WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE...

As anyone who knows Jessica Gautreaux knows...a lot of her clothing and belongings seem to be purple and gold. For anyone who has ever asked her..why all the purple and gold?, she would have told you that those are the colours of the LSU Tigers football team. The LSU Tigers happen to be just about the best college football team out there and Jessica is from Louisiana and she even went to school there. Her mom and dad also went to school there and it seems to be that they could all be classified as LSU fans. As you've read in previous posts, I've always has a fascination with American football and how big  deal it is...because it seems like something only from the movies. Ever since I met Jessica I have always been especially fascinated by this place called LSU and there seemingly intense obsession with football! In fact it has been a life long dream of mine to someday go to and LSU game. I kind of figured it would never happen because its really hard to get tickets and because it's not often I go to Baton Rouge...but the Lord has smiled me through the hands of Mr. Gautreaux.
So it was the Friday after Thanksgiving and Mr. and Mrs Gautreaux and myself where all dressed in purple and gold and we were driving to Baton Rouge and I was only hours away from attending my first and probably only LSU game.....Ohh the EXCITEMENT!
When we arrived it was like a football fan city with cars parked on everyone's lawns and tents with huge TV's and satellites hooked up with thousands of people camped out waiting for the game to begin. We got there hours before the game started and it seemed like we were the last ones to get there...haha!
So once we parked and found our tailgating area....here is what I found:

After we watched the band march into the stadium, some delicious eating and a tour of the beautiful oak tree covered campus with Mrs Gautreaux we made our way inside.
This game was a REALLY Big deal apparently and the second largest crowd ever in this stadium turned out to watch it. That's 93,000 plus people!!!!! It is the loudest crowd by far I've ever been in!
LSU was playing Arkansas and they have so far been undefeated. Pretty early in the game Arkansas scores two touchdowns..and things began to seem bleak...but I'll let you watch the video to see how it all turned out! Also this stadium had the best fans ever, with lots of cheers and dance moves all in unison with young and old participating! So check out me living my dream:
GEAUX TIGERS

It was such a great game. It was so exciting to see the Tiger's come from behind and then kill Arkansas! Besides the great football action all the all you can eat gumbo, cookies and ice cream where we were sitting didn't make the game experience any less pleasant! haha! Also Props to Josh, Jessica's brother who sat with me at the game and explained all the LSU traditions to me :)

So to conclude my posts on my visit to Louisiana I would just like to say a big Thank YOU, to Jessica for bringing me to visit her family and Mr. and Mrs Gautreaux for taking me to my first LSU game. Without hanging out with them I'm sure the experience would have been only half of what it was meant to be. :)

Thanksgiving in Louisiana!!

Welcome to Garyville, Louisiana, home of the Gautreaux Family!
I was very priviledged to spend my second ever American Thanksgiving with the Gautreaux (and Hitt) family. Mr. and Mrs Gautreaux were super kind to me my whole visit and let me be apart of all their family Thanksgiving fun! Another wonderful thing about Thanksgiving is that it was warm....like t-shirt and shorts warm! I just don't know how I can go back to Canada after having it be this warm at the end of November. Here is a little view of what the weather and landscape was like:

Below is a sample of the delicious Thanksgiving Dinner which I had. This year thanksgiving was at Jessica's aunts house, which is her mom's side of the family (the Hitt's). Thanksgiving was super exciting because pretty much everything on my plate was food that I had never eaten before and it was all SOOOOO good! They certainly know how to cook down here. I also learned since being in the south about many more foods that you can fry that I didn't expect...even more since I visited last time.  I hope to bring back some of the cooking knowledge I've learned for Christmas time in Canada. I think none will be disappointed! So without further typing...My thanksgiving plate!

So the rumor was true...there was fried turkey! In fact I believe they fried three turkeys and five chickens. I think the idea is that is your going to be going through all the mess of frying meat you should fry enough to have left overs for a long time and to have enough to give away to all your young children to take home with them so they can eat it for the next week. Jessica and both her brothers got whole chickens to take home with them. I've been eating Jessica's all week with zero disappointment....because fried chicken really is better.

