The Babysitters Club

Follow-the-Leader

Raiyna

Mr. Belvedere

Howard and Sox in Party Hats

As mentioned in my previous post, Erica and David left on December 31 for Louisiana. They made it down to the Gulf with only a few minor car problems. They are staying in Baton Rouge and working in Baker, which is a suburb of Baton Rouge. They are about an hour away from New Orleans. They have been assigned to work at a supply depot filling orders for the local crews. Erica and Dave have both learned to drive fork lifts.

Southern Louisiana has been getting a lot of rain. In December, they received 10 inches. The December average is 5 inches. They seem to be in a cycle of getting rain about every three days. One day last week Erica said it poured all day which is very loud when you are working in a building with a metal roof. They even had two tornados about 40 miles away. Erica said they would have to outrun it if a tornado came because no one has basements. The water table is too high.

The warehouse has a stray cat the crew has adopted. Yesterday a large crawdad wandered into the building and got into a fight with the cat. Erica said she took pictures just for me. They have also sampled alligator which she said tastes like "chewy chicken".

Tomorrow, Erica and Dave are meeting friends and going into New Orleans to see the damage. Today, Erica said it is 75 and sunny but tomorrow it is suppossed to rain again. They have been told power has only been restored to about 25% of new Orleans.

We have managed to keep Mister Belvedere, Raiyna and Azu (Erica's beta fish) alive all week. I took some pictures of the dogs above. If you want to add captions to your own pictures like I did, visit bighugelabs.com.

In other news, Joel turned 21 on January 1 so we officially have three ADULT children. If you want to get in touch with Joel, his address is 2891 Route 22, Patterson, NY 12563. His cell phone number is (785) 969-7711 and his e-mail address is rockjwk@yahoo.com.

As always, we can be e-mailed at chogan2@cox.net.