Austin

Okay--so Austin was seriously fun. We had a blast! After the 6.5 hour drive with no A/C (it's our own fault, we know) we arrived in Austin, which is completely different than anything that you would expect. It is very hilly and reminded us both of Boulder, CO. We stayed with Mandy's sister, Laurie, who has a beautiful house there. She had fresh Mexican cuisine waiting for us, which we enjoyed in the backyard by the beautiful pool! We visited then promptly donned our suits and swam for awhile before going to bed--we were exhausted after a day with the kids, a six hour drive, and swimming!

The next day we went to Schlitterbahn (which the German lady we work with kindly informed us was in fact a German word...duh...but she told us schlitter means to sled and bahn is a rollercoaster--sounds about right!). It was a ginormous waterpark not far from their house. We spent the day riding the slides and floating in the whirlpools and lazy rivers, which was awesome, and since Stacey had just gotten a waterproof camera we were able to bring it through the whole park and even down the slides. We went with Phillip and his cousin, Iris, and her friend, Kate, which made it ten times as fun for us because we got to act like seventh graders at a water park! It was a fantastic day that only got better with a stop at Sonic for ice cream on the way home :)
The crew before we left in our sweet hats...we were gonna wear them into the park, but we would have lost them of course! Jonelle, Phillip, Kate, Iris, and Stacey.


The girls in the whirlpool!

That evening we went to "Music in the Park" in Laurie's neighborhood, which was an informal show by a local band next to the lake. It was an awesome setting--laying out a blanket by the water and listening to music was exactly what we wanted to do on a night like that!!

Sunday was our day to venture into the city of Austin, and we hit the capitol building first because we knew it'd be open early; turns out the Austin capitol is bigger than the nation's capitol building in D.C. As they all say there, everything in Texas is bigger and better!

After seeing the capitol and driving through the UT campus a little bit, we spent the rest of the day on South Congress, which is the big shopping street in Austin. There were some great boutiques there, and we made sure to stop into Allen's, the premier place for Cowboy boots...although they were not exactly in our price range, the college students that we are, we loved picking out the knee high leopard prints or the $700 utility boots to try on.
Possibly the best part of our day: REAL MEXICAN FOOD!! We both got a chicken fajita taco and an ahi tuna taco...so amazing. Best part about it was that it was sold out of a roadside stand--apparently, the new thing is to sell things out of airstream trailers. We saw everything from Mexican food to cupcakes, BBQ to puppy adoptions!
Overall we had an amazing time. Good food and family (or so it feels..)--what could be better!?

Thensted Update

Hey all! Sorry we haven't posted in forever, but with our big weekend in Austin and Jonelle's birthday on Monday, we've been all over the place!

Things at the Thensted Center are continuing to go well. Last week, we went to Egypt and the kids made bookmarks with their names in heiroglyphics. Their favorite part of the day, though, was our mummy wrap; we had them get into teams and wrap one kid in toilet paper, trying to get as much coverage and style points as possible! We had a Christmas party with the kids on Friday (June 25th, halfway til Christmas) where we decorated sugar cookies and made some cute reindeer crafts.

The highlight of the week, though, was the marble incident. We have this jar in our classroom that we fill with marbles when the kids behave, and we can take marbles out if they don't...but the kids aren't supposed to touch the marbles. One of our little punks, Tanner, doesn't exactly listen to anything we say and has his hand in either the marble box or the Starburst bag 24/7. Friday was a particularly hilarious day for us because the kid finally got what he deserved--yeah, he swallowed a marble. Don't get us wrong, we made sure he was okay before we started laughing, but the face was truly priceless. Luckily, it passed right on through!!

This week, we've hit up Brazil for a carnival (made some cool masks) and the South Pole for a compass experiment and some paper bag penguin puppets. Since Stacey has been obsessed with penguins for her entire life, it was a great outlet for her to talk about the different species of penguins to people who might care!

Here we are with most of the Thensted Center staff. On the left is Ms. Dorothy, who works at the thrift store, then Dionne, who comes just on Fridays, Phillip dressed as Santa for the Christmas party, Julia, director of the center, Ms. Jean who is in charge of the Summer Program, Ms. Pitre, and then Tidy, the cook, is on the bottom row with us. These are some amazing people!

On Sunday we got home from an awesome weekend in Austin--will post again tomorrow about it (with pictures, of course!)

Pictures!

This is us at Lake Martin standing in front of the cypress swamp. There are flocks of birds nesting in all the trees-really pretty to look at! Of course Jonelle wanted to see the famous pink birds that nest there while Stacey was more concerned with the French history and culture present there (in case you didn't know Stacey speaks French rather proficiently).

Eight Foot Alligator!