During my time in Louisiana I got to spend lots of time with Jessica's extended family. Before thanksgiving we spent a day cooking at her grandmothers house. She instructed us in how to make oyster dressing, which I enjoyed eating very much at thanksgiving.  I also got to visit with her other grandmother too. All of her family is really welcoming and such so they were very easy to hang out with. On another, day Jessica's dad took me to breakfast after morning mass and I ate real homemade gritts. My first experience with gritts was really terrible so I have been skeptical of them since then but I think after eating these really good ones and the cheesy ones that Cam made me one time I can now officially  say i like them.
The day before Thanksgiving Jess, her mom and dad and I took a trip to New Orleans for the day. we basically just walked around the sunny streets and looked in a bunch of the shops and such. Jessica's parents are building a house so they were interested in getting some decorating ideas.  The building's and shops are all very old school and french-like with lots of black iron fences and railings and such...which seems to be what Mrs. Gautreaux is after for the new house :). Anyhow we got to look at lots of art and antiques and basically beautiful things all day. We also tried to find Jessica a hat...but we failed because her head is just too small for an adult hat...tear face!
Of course I couldn't tell about a visit to New Orleans without telling you what we ate... :)
We ate at this place called the ACME Oyster House which apparently has the best chargrilled oysters in New Orleans. Basically they flame grill the oysters in their shells and they while they are still boiling hot they throw some cheese on top which melts deliciously. I thought they where sooooo good! In fact I see no reason why we shouldn't cook them like that at Christmas time in Nova Scotia?
Then Jess and I split a Po-Boy Oyster Sandwich, which is basically fried oysters on an open faced sandwich...also really good. Kinda like fried clams but better. So basically the key is adding cheese to things, or lots of spices, or frying them...then it will taste good! New Orleans is always entertaining, ....there is always interesting people and places and lots of street buskers playing some pretty good music too. It's like visiting a city with a constant soundtrack playing everywhere you go. Morgan and Juan would like it there :).
On a side note...another thing that I've never seen done..(maybe because I don't pay attention) but Jessica's mom, when preparing the chickens to be cooked, she injected them with this spicy butter juice stuff that comes in a jar. She used a giant syringe and pumped a huge amount of liquid into all the chickens....a good idea...I think so! So mom you can correct me if you do this....but I have never noticed...and if we don't...I think we should start!
 I feel like I'm just writing a food blog these days you know?
All In all Thanksgiving was amazing. Because we visited lots of people we drove around lots of places which means I got to see a good chunk of countryside too. You know me, I'm always pleased to see as many tree's and things in nature as possible during a trip to some place.  I really like Louisiana and in fact of all the places I've been in the US, the people there seem the most like people from Nova Scotia...with some marked differences of course :). I could probably even live there.

My First American Football Game...IN TEXAS

PS.... I would like to add, that unlike Ohio where its just about to snow...It's about 80 F in Texas right now....now I'm not sure exactly how warm that is but I do know that it is indeed warm enough for me to wear a T-Shirt! Today I went running in shorts and a t-shirt and I was wishing that I wore some cooler shorts because it was too hot...hahaha!
This week I'm going to Louisiana for American Thanksgiving! (part of the reason I've been running..haha). I will document the amazing deliciousness for all of you....rumor is there will be fried Turkey...???
Last time I went there I learned that you can fry things i never expected so this doesn't surprise me!

In other news...I just bought a little guitar (that I can carry on planes) so now I can be a real hippie. Aren't you proud mum and dad?

A Visit with the TOR sisters

It's been three weeks since my last post and this is not because I was just being lazy...like before when I didn't post for that long hahaha!

