New Year in NOLA

We have been living in Louisiana now for almost 6 months, and are getting settled into a new life here.  Jaime is very busy with work, and definitely enjoying the new job and the new company.  The good thing about having a job is that it works you into a routine and a local network very quickly.  Some of us are taking a bit longer to reset.  :)

Tiago has been in school three days each week at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton since mid-August.  He loves it - the uniforms have eagles embroidered on them which he thinks is great.  Every morning at drop off he will let me take off his jacket, then he races in to see his friends and play.  I was never certain if we would do public or private school for our children since I went to Catholic school and Jaime went to public school, but in New Orleans, it was an easy decision.  Everyone we talked to, and everyone we have met with kids in school pays for private school.  The public schools are that bad.  In our area, the people who teach at the public school also send their kids to private school.  To me, that speaks volumes.  We have tons of Catholic elementary school alternatives, which is nice.  But what a strange situation.  Since his current school is so far from our house - 30 minute drive one way - we are looking for an alternative for the next school year.  We have looked at several good ones, and need to make a decision, which is more difficult than I thought it would be.  But we have a few more weeks until the registration opens, so we will have it all figured out by then.

T in his uniform, with the Houston Dynamo hat that he loves.

 

A few weeks ago, we took a Saturday and went over to Baton Rouge to look around since we have not done much exploring here in Louisiana. 

 The drive was interesting - people live so close to the water here.

 

 Pelicans.

 

We didn't stop here, but did think about it.

 

 The state capitol building.

 

 They had green space around the capitol, so we made let Tiago run for a while.

 

 View from the observation deck.

 

 View of the Mississippi River.

 

 Another view of the River.

 

 Tiago loves the penny presses.

 

 State Christmas Tree.

 

 I can't remember what this building was previously, but it's now a museum.

 

Art near the library.

 

So it was a nice day trip.  We have so much more to see, and soon plan to go east on I-10 to get to some new states.  I think we are about 30 minutes from the Mississippi state line, and I plan to take a long weekend sometime and spend it on the beach of the Florida Panhandle.  Not sure when, but we definitely want to avoid Spring Breakers!