Blue Heron chilling in the swamp -->

Hey Guys! Here are some of the pictures from Lake Martin-the alligator and the cypress swamp--sorry I know you all wanted a picture of the Nutria Rat but it was too quick for us!

Natural Wonders of the Cajun World

Well, this was really a week of firsts! On Wednesday, Dr. Maraist (a Notre Dame grad) and his lovely wife took us to meet some other ND grads for dinner. On the way, we stopped to see Lake Martin, a large lake near Breaux Bridge, LA that incorporates a lot of swampland. We were able to walk on a footbridge through the swamp right next to all the cypress trees. After we got back in the car, we drove along the edge of the swamp and finally saw our nutria rat!! That thing was DISGUSTING. The head was probably 4 times the size we expected and it had this gross hooked nose. We tried taking a picture of it, but it ducked under the water as soon as we opened the car door--maybe that whole nutria rat hunting plan is going to be harder to execute than we expected...after that, we saw an 8-foot alligator (pictures to come)! When we stopped the car to get a closer look, it started swimming towards us--thank god we stayed in the car. When it was almost at the shore, it stopped..and slowly sank until all you could see was its little eyeballs peeking out of the water.

After that adventure, we had an unbelievable dinner at "Café des Amis," a restaurant in Breaux Bridge with live music and signatures of famous people on the walls. Jonelle got a Crawfish pie, which was like a crawfish étoufée in a puff pastry--crazy good--and Stacey got crab stuffed flounder! The white chocolate bread pudding we had for dessert was definitely in the top 10 desserts EVER made, and it was so good we almost made ourselves sick from eating too much of it. We met Father Bob, the priest from ND who got us the passes to the gym, and a few other alums who were so nice to treat us to such an amazing dinner.

On the way back from dinner, the Maraists wanted to show us true cajun dancing, so we stopped at Mulate's, a cajun restaurant and dance hall that had a live cajun band who spoke and sung in French! It's like coming to a different country being down here; we're meeting more and more people who are fluent in French, not to mention all the fleur-de-lis and French street signs everywhere. The Maraists, who are both bilingual (Mrs. Maraist grew up speaking both French and English--SO JEALOUS!), were explaining that the Cajun French is similar to the French that was spoken in the 17th century, so words for modern technology don't exist in the language. They also told us about the deportation of the French people from Nova Scotia, and how eventually a large population of them settled in Southern Louisiana.

Oh, and another thing to add to the list of crazy Louisiana has and most other places don't--Huge, Vicious bugs. It's so hot that these things don't die in the winter, and they just grow and grow. We are starting to get used to them though, like a giant cricket hanging out in our room, or ants as big as athumbnail with red stripes. They also have different names for the bugs- a dragonfly is referred to as a mosquito hawk! Even if we are getting used to seeing the bugs, our legs and ankles are not used to being attacked constantly by them--both of us have bites from these little boogers up and down our legs. Sweet blood I guess!

Saturday was a new adventure altogether. Adam (Mandy's eldest son) called us at about 3 o'clock and invited us out on his houseboat on the Atchafalaya Basin (pronounced uhCHAFFalaya). We packed up some snacks (including about 4 cases of water, which we carried to the boat and later back into the car) and headed out to the Basin. We stopped at the Welcome Center to get some brochures and maps, and were pleased to see that we were the most exotic people that had visited in awhile! When they pulled up to get us, we boarded 'St. Michael', a pontoon boat with a grill and tent on top. We stopped at Adam and his wife Ellen's camp-a floating shed with an A/C generator and bunk beds... and no bathroom. There was a barbecue pit onboard, as well as a porch swing and University of Louisiana Flag. We promptly dragged the swing onboard the pontoon and took off to take a tour of the Basin.

Once we got out in the open water (about 20 feet deep) we got to jump in the water. We didn't go in the water near the camp because it is located near the cypress trees in shallow water, meaning there could be alligators and snakes lurking in the swampy areas. The water felt so good because it was still over 95 degrees at around 4 o'clock. Essentially we were swimming in a basin of the Mississippi River, so when we got out of the water, mud was sticking to all the little hairs on our arms and stomach. After a while of cruising around, looking at the various camps people had set up (which in case you are wondering, you can set up anywhere around the Basin as long as it is government property), we headed back to the camp to start barbecuing dinner. While Ellen, Mandy, and their friend Blake started cooking, Adam took us in a little john boat around the swampy areas. It was seriously so cool! We went through the cypress trees, where there were lily pads and Spanish moss everywhere. It looked exactly like the swamps in movies. We thought we were going to see another alligator lurking in the shadows under a giant tree! Once we got back we had some delicious, and of course spicy, barbeque chicken and sausage. We left to head back to Carencro to shower and rinse the mud out of our clothes. Overall the swamp was gorgeous and one of the most unique areas either of us had seen.