As many of you know I have been visiting the TOR sisters in Ohio. I didn't exactly spend much time on the internet while I was there. I will now attempt to give you all a little recap of my visit with them:

Well here they are, the Franciscan sisters in Toronto Ohio

Now a little about my visit. Because I was there for such a long time (usually vocation guests are there for two weeks tops), they had me go and visit the other mission houses too. Besides their main house which you see pictured above, they have a mission house in downtown stubenville with 4 sisters who mostly work with the poor, a mission house at Franciscan university with 3 sisters who work a lot in evangelization and with the students. They also have  mission house in Austria, which I obviously haven't visited...yet...haha.
The mission houses don't usually have women who are discerning the community come visit them overnight so it was really nice of them to have me. I spent two nights with the sisters in downtown stubenville at Heart of Mary.  I spend of most of my time with them at Samaritan House which is a second hand clothing store and food bank all in one. I mostly just sorted clothes when I was there because they get way more donations of clothing then they could possibly fit in the store. Basically the whole basement is filled the the ceiling with tubs of clothing! Anyhow it certainly is a busy place and people are always coming and going all day long. The other interesting thing I did when I was with these sisters was that on Friday evening we went to a play at the university. We went to A Midsummer Nights Dream. It was 50's themed and was soooo hilarious that I cried because I was laughing so hard. Then on that Saturday I went over to the other sisters who live on campus at Franciscan (Santa Ciara).  Sr Mary Catherine and I cleaned fans for the afternoon and then I went to Lord's Day at one of the women's dorms on campus. Lord's Day is a celebration they have every Saturday night to welcome Sunday...aka The Lord's Day...and they thank the Lord for the blessings of the week and pray celebrate together. Then we went back to the sister's house and we all celebrated Lord's Day together. Then that evening I went to a Festival of Praise at the the University which is basically an evening of praise and worship.
Sunday morning.....we got up an hour early...by accident because we forgot about the time change! Punch in the FACE!! anyhow...not a big deal...we just some extra free time to relax that day because started off so early :). Sr Elizabeth made pancakes after mass with peanut butter chips in them and they where soooo good.  So for the rest of the day I just hung out with the sisters until Sr Eliana took me back to the main house.

That was my adventure at the mission houses but by no means was my time spend at the main house any less adventurous!
One thing I have learned about from visiting the sisters is MOLD! and that it is evil and must be destroyed (only if it is inside your house though :), mold in its natural habitat is lovely as nature intended it). Basically, recently Sr Mary Anne discovered that many of the rooms in the basement of the formation side of the house have mold in them. Now Sr. Mary Anne is pretty much an expert in mold. In fact, she spent a whole year de-molding the sisters house in stubenville and the sisters first house she lived in apparently had a mold problem too...so she pretty much knows her stuff when it comes to mold. She knows what kind it is and such just by looking at it!
A lot of the furniture that is in the offices in the basement came from the sister's old house (Mt La Verna) and its all mostly wood desks and chairs and such and they all had mold on them.
Basically the way to tackle this mold it to wipe down every surface in these rooms with the chemical called Bio..something-or-other which kills the mold. So we wipe down all the furniture and the walls and floors and even vacum the ceiling. Anything that is paper or like cardbaord or that can't be really wiped down is thrown away. Any furnature which Sr. Mary decided is just too risky and might be to moldy to just wipe down gets taken outside and burned!!
Many of my days where spent hanging out with Sr. Mary Anne moving heavy things and wiping things down with dangerous chemicals....which for any of you that know me well....know is right up my ally. I love the challenge of moving heavy things hahah! Because I visited the sisters before they also knew that I would not mind be assigned to this task and that I would in fact enjoy it hahaha...needless to say I don't think many guests would get to do things that this haha!
One slightly scary but also amusing thing happened while we were moving thing.  Sr. Mary Anne and I had piled the truck up with these cabinets and other various large wooden things. We put this last big wooden box thing that used to hold a statue on top of these cabinets. It sort of looked a little loose and I thought she would move it because she is apparently the safety queen...but she figured if we drove up the driveway slow it wouldn't fall off. She was right..it didn't slide of the back when we where driving up the long hill of the drive way...nope...but it certainly did slide through the back windshield when we tried to back the truck up to the burn pile. Yup we where about 10 feet from completing the journey when this giant wood box came sliding through the window spraying glass everywhere!! We were okay,,,but it was a startling moment!

