Back to Reality

Wow...the week just flew by. I can't believe that it is already Sunday and almost time to catch our flights home.

I personally started the morning asking the Lord for forgiveness for all the daiquiris I drank by going to mass at St. Louis Cathedral...LOL! Then met up with Jessica and Allison for brunch at the Court of Two Sisters...one of the best NOLA Brunch spots! YUM! We ran into Jan and Scott at brunch and caught up for a bit. Bruce and Lisa hit up another locale then headed off to do some last minute shopping. We took a walk around Jackson Square and checked out the local artists and saw some triathelets crossing the finish line. Then continued to walk our brunch off.

Late afternoon came too quickly and it was time to pick up the car, our luggage, and head to pick up Lisa and Bruce at their hotel...and off to the airport.

Our flights back to Omaha and Chicago were ontime, which is always nice. We were hoping to land before the nasty weather hit Chicago, unfortunately we landed in the "blizzard." Going from 80* to 30* in the same day is very painful! Not fun at all!

The experience of volunteering with Habitat for Humanity New Orleans was fabulous, even despite their disorganization. We all had the opportunity to learn new things and step outside of our normal day to day duties.

The fabulous volunteer group consisted of Jan & Scott Cohn, Rachel Lewis, Allison Mead, Bruce Moritz, Femi Okikiade, Brent Proulx, Lisa Tonjes, Shatisha Wilks, Sue Warmuskerken, and Jessica Zeiger.

We'd all like to thank our donors for their generosity and kindness! Without your support, this fabulous opportunity wouldn't be possible!

Till next year...

The Chicago & Omaha Jaycees

The end is near...

Our final Habitat work day. While exhausted, its still been such a fabulous experience that we hate for it to end. Today was beautiful, sunny, and warm.

We had a much smaller crew today because many of the South Carolina and Louisville people headed out this morning and 10 others went to Habitat Restore, only to find out they weren't needed.

More truss work was being done, and lots of caulking, patching, priming, and painting. There was still a ton to get done, but there was no way to finish it all. Guess we had to leave the next set of volunteers some work to do! :)

Femi, Bruce, Rachel, Jessica, Lisa, Sue, Allison

After our work shift the crew wanted to check out the Garden District because some had never been there. First we made a little pit stop at Fat Tuesday's for a gallon of daiquiri's before celebrating our final night in New Orleans.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was time to get ready for a night out on the town. We headed to Angeli's (the dude who owns the place is obsessed with Angelina Jolie). We headed to the Spotted Cat for some Jazz. Unfortunately it was Dixie Land Jazz night. We didn't stay too long. Then we went on a Pirate hunt...lol...didn't really need to hunt...the Pirates were everywhere!

Jessica, Sue, Random Pirate, Lisa Random Pirate chick, Allison, Rachel

We had tons of laughs and there's lots of ridiculous pictures. All in all it was a fabulous day!

I think its time to call it a night!

Sue

"I Hate Tourists"

We had the most amazing weather today. Clear, bright, sunny, and about 76*. We've suffered through such a long winter, its hard not to be excited about the weather! We also hit this awesome fruit cart on our way to the site this morning. Now if only we can locate the shaved ice lady...

Jan joined the crew today. We were all back on our tasks from the previous day, which was fine by me. It was fairly relaxing to prime and paint the outside of the house. There was more truss installing with the cutie pie assistant site leader. The contractors were also wrapping up the sheet rock job, which is great to see how far along two of the houses have come since we started on Tuesday.

Our main site leader is a bad communicator. He thinks all the volunteers read minds. He freaked out at 4 PM because people were wrapping up for the day and I guess he needed us to help till 4:30 and was upset that no one asked him if we could leave. Seriously? Maybe you should tell us we need to stay till 4:30 instead of 3:30...we don't have ESP and most of us would have been more than willing to stay late if you told us. He's a chain smoker, so he must have been going through cigarette withdrawl.

Jan and Scott are going to Habitat Restore on Saturday, which is a program where they resell items to gain funds to do more Habitat homes. Ace Hardware recently had a show here and they donated all the tools from the show to Habitat so they wouldn't have to ship them back to their headquarters. Very cool!

After our work day today, we headed to the houses that Shatisha, Allison, and I worked on last year. They look AWESOME! It was so exciting to see them completed. Then we headed to Musicians Village and the Lower 9th Ward for a little tour. We managed to stumble upon Brad Pitts project Make It Right. Those houses are too cool! When we were driving through Musicians Village we had the windows open and some little boy told his friends he "hates tourists"...lol. I felt better that at least we were in our own vehicle then on one of those silly tourist buses!

One of our houses from the 2008 trip

Musicians Village

Lower Ninth Ward Levee

This week has flown by...I can't believe that tomorrow is our last volunteer day.

Till tomorrow...
Sue

"They Won't Get Dirty..."

Famous last words when you're wearing brand new bright white running shoes in mud. Um Femi, we're doing construction!!! Who wears brand new shoes??? It's been raining quite a bit so things have been very wet and muddy this week.

Femi and his new shoes

Femi and Bruce joined the group today and we lost Brent. Needless to say with my writing above, Femi has been getting a ton of crap from us. Luckily he's taking it well!

Bruce, Jessica, and I worked on the trim for 1304. Scott painted siding all morning. Rachel of course was on the roof again...even after the storm started moving in and the site leaders told her to get off of it! Silly girl! Shatisha, Allison, and Lisa were working on trusses again. Femi started with soffit work, then he headed to help with the trusses.

