We got engaged!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right, Brian proposed to me and I said YES!!!

It all happened the night before Valentine's Day.

He took me to dinner at Commander's Palace to celebrate Valentine's. After dinner, the waiter brought us two glasses of champagne. I asked Brian if he had ordered these for us and he said, well look at the bottom of the glass. Well there was a gorgeous radiant cut diamond ring with beggetts tied to the bottom of the glass with a red bow!! I was surprised and then Brian asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes!

We went back to my house, showed my family and then started making some phone calls. I had to stop calling people after I started waking people up.

The next day at work, Brian sent me THREE dozen red roses with a beautiful card. It was a great Valentine's...to say the least! ;)

We are extremely happy and excited. We are just trying to get our plans together for our wedding. It's a bit harder than I ever anticipated, but it'll all come together in the end.

You can view more pictures here from our engagement and I have also posted pictures from Mardi Gras here.

Christmas time again!

I was thinking back to my post from last year around this time and how sad we all were around here. I remember feeling like it was so unfair for everyone to be so happy about Christmas, when we were stuck in a FEMA trailer with a one foot Christmas tree on the table.

This year, we are in so much better spirits! All three of us were so excited to go get the Christmas tree. We didn't even hesitate to put up the lights on the outside of the house, which is usually a big pain the butt! We got it all done last weekend together and it is so nice to have the smell of Christmas back in our house again!

I am still passing tons of trailers around the city, and I can't help but wonder if those families are feeling like I did last year at this time. I'm sure they are, so my heart goes out to them, along with a prayer. They will have their day in their homes again, too.

I love so many things about this time of year and I especially love getting the mail everyday and seeing whose Christmas card we have received. The photo cards are so much fun. They are already filling up our refrigerator! It's so nice to see how everyone has grown and changed over the year.

Well, I hope everyone is having a very happy holiday season! The weather sure feels like Christmas around here...we were in the 20's this morning! Burrrrrr!!! Stay warm, enjoy these days and don't take one day for granted! I know I am enjoying it this year!!!!

Anniversary and Saints

Brian and I celebrated our official one-year anniversary of dating last weekend. We went out to eat Saturday night at Restaurant August. It is John Besh's restaurant. It was very nice. Then we met up with some friends and saw a show at Tipitina's.

On Sunday, we went to the Saints game again. It was an incredible game! We played the Philadelphia Eagles. We won the game with 3 seconds left on the clock. It was so exciting! We had a lot of fun. My mom and Ma'Ma' went with Uncle Malcolm and Pia, too. Their seats were near ours, so we got to hang out with them, also.

The Saints are doing really well this year. It is exactly what the doctor ordered for our city. Everyone is pumped up about the team this year. I have never seen The Saints play like this! We call them the Bizarreo Saints team. ;) I'm still kind of bummed out that Brian and I missed the big Monday Night game in the dome. Scott and all his friends went. Everyone that went is still talking about it. Here is a website that shows some pictures from it. It really was a night to remember for all of us, even those unfortunate ones who didn't go to the game.

Brian leaves on Tuesday to begin his new job. He will be in St. Louis for training for weeks. I don't know when he will be home again. I'm excited for him starting a new job, but I will miss him. I have gotten very used to him being in town since June. It has been really nice for both of us. Hopefully, this company will be a good move and will grow like he wants.

This weekend is supposed to be beautiful here. It turned cool late last night, after such a nasty, muggy, humid week we had here, so we are thrilled about that! Hopefully, we'll do something outdoors to enjoy the weather. Have a Happy Weekend!!! ;)

A Year Ago At This Time...

It's been a whole year now, since our lives were turned upside down, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. This week was a time for remembering everything that we have been through this past year. We have come a long way and things are getting back to "normal" for the most part. New Orleans is still not the same, but it's coming along and in time, hopefully it'll be better than before the storm.

It was also a year since I met Brian in Walt Disney World on the evacuation trip. My life has changed so much since Katrina...and for the better in many ways, thanks to Brian. We celebrated our "Meeting Day" anniversary this past week. We went to see the IMAX movie, Hurricane on the Bayou and had a nice dinner at Brigtsen's on Saturday. Brian really made it a great weekend. Our first date was not until October 15 of last year, but I think the day we met is a significant one as well. (To the right is a picture we took on Thursday--the anniversary of our meeting day.) :)

It's so hard to believe everything that has happened in the past year. We have had some very hard times and some great times. I have learned a lot from everything, especially not to take anything for granted and that material things don't matter. The most important things in life are family, friends and our health. I think we are all stronger people now and can survive even the toughest days that come our way. Now it's time to move forward, but we will always remember how our lives were changed a year ago at this time.

Vacation to Seattle, San Diego, Catalina and Disneyland

My Vacation has come to an end. I am back at work. But I had a great summer. I ended my summer with a big trip! I started in Seattle, WA for a workshop that my school sent me to. Seattle was very nice and the weather was great (cool and no rain). I went with another teacher from work and we really had a good time.