Saturday night was our first go at Cajun dancing--even though no one was available to take us, we decided to go stag to Cowboys, a country style bar/dance hall. Wayne Toups was playing--he is apparently THE band to see if you're looking for "Zydecajun" music (a mix between Zydeco and Cajun, the local music from around here). Well, the parking lot was completely packed with pickup trucks, but we could not believe our eyes when we walked in! The place was jammed with people anywhere from age 18 to 60 in Cowboy boots and hats who were line and Cajun dancing to this folksy accordion music. It was straight out of either a movie or 50 years ago. The band was really awesome, and we're really into the whole zydeco thing now that we've heard it live--just a happy sound that totally fits the place we're in! We spent the evening going up to random Cajun boys explaining that we're from the north and we don't know how to dance. It was hilarious; once we told them our story, they either laughed at us for wanting to learn to Cajun dance in "just one night," or they consented and gave us some dance lessons. We left the place knowing a little more about how to dance and wishing there was a place like Cowboys in the real world (i.e. South Bend, IN)!

So THIS is a service project?

Jonelle and Stacey here. Just finished another great day at the Thensted Center--today we went to Pompeii, Italy, where we learned about the Vesuvius eruption of 79 A.D., exploded our own volcano, and did a plate tectonic experiment with graham crackers and vanilla frosting! Just a day in the life of a world traveler...

The big win this Wednesday marked the end of our sports fanatacism--this family probably thinks all we do up north is watch sports, because between Final Four lacrosse and the Stanley Cup Finals, it seems like we're always eager to flip on a game. Through it all, though, we've converted the Comeauxs into Blackhawks fans :)

This weekend we attended a few family events, including a pizza party where we had Deano's Cajun Pizza--spicy pizza with crawfish or shrimp, veggies, and lots of jalepenos on top. We met the rest of the family members, including Meme and Papa (the grandparents) and Mandy and Dave's brother Scott. We still can't really understand how one family can have this many awesome, loving people! We had a barbecue on Saturday afternoon with the family, too, where we got to try dirty rice and some delicious sausage, which went with some beef and chicken shishkabobs. People in Louisiana absolutely love their food--they'll all tell you that whenever they're eating, they'll always talk about a different kind of food!

Another thing we've learned about people here is that families (at least this one) like to stick together...we live on the same road as a bunch of Mandy's relatives, and Papa, who is a grandfather, lives right next to his sister, who lives next to his other sister, who lives three doors down from his OTHER sister!

On Saturday, we got to walk down the road to our neighbors' house that really looks like a castle and swim in their pool. The owners offered for us to come swim whenever we want, which is awesome because not only does that mean we have a pool within a few minutes of our house, but there's a 14-foot waterfall that you can jump off of into the pool! (see picture). The people here are unbelievably nice--the neighbors with the pool first turned on the fountain water for us, then brought us out an ice bucket full of cold drinks! Just when we thought this couldn't possibly get better, she comes out again--"I made y'all some plates!" Pork chops, noodles, and salad. Where are we?!

After the pool we went to look at some of the old plantation houses. At Magnolia Ridge in Washington, LA, a cute town with tons of antique shops, the owners have opened up the grounds of their plantation house to the public. We got to see the house from the outside and walk around on the three miles of trails. Now, even though this blog is called "Blondes in the Bayou," we created the blog before we found out that the real terminology is "ON the Bayou." Too late to change it, I guess, but we took a picture of ourselves IN the Bayou at Magnolia Ridge just so we could actually be IN it (even though we're standing on a tree, Stacey fell in, so it counts).

Another thing about Louisiana is that the rules of the road are practically non-existent. The speed limits are outrageous, ranging from 55 at a MINIMUM to 70 on side roads. Jonelle is constantly leaning over to check the speedometer when Stacey is flying through residential areas at 59 mph--only 4 over! At the same time, every turn is taken at about .4 mph; even though everyone on the road is going 70, Louisianians find it all right to slam on their brakes and make turns as slow as is humanly possible. P.S. All this takes place in a giant pick-up truck, because everyone and their mom owns a Ford F-150 or the like.

So we've been told about a certain kind of nasty swamp-dwelling rodent called the nutria rat, and we're on the lookout for them. They are the size of a beaver but with rat-like tails, and they have orange teeth!! Someone supposedly brought the species to the area because they thought the cajuns would want to eat them. They don't. But now, since Cajun country is incredibly overpopulated with nutria rats, you can make a profit by hunting the nutria rat. We're thinking about it as a side job to scrape up some extra cash.

Well we are off to Ireland tomorrow! Tearing it up in the deep sea and Egypt and panning for gold on the Oregon Trail later this week. Be sure to check out the nutria rat on google images..its sick.