Unfortunately a storm came through and we had to wrap up early today. Disappointing but it gave us a chance to hit Central Grocery before the "soup nazi"employees refuse to give you a muffuletta. We also hit the buy one get one free happy hour at Mango Mango. :)

Sue, Scott, and Allison taking shelter from the storm

For dinner we decided to head to the Garden District on the St. Charles Street Car. After waiting forever and a day for it to arrive, it finally came. Most of us headed to the back, but Allison and Femi were closer to the front. The popo pulled someone over in front of the trolley so the trolley driver stopped and turned off the power. Femi looks at Allison and asks "Do you think the streetcar ran out of gas?" hahaha! Another quote for the day! Anyway, we tried to go to Voodoo BBQ. Unfortunately, they were doing renovations so we totally missed out on awesome bbq :( We ended up at Cheesecake Bistro, which was good, but not as good as Voodoo BBQ.

Shatisha, Jessica, Rachel, Sue, Allison, Bruce, and Femi waiting for the St. Charles Street Car

After dinner we headed back to the Quarter, listened to an entertaining street band, then walked Bourbon Street, and most of the group picked up Mango Mango again. Bruce and Jessica went for the 32 ouncers! Then Bruce managed to scare a Pirate and send him running...LOL! (its Pyrate week here in NOLA...seriously!). He'll have to tell the story in person because it's much funnier!!!

Currently Bruce, Lisa, Jessica, Allison, and I are sitting in the hotel bar with the "friendly" ghost. Guess its time to call it a night...

Till Friday...
Sue

Blue Snot, Siding, and Trusses, Oh MY!

Wednesday brought MUCH cooler temps and more random jobs. We've come to a conclusion that there is too many people on the work site which is why we're doing so many random jobs right now.

First our site leader decided to tell us that the insulation we installed the day prior was contaminated and that we had to remove it all...WHAT??? April Fools...NICE!

A couple of us started the morning finishing the insulation in 1308 (hence the blue snot). A couple others were finishing the siding on the house, and the rest were up in 1312 working on the trusses. Rachel has been loving the roof, Scott wanted off the roof and we had two new additions...Jessica and Shatisha.

Scott and Rachel on the Roof

Brent, Jessica, and Sue helping relocate the Pump Jack

It was a pretty busy day, but we were able to get a lot done so that the drywall guys could come in and do their jobs.

We had a good fish filled dinner at Deanie's, I highly recommend if you travel to NOLA.

I'm exhausted, time to prepare for tomorrow!

Till Thursday...
Sue

Day One - Ferry Place

Back row: Brent, Sue, Lisa; Front row: Scott, Rachel, Allison

Our work site this year is by the river on the border of Orleans and Jefferson Parrish. We're working on Ferry Street, right next to some fairly busy train tracks. The street is mostly new construction, except for a few houses that need lots of repair.

We found out this morning that we don't need to be there till 8 AM each day and we'll work till about 3:30 or so. Our day started with the basics, safety, and who's working on which house, which was all based off of whether you're afraid of heights or not. Scott and Rachel were supposed to be siding the second floor of one house, well, I guess they did, but then they had to take it all apart because their house is crooked...OOPS! I also saw Brent up on the roof of another house...I think also doing siding, but I'm not entirely sure. Allison, Lisa and I were on another house doing a bunch of different tasks. Lisa and I rocked the circular saw for a bit to try it out, we did MUCH better than some of the other volunteers! Then I headed up to the roof to work on sheeting. Allison and Lisa were installing trusses on the second floor. We also did insulation on two houses...that was not the best task to have all the cottony stuff attacking you...most of us sneezed quite a bit!

There was a lot of moving around today and we did get rained on for a brief bit, and it is humid, humid, humid today...I forgot what humidity felt like!!! All in all it was a decent day.

I have pictures! Unfortunately I'm not only having internet issues, but I'm also having camera downloading issues. I'll try again later to add some photos.

Till later...

Sue

Landed!

We arrived without a hitch! Allison and I were the first to arrive so we headed over to our work site so that we wouldn't be trying to figure it out early Tuesday morning. The houses are two stories this year, and very colorful. We checked in around 2 PM to our humble abode for the week. Not nearly as eclectic as last year and the internet connection is worse, but I'll try to make do. So let me apologize in advance if there's a delay in our updates because it was a struggle to get on.

Rachel, Lisa, Scott, and Brent arrived a few hours after us so we all met up for dinner last night at Pierre something or other. We took a walk around the quarter to work off dinner so that we could head to Cafe Du Monde for some tasty treats. Lisa, Allison, and I ended the night with a trip to Mango Mango...pretty darn good daiquiris!


We start our hard work Tuesday at 7:45 AM...looking forward to seeing what we'll be working on! Till then...

Sue

One week out

I totally have ants in my pants. Maybe its the long winter, or just because the experience was so wonderful last year that I've been dying to go back.

I'm looking forward to enjoying this trip with Allison, Jan, Scott, Jessica, Femi, and Shatisha, and also our friends Rachel, Lisa, Brent, and Bruce, from the Omaha Jaycees.

Hopefully our hotel's wireless works so I can post to the blog...we've read some bad reviews from trip advisor...but I'm going to hope for the best!

Follow our volunteer experience here!

Take care,
Sue