Friday - April 20

Today's bloggers are Mackenzie Ward and Natalie Carroll. . .

The day started off early as usual. Our morning watch described how people "sit" on things that can hold them back. People are suppose to embrace all parts of life and scream frequently (which we were, of course, encouraged to do).

Our half day yesterday perpetuated today's work hours. We arrived at our worksite to the hottest day yet, and we were in for a lot of hard work. First, we completed hammering boards in between the planks to keep them in place. This sometimes required standing in about a 1x2 foot space and positioning a hammer to hit the nails in. After this, we were ready to put up the floor boards. There was lots of hammering, and without exaggeration, there were probably 1600 nails put into that wood today. 

We had po-boys from Crabby Jacks for lunch which everyone loved. 

Then just as we were finishing, the ice cream truck came back for a visit - to everyone's relief. 

Mike suggested that we cut our lunch break short with the "bribe" of being able to go home when the floor boards were finished. The first 1/3 of the decking took about an hour and a half and nobody really thought about the fact that at 1:00 if we had 3 hours of work ahead of us, we would still finish at four whether we took our whole lunch break or not.

Mackenzie drew marks on the wood for Natalie, Morgan,  Bill, and Geralyn to hammer in nails (about 40 nails for each of the boards). While this was going on Colin, Ryan, Kyle, and Matt directed by the Colonel and David continued to add boards to the structure, making it seem like the hammering would never end. Stephanie continued to bring water to the hard workers. Finally we finished and quickly loaded some plywood into the container (with blisters fully developed) before going home to get ready for dinner.

Upon entering the hotel, Cailin, Natalie, and Mackenzie headed straight to jump into the pool with their work clothes still on. 

Then it was time to get ready to dinner and head out to Tony's authentic taste of Louisiana, for lack of better terminology. There, we all enjoyed huge meals layered and jumbled over gigantic plates. Despite the hanging deer heads on the walls, which would normally  chase an appetite far, FAR away, we loved our smothered ribs, deep fried chicken, and  jumbalaya. Afterwards, we drove through the French quarter and spotted sailors while listening to jazz playing both in and out of booming restaurants. It's amazing what this city has to offer. I don't think any of us are planning to come home. Now we're resting up for a great day ahead. 

Interesting side note: While driving around we saw a billboard advertising beer and there was a picture of a nun holding a bottle. The picture was captioned "sinfully good." We don't know what to think about that one.