Our Anniversary!

Okay, so I've been REALLY bad about updating this the last few weeks. School is starting this week, and it feels like I've been through a drive through car wash (without the car). In fact, that's not just how I feel, it's how I look too. I need to go to bed early tonight. God has been so gracious though to give me a great new friend at work. Ashley loves Jesus as much as I do, and we are going to meet a couple times a week to pray. What a blessing! School starts tomorrow (Wednesday), and I'm excited to start a new year with new kids.

Mark and I celebrated our anniversary July 26th. We were careful to bring our camera and very soon realized that our camera was out of battery!!! We parked and walked to Irene's, a fantastic Italian restaurant in the French Quarter/Marigny area. When we got there, there was a wait, so Mark ran around looking for batteries. To make a long story short, he came back to the restaurant sweating with no batteries. For those of you who don't know, grocery stores/convenient stores are hard to come by in the Quarter. So...all that to say...I will tell you about our anniversary without pictures this time. :(

Back to Irene's. Irene's is a small Italian restaurant owned by a little Italian lady (named Irene - crazy! I know!) who runs around cooking, chatting, serving and laughing with the hundreds of guests that come through the restaurant. We waited for two hours to eat there, and it was worth the wait. The waiting area had candle lit tables, a piano player, and tons of people to watch. We sat at a cute table that was literally in a whole in the wall. (Very romantic!) We ate mussels, clams, shrimp in a red sauce over pasta, fresh bread, bread pudding, etc.

Afterward, Mark surprised me by taking me to the Marriot on Canal Blvd. where we stayed for the night. The next morning we had an appointment at the New Orleans Cooking School where we attended a cooking demonstration for traditional New Orleans food. Then, of course, we got to eat everything he cooked! Gumbo, Jambalaya, Bread Pudding, Pralines... YUMMM!

Later on, we went to see The Dark Knight (Batman movie) with some friends, which was a very depressing ending to a wonderful weekend! Ha! It's a pretty dark movie...no pun intended. :)

Anyway, that's a quick update. I'll try to be better about writing more often.