Why I love Baton Rouge

Wow -- all the time I have new reasons to LOVE Baton Rouge.

For one, the food here is unbelieveable. I have not had a bad meal yet. We especially loved Boutin's, a cajun place with a dance floor and a live band; Sno's, which quite possibly has the best catfish I have EVER tasted (which is saying a lot from a girl from Kentucky!) and killer onion rings, gumbo, and some awesome potatoes (sorry Dr. Atkins!); The Cheescake Bistro, which had some killer cheescake desserts; and we have even found a little Chinese place we've taken a shine to for our obligatory Chinese-after-church outings. (The Hong Kong Restaurant in Murray is still the best -- no one makes won ton soup or chicken karba like Angela -- but Dynasty fills the void to a satisfying degree.)

For another, we found a church we really like right away. Lots of young families, like the preacher, good size...we're really comfortable there.

Also, the people here just cannot be beat. Seriously. Just today, I met the owner of the "Cheeburger Cheeburger" who happens to live in the same area south of BR that we do. She and I talked for like 30 minutes about pediatricians, gyms, preschools, and just about everything else a newcomer like me would want to know about. She was awesome and just so nice. THEN Will and I went to the mall. I was kind of beat, so I went to the Cafe Du Monde store and ordered a cafe au lait in a to-go travel cup. So I get ready to pay, and oops, they only take cash, and I had none. So I tell him to just forget it, that I'm sorry and I get ready to leave when the woman behind me in line says "I'll get it for you!" I was like "no, seriously, you don't have to do that!" and she was like, "yes I do. Jesus told me to! You're a tired mom, you wanted that coffee, now you take it!" I could have cried. I thanked her profusely and came away just feeling SO blessed!!! That is just the way people are here, though! It's a community that is generally quite educated and has lots of life. Lots of young families, and let me tell you, you get killer service at the restaurants here because they're college students, who I always find make the best waiters and waitresses, IMHO.

And today, Ben had a shrimp boil at work. That in and of itself is a reason to love it here. But wait. After he was done, he went up and asked the guys wh were dishin' it out if they had a box so he could bring home what he didn't finish to me. He said it was about six good-sized shrimp. The guys were like, "No! You ain't takin' those little thangs home to your wife! Here you go!" And the filled up an entire big to-go box with the little suckers. So today I ate shrimp that had been boiled, with the heads still on, in some sort of hot sauce concoction. It took some coaxing from Ben, but after he peeled the first few for me and I ate them, mmmmmhhmmmm, there was no going back! I was breakin' the heads off and peelin' 'em like a pro pretty soon! They were freaky looking, yes, but you sure can't see them once they're in you're mouth and they are GOOOOOOOOD!

I think this weekend we're gonna check out New Orleans, maybe the zoo, Children's museum, etc. Will said he wants to see elephants and turtles. I told him I thought that could be arranged.

Hopefully we'll have some pictures to post of it soon! Keep on the lookout and check back!

Will loves Ms. Myra, his teacher at Parkview Pre-School! (He is also fond of red suckers.) 

Getting into the Groove of Baton Rouge

Well, I gotta say, this is starting to feel like we can really make a life here.

I volunteered this morning at the Scholastic Book Fair at Parkview Pre-School and had a great time. I also FINALLY got a chance to get a picture of Will with his teacher, Ms. Myra, who he is really crazy about. He loves pre-school. I can tell his language skills are improving and his social skills are already just so much better. (Not that he was a social outcast or anything, but he is a lot better around kids his age instead of just older kids and adults, which was the case before.)

Well, we seem to have skirted this hurricane scare with Ivan, although he did return and dump some rain. We had a great time in Dallas running from Ivan, though. :-)

I am still looking for a job, and I have a couple of interviews over the next few days.

We are still loving it here, though, even though we feel like it is a nice, cool day when it's 80 degrees. We're feeling cramped in this apartment and are longing for a home...hopefully not too much longer for that.

Hope everyone reading is well!

A Busy Day...and where's "Ivan" now?

Well, our major accomplishment for today was that we scored an awesome preschool for Will. I had heard from several people that we needed to get Will on the waiting list for the Parkview school immediately if we were to get him in there. I called this morning and asked if I could put him on the wait list. After I gave the secretary all the info about his age, half day, etc., she told me that they actually had an opening! We were so pumped. So we went down there, signed him up, and he got to go see his classroom and meet his teacher.

They have a website: www.parkviewpreschool.com

It doesn't have just a ton of info on it, but you can check it out if you want to. Will's totally pumped, although I did discover today while buying his supplies that apparently Hurrican Ivan is a preschooler. You see, all the supermarkets here are out of gallon jugs of water, batteries, and 4-packs of Play-Doh brand play dough. Generic, yes. Play-Doh brand, which is specifically named on his list, no. Super Target? No. Super Wal-Mart? No. Home Depot and Lowes have huge signs posted that there is a limit on playwood and boards per person, but apparently the high-demand 4-packs of Play-Doh are seriously necessary and the shelves are bare.

Ben had a great first day at work and has a text beeper now, which I'm sure I will find incredibly useful.

Cable guys still haven't called.

That's it for today. Later, all.

Okay, so THIS is the one where Will found a box with his toys in it and decided he need to get up close and personal with his friends, so dearly missed during the past week... 

Still trying to get this photo thing to work...testing... 

 

Will found a box with his toys. 

Getting Settled into our new abode...

Well, we're a work in progress. The house is livable, and many boxes have been, quite literally, kicked to the curb. Many boxes, much wrapping wrapper, and one broken (dropped by me, Alyson) candleholder. Will's room, we have made sure, is somewhat of an oasis, since three-year-olds are not known for their ability to readily accept extreme change without some turmoil. He's been okay (aside from occasionally asking if the new apartment is a hotel...he must be wondering where the pool is...) and watching a lot of DVDs while we try and find the floor in each room.

We've had some problems, though. The main thing that is causing consternation is the lack of a cable outlet in the family room. Our townhouse is totally redone, and it was stripped down to the studs and renovated. Unfortunatly, whoever did this one apparently did not feel the need to make sure they didn't drywall over the cable outlet in the main room. So far, the first cable guy crawled all over the apartment, went into the attic, stepped on the fan/lightfixture that connects to the upstairs bathroom and cracks the plaster on the ceiling, then leaves us with a fuzzy picture on the lower channels. (He was, I think, trying to get out of dodge before we saw the bathroom ceiling. It worked. Live and learn.) So we alert our landlord, who calls the cable company and gives them the what-for, so they send out another guy. She says he's going to put an outlet in the family room -- he gets here and says, no, that's not what he does. So then we're like, okaaaaay, well, can you check out the ghosting and bad picture we're getting on the lower channels?

This leads to an extended mission on his part, which does incluse climbing the pole outside the townhouse in search onf one faulty wire. He finds it and says that the contractor (the original cable guy, you know, bigfoot) should've replaced this one wire. Cable guy #2 is quite perturbed at Bigfoot, and alerts me that he's alerted his manager, the contractor's company, and the contractor's manager. Oh, and he still can't get up a freakin' cable in the family room! But he can REFER us to Cox's "Apartment Maintenance Division" but that will take a few days. Ahhhh. Okay. So by Monday, we should have been contacted by Cox for the AMD to set up a "wall fish" for a cable wire in the family room ALONG with Bigfoot's company, the ill-fated contractor, who is supposed to fix his errors, including the near-disasterous foot in the fan.

Oh, well. We'll keep everyone posted. Here are some pictures.