Family Reunion and Parking Lot Pie.

This weekend we are having our annual Hebert Family Reunion. Okay, for all you non cajun people reading this, my last name is pronounced A-Bear. We had our first reunion about 15 years ago. Its really great to see all the aunts and uncles and cousins every year. Last year was the first one without my Grandmother. She passed away in March of 05. My uncle passed away this June, so its really important to keep the tradition going. My dad will be seventy this year and he is the baby. We are a small family just my dad and his brother and sister and all the cousins, mostly boys, and their children. My grandfather is still alive and healthy at 93, but he is beginning to show signs of Alzheimers. I have the pleasure of providing a homemade dessert for the entire crew. Everyone brings something. My tradition has become something my dad calls Parking Lot Pie. I know, I know, you are all wondering "What the Heck is Parking Lot Pie???", well let me tell you the story about parking lot pie. I make a fantastic Coconut Cream Pie, if I do say so myself. Anyway, for one reunion about 7 or 8 years ago, I decided to make this creamy creation. I prepared the crusts the day before, got up early on the Sunday morning and made not 1 but 2 pies. Two perfectly set up custard pies with two perfectly peaked meringue toppings that had been browned to perfection. (My my how time and memories can make all things perfect, LOL). Okay, so I place my two perfectly made pies in pizza pans to transport them the 30 miles to Kaplan. It should have been an easy feat for any man. Your wife just slaved over the stove to create desserts that will proclaim to the rest of the family that she can bake. The first rule is to take care while driving. Okay, I place one pie on its pizza pan at my feet, and decided to carry the other one on my lap. My children and husband, as usual, are running behind schedule, so when we finally get everyone loaded up and the pies safely placed on MY SIDE OF THE VEHICLE and my dear Russell, who is, of course, aggravated because THE BOYS made us run late, backs out of our drive and jerks the wheel to take off down the road. What happens next was not pretty for anyone in that vehicle. My pie on the floorboard slides into my leg. Ruined, do you hear, R. U. I. N. E. D!!! Now I'm the one who is pissed, so pissed I can't even talk. I had to get out of the vehicle and scrap meringue off my damn leg. Well at least the pie in my hand survived and honestly the one at my feet was edible, just not very pretty. My husband is still mad, but now is trying not to laugh also. I am sure if you would ask my children that was the longest 30 minute trip they ever took. But this isn't over, do you think my dear husband learned anything from this disaster, NO, he continued to drive like a bat out of hell, jerking the wheel the whole way there. He also continued to slosh pie onto my legs as well as managed to mess up the one on my lap. I'm soo mad I'm still not taking to him. He pulls into the only grocery store in the town of Kaplan, Louisiana, to purchase some store bought brownies to supplement what was slosh all over my legs with his erratic driving. I'm boiling by this time. As he calmly strolls into the store, I very very calmly roll my window down and pitch that f'ing pie right out of the window. There was a lady walking by as that pie went sailing out of the window whose jaw just dropped. She stopped dead in her tracks to watch this pie land in the parking lot. I immediately felt much better. We drove the last 5 minutes to the farm in dead silence. My children are very perceptive and knew better than to comment. I walked into the kitchen with one pie whose custard was spilling over the edges of the pan and whose meringue had spots remove from being stuck to my arm. Well within about 3 minutes of us arriving at the reunion, my husband had informed everyone, well out of my range of hearing, about our pie adventure. So my dad now requests Parking Lot Pie every year and I gladly make them every year and have even learned to laugh with the rest of the family as they all oooh and aahhh over my perfect pies.

I feel like I have died and gone to.....

Well let's just say that our heat index has been over 100 degrees and with this humidity its sticky sweaty. I hate this time of year. You can never take enough clothes off to get cool. My favorite time of year is just around the corner though, I love the fall, the changing leaves, even though we only have a few trees that actually change leaves. I love sitting on the home side a the football games, and cool crisp autumn mornings in my yard but for now, I must endure the heat. Here are some pictures of my heat wilted flowers. They are from earlier this month. I took these rose pictures early one morning and this is the way they turned out. I don't know what the setting was on my camera.

We trimmed some branches out of a couple of trees this summer before a hurricane came through and blew them over for us. I took the opportunity to get in the man lift and take some aerial shots of my house. It looks so different from up there.

My Roses

My Roses - The Birthday Garden for this year.

I love roses. I have been growing roses since I was a teenager. My paternal grandmother grew roses. She had the most beautiful rose garden. She had roses with such names as Mr. Lincoln, Tropicana, Dolly Parton, Peace, and Lynn Anderson. There were red roses, white roses, yellow and orange ones. When I was about 16 I told my mom I wanted a rose garden and she talked my dad into making us one. We had about 6 rose bushes. They were not as pretty has my grandmothers, but they were mine.

All Abloom

When I got married, I made my very first just for me rose garden. I had three bushes that I cared for. Over the next 28 years I have lived in about 8 different homes and have had rose gardens at each one. When we moved into our present home, Russ made four rose gardens for me. There were already roses along one side of the house when we bought it. For my 43rd birthday he layed out a birthday garden for me. I planted six roses there. Then last year he layed out a more formal garden which is now home to 15 bushes. All together I have over 50 bushes. It's alot to care for but, he has become as enamored by them as I have and he helps. I love to walk around my yard and smell the roses. I also enjoy watching the birds that visit.

