New Audrey Pics

I thought these pictures were too funny. Looks like Audrey is snapping in these last two pictues or she's ready to "cut a rug". She is just too cute.

Audrey Claire Becker

Here are a few pictures of my niece Audrey Claire Becker, born on Friday, November 7th. She is such a blessing from the Lord and we are so very thankful she is finally here.

Mississippi Friends & the New Orleans Zoo

Recently we had some dear Mississippi friendsn (Jon and Kristen) come down to South Louisiana to visit us for the weekend. Kristen was my first friend and roommate when I moved out of my comfort zone of Pascagoula and moved to Jackson. She has been a big part of my life and has been there through good times and bad and I'm so thankful for her friendship.

Anyway, since we now live in South Louisiana we decided we wanted to go to New Orleans on Saturday and do something fun. Well what better way to spend a hot August day than to go to the New Orleans Zoo. Yes, we went to the zoo and actually had more fun than we thought we would have.

I love animals but didn't think that going to the zoo as an adult (and without having kids) was actually going to be very much fun. We saw elephants, alligators, white tigers, monkeys of all kind and I even went inside of the reptile hut....only because it was air conditioned and I made Ryan promise to hold my hand the entire time and he was NOT allowed (nor was anyone else with us) to scare me.

After our zoo trip we took our friends to our favorite snowball stand in town and enjoyed the rest of the night. Kristen and Jon also got to hear Ryan preach on Sunday morning.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the zoo.

Baltimore Orioles Game

While we were on vacation in DC we decided to drive up to Baltimore, MD for a day and catch a Orioles baseball game at Camden Yards. We had a great time and enjoyed getting into the game with our free Orioles t-shirts on...we looked like local fans. Here are a few pictures from the stadium and the game.

Washington DC - Day 2

Day two in DC brought a lot of sun and a lot of walking. We parked and walked to the Lincoln and Washington Monuments as well as the Veitnam and World War II Memorials. There wasn't much to see at the monuments but it was neat just to be able to see something you've seen pictures of and heard about growing up. The two war memorials were a different experience. The Vietnam War Memorial is a wall built into the ground that starts real low to the ground and gradually moves up and along a walkway. The names of all the American soldiers killed during this war appear on the wall. Once you see it and realize how many names are on just one section of the wall it is just mind boggling to realize how many men and women lost their lives during this war. They do have a reference book where you can look up a person's name and find the location of the name on the wall. We actually found someone with the last name of Seaton on the wall while we were just passing by. When we looked it up in the book there were acutally 3 Seatons but none of which were from MS. The WWII Memorial was set up where it had stone pillars to represent each state which fought in WWII and it formed a complete circle with entrances at each side representing the Atlantic and Pacific side of the US. It encompassed a pool in the middle with different types of waterfalls and fountains.

Ryan and Ms. Beverly in front of a statue of Lincoln and Ryan and I in front of the Washington Monument


The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall


The World War II Memorial

Later in the day we went to the Newseum which is a relatively new museum that is all about news. It had several tangible things in it from different news stories inside like part of the Berlin Wall, the DC Snipers car, part of the radio tower from one of the buildings of the World Trade Center in NYC and many other things. Of course, there were lots of stuff about Katrina and several pictures/videos from local papers and tv stations in LA and MS.

Part of the Berlin Wall at the Newseum

The DC Sniper's car that they used to hide themselves as they attacked

Front pages newspapers from all over the US and world on September 11, 2001

Washington DC - Day 1

Wow, we definitely got our exercise today. Today was our first full day sightseeing in Washington, D.C. I have to say that the downtown area was not what I expected it to be. I was not expecting it to be as beautiful as it was. Everything is so green here...the landscape along the streets was quite impressive. We toured several museums today but didn't even scratch the surface of all there is to see here. Here are a few pictures of our adventures today.

At the entrance of the Natural History Museum...this one is for you Daddy.

Maybe the Dingo ate your baby! Or was it Dixie?

A rainbow of stones and gems...quite impressive.

The White House

The Old Post Office

Ok, so I decided I needed to join the blog world. I do the Facebook thing and keep up with that but I think the blog is a little more personal. So, here it goes. Oh, and thanks to Amy for getting me started and for my header.

We are in Washington, D.C. at the moment so I will try and post some pics of our adventures while we are here...if not I'll definitely post when I get home.