I flew out of Seattle and met Brian, Ben and Stephanie in Los Angeles. We drove that night to San Diego. We spent 2 days in San Diego. It is a great city. We went to the zoo, Coronado, La Jolla, Old Town and the Sea Port Village.

The next day, we went to Catalina Island. Wow! Was this place nice! It would be nice to go back and spend the whole weekend there one time. We rode tandem bikes around some of the island. This was a bit harder than we had bargained for. It took a lot of teamwork to balance the bike and to trust the person driving. Like I said, "If you want to get in a fight, rent a tandem bike!!" We didn't really "fight" too much; it just took some getting use to. We actually got much better as the day went on. We had drinks by the water and a nice sushi dinner. We left Catalina and drove back to LA (Anaheim) that night.

We went to Disneyland on the last day we were in California. I had never been to Disneyland. We had a great time. It is slightly different than Disneyworld. It is much smaller and much more compact; however, the weather was nice and cool and we found most of the lines were shorter. It was nice to visit the place where all the Disney magic started. We were there for a total of 14 hours! By hour 12, we were all beat! We had an awesome time!

You can view all the pictures from my trips here.

Hopefully this will be a good school year and I look forward to planning my next trip!!

The Summer is flying by!

Summer has come and is soon to be over, at least for me. It has been a good summer, but it is just flying by too fast.

Brian and I went on a big vacation a couple of weeks ago. We went to Chicago, Daytona and Orlando. It was a great trip!! We did so much! It was great to get away again.

Chicago was beautiful and we had great weather! It was even a bit cool, which was so nice, compared to here in NOLA! We went to a Chicago Cubs game, and toured the city for a couple of days.

We then flew to Orlando and drove to Daytona for the NASCAR Pepsi 400 race. It was awesome! It was Brian's first NASCAR race and he loved it!

Then we drove back to Orlando and spent some days there. I got to see my niece Megan again, so that was exciting! We just took it easy while in Orlando. We didn't do the Disney theme parks, but we did do a water park there, Blizzard Beach and we ate dinner one night at the Yacht and Beach Club resort. We also got to hang out with Glenn and Tammy and go swimming at their house. It was fun and relaxing. You can view all the pictures from the trip(s) here.

I leave again the first week in August for Seattle, WA for a workshop for work. Then I am flying to meet Brian and another couple and we are going to spend a few days in San Diego and a day at Disneyland. I'm looking forward to that trip. I have never been to any of those places, so it should be fun.

I get back on Aug. 8th from all of that and I start work again on Aug. 9th!!!!! It'll be tough to go back to work, but I can't complain, it has been great to be off and to be able to travel as much as I did. I'll post pictures from the next trip when I return.

Enjoy the rest of the summer!!! It sure is a HOT one! I'm looking forward to the fall!! ;)

Back in the house, festivals, and Orlando trip

It's been a while since I have posted. A lot has been happening since my last post.

We are now officially in our house!! It's great! We have gotten more furniture and are now settled in. At first, it seemed very strange to live here again, but after about a week, it was like we never had left. Now, we have a brand new house! I have pictures on our website of the house from when we evacuated Metairie on Aug. 28, 2005 through now. It's amazing to see what this house and we have been through the past 8 1/2months. You can view pictures here. The most recent pictures are on page 4.

The past month was filled with festivals in New Orleans. We went to the French Quarter Festival and the Jazz and Heritage Festival. Both were really fun and the crowds were good. It was so nice to see so many people out and about the city for these two fests. Everyone seemed to enjoy them and I think we needed both of them. I have some pictures from the fests located here.

Last weekend, we traveled back to Orlando for my niece's 1st birthday! (and it wasn't an evacuation trip to Orlando this time--thank God.) I can't believe she is one year old already. My mom, Scott, Brian and I flew down there to celebrate. We even ended up going to Walt Disney World for 2 of the days and managed to go to all 4 parks. I had never been to Animal Kingdom. It was pretty good. They have a new ride there, Expedition Everest, which was awesome! We rode it two times in a row. We did a little bit in all of the parks and it was incredible weather last weekend, so it was extra nice.

Megan's party was really fun. Glenn and Tammy did a great job! They had lots of food, drinks, and great company. Megan seemed to have a good time, too! She was really cute with her presents and eating her cake. It was awesome to spend time with her. She is just beautiful and so much fun. You can see all the pictures from the weekend here. I wish I was there again this weekend!!

School is almost finished for the year--thank God! And what a year it's been! The month of May is always so hectic with the paper work and tying all the loose ends up that I'm beginning to feel the heat. I'm just ready to be out for the summer. I can't wait to go swimming and hang out at the club and not have too much to worry about! In two weeks, I'll be done with work. Then, I'm going to the beach with my girlfriends as soon as I get out of work on that last day. I have been "craving" a beach trip with the girls, so I hope its fun.

Well, that's about all that's going on around here. Continue to pray for all of the New Orleanians. There is still so much more that has to be done around here and hurricane season starts in two weeks again. I just pray that we are spared, especially, this year. I don't think we can handle another hurricane this soon after all we have been through.