A garden friend

The view off my back patio

More Garden Friends

More Katrina Pictures

Apparently, you can only add five photos per blog. Here are the rest of the pictures, which I know are posted first, but hey, its the program. This is either on the University campus or the VA hospital Campus, can't remember I'm not sure what this is, if its an evacuee housing center or a worker housing center. But as you can see, its storage buildings like you would buy at Home Depot or Lowes, that they have outfitted into room.

The kitchen area in that same housing facility. This is across from the beach.

This was a covered pavilion right on the beach.

A church across from the beach, again the whole bottom floor was gutted by the wall of water.

More pictures of the Coast

More pictures from the Mississippi Coast This is across the street from the beach.

A home with the first floor washed away.

If I remember correctly, this was on the university campus.

How high the water rose. This house was about 4 blocks from the beach. See the blue roof, I wish I had stock in that company. After both storms, Katrina and Rita, that was all you saw. Blue tarped rooftops. A year later and you still see many homes who never had their roofs fixed.

Another building on campus

Biloxi Weekend

I am finally getting around to posting pictures of our trip to the Mississippi Coast lat weekend. Here are a few landmarks that were forever altered by Katrina's Tidal Surge. The first Picture is of the Famous Sharkhead Souvenir Shop As you can see, the whole bottom floor of this shop was washed away. You can also tell that it stands alone on the beach. Two years ago, there were businesses on either side. This is a picture of cars there were in a parking lot at a Casino two blocks off the coast on the bay side. That's also a picture of a FEMA trailer in the background Another Souvenir Shop that's been around for as long as I can remember This boat was washed ashore during Hurricane Camille in 1969. The city left it there and built around it. If I remember correctly there use to be a gift shop attached to this. Having trouble loading additional pictures. I'll post this one and add more.

Summer is Over

Summer is over for me. I report at school at 7:00 am today. Were did all the time go. Oh well, it will be fine once I get back into the swing of things. I do have pictures, but will have to post them this afternoon. We left for a short overnight trip to the Mississippi coast this weekend. It was our first time there since Hurricane Katrina pushed a 30 foot wall of water into its shores. There are still two bridges out. The beach front is gone, there is nothing left. The beaches are still closed, debris just under the surface of the water. Hotels are starting to be rebuilt. Still no resturants or gas stations. We saw several FEMA parks. Cruisin the Coast, which is an antique car rally has been held on the Mississippi Coast for the past ten years. Last year, of course, it was cancelled but we got notice in mail that it is on for this year. This is what prompted our visit. We will be going. I just hope others will also. There are usually 6 to 8 thousand antique cars curisin the beachfront boulevard, we will have to wait to see how many show up this year. Sunday morning, on our way back home, took I-10 through New Orleans. This stretch of interstate goes through New Orleans East, which took a major beating from Katrina. Now understand we did not get off the interstate. It is much to dangerous still in some parts of New Orleans. Anyway, what we saw was heartbreaking, apartment buildings with all the window busted out. No walls on the bottom two stories. Whole shopping centers still closed. Homes with Help painted on the roofs. The waterline on some of the interstate overpasses reaches about 7 feet up. Its like looking at pictures of a war torn country on TV. There are signs of rebuilding as you move closer to the western side of New Orlenans, in the western suburbs from what we could see from the highway, things are getting back to normal, but still, we will not be making day trips there anytime soon. Well its 5:30 in the morning. Time to get ready for work. Will post pictures this afternoon.

The End is Near

My summer break is over in 5 days. I am soooo bummed out about that. I have totally enjoyed the break. I played nursemaid all day yesterday. My 6'5" husband was down with a stomach virus. He was soooo miserable. I felt sorry for him. It started Sunday night, and at 6:00 last night he was still experiencing nausea and vomiting. Poor thing, I hope he is better today. I also hope its not contagious. I have been sleeping in the Sun Room on our day bed for the past two nights, hope it is enough. I took up scrapbooking this summer. I have gone to three technique classes so far and have two more on the calendar for August. One is this Thursday, most of the classes are less than 20 dollars. I am trying to put together a Heritage Album for Russ for his birthday. Want to match a name to a face. Well here I am, all dressed up and no place to go.

Russ and I before the Mardi Gras Ball this past January

Here is a picture of our antique car

Today, I plan on scraping a bit more and also going through my therapy supplies to see what I need to start the year. Sounds exciting huh.

Here is another garden shot from this week.

Gator's Pride

The Monday Blues

We've got the Monday Blues at my house. My hubby must have a stomach virus, he's been hugging a trash can since about 9:00 pm last night. My 20 year old came in at 1:00 am saying he felt like crap, achy all over. Me and the Dog slept in the sun room on the day bed, last thing I need is to get sick my last week of summer vacation. My 15 soon to be 16 year old hasn't complained yet, so I'm keeping us away from the other two today. And if all of that wasn't enough, my Coffee Pot fizzled out on me this morning. I guess the heating element fried out. No hot coffee. ARGH, I need my coffee. I think I will take on the task of teaching Matt to drive a stick shift today. Practice on our street. We live on a cul - de - sac. I just need him to figure out how to release that clutch to get yourself going first. Then I will take him to the Campus Football Stadium (Cajun Field) and turn him loose to learn to shift. That's what I did with my oldest when he learned. Wide open spaces, without any other cars around. Heck, that's where I learned to drive my three speed on the column 62 Mercury Comet back in the 70's. Got some new pictures of the Grandbaby to show off.

His first spoon feeding. I remember those days with my own.

And Another

This is a shot our our native iris, its called the Louisiana Blue Iris.