One reason I feel that I fit in with the sisters is that they have large bonfires! I know my parents realize that I have a rather serious inclination to being a pyromaniac! So the sisters for me would have to support my talent in burning things. We got to have two fires while I visited.  WITH LARGE WOOD FURNITURE!! So it was a great fire! It was soo hot that one night after I came inside I noticed my shins where all red and blochy because I had pretty much burned them a little because the fire put off so much heat.....my kind of fire.

(Here is Sr. Agnes Therese...the day she became a novice. To her right is Sr Mary Anne whom I enjoy very much....! I think she would be Dad's favorite for sure. Also she wants Alex to come build the sisters some new furniture :)! )

Some other fun things I did on my visit where getting to play music a bunch with Sr Agnes Therese and also I got to go on some woods adventures with some other sisters a couple times. Sr Della Marie and Sr Katherine and I hiked up a dried up waterfall in the woods, it was super beautiful.
I was also so pleased to get to pray with the sisters everyday. It was so nice to be able to spend a couple of hours a day in the chapel....like seriously...who gets that???? no one....except for sisters I guess haha. I mean it is there job to pray.  I mean I'm sure if I lived there it would cease to be a novelty to have Adoration for an hour every morning and then to get to pray morning prayer with other people followed by Mass, all in my own house!!! But, it certainly didn't loose its wonderfulness while I was visiting...and actually I pray that it never would.  The sisters also usually have P&W and rosary at their noon prayer which is such a great treat halfway through the day! The only thing that killed me was the fact that I was up for almost three hours before breakfast. Sooo Hungry..but I suppose i'd get used to it. Sr. Della Marie told me she gets ready crazy fast in the morning so that she can eat breakfast before morning prayers...which I think is something I might aspire to.

Another thing that took up a large part of the day when I was visiting the sisters was that I was doing my interviews to enter the community and I also did some personality tests (like myersbriggs) for when I'll meet the psychologist in January.  Basically there are like 6 or 10 sections to the interviews and you meet with a sister and they just ask you all about your life. They ask all about your family, school, relationships with roomies, jobs, faith etc etc. All in all it's like 6 hours of interviews plus 2 and half hours of filling out tests. So now I feel like I have had a good reflection time on my whole life as a whole...as well as my strengths and weaknesses as a human being hahahaha!! Anyhow I thought it was sort of stressful after finishing them because I had to wait until the Formation Board of sisters met after reading my interviews to see if they would accept me onto the next stage of applying to the community! The next stage is basically all medical type stuff....so this is really the important stage to pass through I think.

Anyhow.....on the last day of my visit, they met, and then after dinner Sr Della Marie told me that I get to move on to the next stage! Praise HIM!!!  So pretty much the best news I received in a couple years....! So they prayed about it and they think I could fit in there ,,,,,which I totally think I will too :). 

All in all I had a great visit with them and I just loved every minute of it...minus early rising...which i will never love but that is okay....because I got to go to bed at like 9...which is AMAZING! I got to experience doing all sorts of things the sisters do and got to get to know them even more...and it has all only reassured me that I think I could very much be a TOR sister.  I wish you all could meet them just because they are so loving + fun :)! So if you ever get a chance ...visit away :).

Check them out too : www.torsisters.com


Also as a last note: For those of you that have heard me talk about Sr Therese Marie (who used to be the vocations director before she got sick), I did get to chat with her quite a bit, which was nice. She was pretty much sick in bed the whole of my visit, but a couple times I had free time and she was awake so I got to go visit her in her room :)! So to everyone who I always ask to pray for her....keep it up cause she is still ultra sick all the time, but seems like she might be getting some more effective treatment soon..HURAH! Here is a face to put to the name: Here she is on the day of her final vows