Catching up with the Ainges

Well, it seems like we slacked a little bit on the blogging while Adam and I were home for the summer. Mostly we just went to school and worked, but now we've left for our next adventure, so it seems that we have some catching up to do. First of all, for those who don't know still, we are expecting a baby boy on December 9th. We're having a little bit of a hard time picking out a name, but we are so excited for him to get here! Unfortunately, because of the prego situation, I won't be able to stay with Adam the whole time he's doing his internship, but given the current going-ons in New Orleans, I might be happy to leave early!

We left last Wednesday to come out, and moved in on Saturday as scheduled, but on Sunday we were told to evacuate because of Hurricane Isaac, so we packed up and now we're back in Texas. Turns out, being stranded in a hotel is worse than driving across the country. This drive was definitely a little less exciting than the one to Mass. The first day we mostly drove through Indian Reservations, which wasn't too much to see, but was kind of interesting. They have so much empty land that they don't seem to be doing anything with. Most of the residential areas were small mobile-home communities in the middle of nowhere, without any farms or livestock or anything around them, just empty desert. We also saw quite a few guys just walking down the side of the road half-dressed. Then we went to Four Corners, which is on the Navajo land, and was not exactly what I expected. The monument is surrounded by shopping booths where Navajos were selling jewelry and, you guessed it, Navajo Tacos.

The next day we drove to Oklahoma City. The route basically follows the old Route 66, so every time we pulled over somewhere we saw really cute old motels, diners and gas stations. We also saw a lot of run-down, closed-up buildings and billboards that had started to decay and fall apart. It was actually kind of sad to see all the businesses that no longer existed because of the new freeway, but it was really fun to see the ones that are still thriving. One of those is Pops, which is like a little diner/gift store. It's famous for the variety of bottled soda they offer, most of which I had never even heard of before, so of course we got some. Like my Mitt soda?

 We made a couple random stops on the way out just so we could get out of the car and walk around. This was at some historical old town just outside of Dallas. Adam really made himself at home.

We took another two days to get to our apartment in Kenner, LA. Once we left OK, the humidity really hit us. I've never really been somewhere so humid before. Even last semester on the East coast and even D.C. were nothing compared to the South. It just slaps you in the face every time you step outside. And the bugs, ugh. I don't know what kind they are, but we saw tons of these little guys mating everywhere! We'd pull over and they'd land all over the car. 

Driving through Louisiana was crazy. We were just driving on a normal road, with trees all over, and then, all of a sudden, we were in the middle of a swamp! And, we saw our first wild alligator! Too bad he was dead on the side of the highway.  Guess we still need to go on a swamp tour to see some live ones. We also saw quite a few smaller lizards, which made Adam really excited. They just crawl around outside our apartment, and we even spotted one in the chapel. Guess even lizards go to church in Louisiana. Our ward seems really nice, and we have a good mix of other students and locals with cool accents. It looks like a fun place to live, and we can't wait to leave Texas to get back there.