N.O. area) to fix up a house in our free time. It was a lot of fun and would have been great content (a 2800 sq. ft. 1960’s home that was getting a complete makeover) for blogging about, but we just didn’t have the time.
Anyway, we’re back now, getting settled back into life as it was and are getting ready to do a lot of work on the house in the next few months, so you can look forward to more posts in the near future.
Oh, I almost forgot! We found out five days after we got to LA in December that Danielle, my wife, is expecting. It’s a boy and she’s due August 14th. So, among other projects, we’ve gotta get the nursery ready, as well as a new guest room for visiting family and friends (since the old guest room will become the nursery).