:)

Oh, and here we are eating crawfish!! De-LICIOUS. For the Marylanders, this was the closest Stacey could come to a crab feast :) (The guy on the left is Phillip, Mandy (who we're staying with)'s son.)

First Day with the Kids

Hey guys! So today was our first day with the kids and man were they cute! We had five different classes of about 5-13 kids, with each class consisting of kids around the same age group. We made passports to go with the "Around the World" theme, enabling them to be world travelers. We finished with some musical chairs and freeze dance (see video). They were surprisingly some of the most well behaved kids of their age that either of us have worked with...southern manners (yes ma'am, no ma'am). Hopefully it continues.

So today we were driving to the gym and, looking up, noticed that every tree and electric line was covered in what looked like vines. Upon closer inspection we found that mardi gras beads were covering everything! The mardi gras parade of Lafayette happens on Johnston Street, one of the main drags of Lafayette. We also saw a bike lodged in a tree about a hundred feet tall. Apparently they didn't clean up after that weekend!

When we were at the mind-blowingly huge gym (Red Lerille's- look it up..it's fantastic) we each worked out separately for about an hour and found ourselves suffering from a withdrawal from each other's company. Upon starting our ab workouts, we both started gossiping and gave up on abs because we just missed each other too much. We quickly realized that we had NOT been apart for that long since we met at the Indy airport!

Louisiana 101

We started work this week at the Thensted Center, a place that helps the poor in the area (specifically children and the elderly) through counseling, an after-school program, a thrift store, and the Summer Enrichment program we'll be helping to put on. The program starts tomorrow, but we've been working this week to plan activities for the kids and decorate the classroom. The ladies we work with said the room has looked the same for the past few years, so we're hoping the kids will be really excited about its new look (we'll post a picture tomorrow!)
During the next seven weeks, we'll have to get to work around 7 (!) and we'll leave around 3. The kids get there between 7:30 and 8 and we play outside with them for an hour or so. After that, we serve them breakfast and then we'll see a few groups of kids in our classroom before we serve lunch. We'll probably have the kids we haven't seen yet in the afternoon before a 2:45 dismissal.
In our classroom, we've decided to structure our activities around the theme "Around the World." We figured it would be a good way to bring together science experiments, art projects, foreign language study, outside games, and even cooking and dance into one theme. Turns out it was probably a great idea--when we told Sister Betty about our idea, she told us a story about a volunteer who had come from India to help out at the Thensted Center. When she told the kids that she had traveled all the way from India, one of the boys said, "Oh, did you drive here?" Hopefully this will get them excited about different cultures and expand their knowledge of the world around them!
The people down here, even if few still speak French, are like the French in a lot of ways. Like the French, these people definitely know how to cook! On our first night with Mandy (our "Mom" for the summer) we tried "boudin," which is a sausage made with rice and spices. Sounds gross, but you're supposed to squeeze it out of the casing to eat it--you can squeeze it onto a piece of bread and eat it like a sandwich, or just eat it plain. Jonelle wasn't aware that the casing isn't really supposed to be eaten...but Mandy assured us that having eaten the casing won't kill her :) The sausage was awesome, and we tried sweet potato pie for dessert: equally awesome! We're having a crawfish boil tonight at Susan's, and we're so excited to try this cajun specialty.
We've also learned that the legal system here in Louisiana is still more like the French system. Apparently, if you get a speeding ticket here and you know someone in the court system they can help you get rid of the ticket, no consequences! We also heard of a service provided by an attorney in which you can buy your way out of community service hours. They also seem to have a different definition of drinking and driving--our friends were telling us about these Drive-Thru daiquiri places where you can essentially get any mixed drink in a styrofoam cup with duct tape around where the top goes on. As long as the cup is sealed with tape and the straw is out of the cup, it isn't considered an open container!
As far as the French language goes, some people we've met have had friends who went to French immersion school. The state tried to phase out the language but is now realizing its cultural importance and working to keep it around. Most of the roads in Lafayette are French names, like Rue d'Evangeline and General Mouton Ave. Stores also have French names--the donut place is called Meche's, and the local grocery stores are Janise's and Champagne's. It's also assumed that names follow french pronunciation--on our first night, we were confused when Susan was talking about someone named Richard; she said, "It's spelled like ree-shard but it's pronounced rich-urd." In the same way, David is Daa-veed, Hebert (as a last name) is ayy-bear, etc.
We have to head out, but we'll send an update tomorrow about how we liked the crawfish boil and our first day at work!

We're here!

Hey everyone! We've created this blog to keep everyone in the loop about our amazing experience down here in Southern Louisiana. After tons of sunshine in the car (with plenty of sweat thanks to no air conditioning!), crossing through 7 states in 2 days and the Mississippi River 4 times, we finally arrived in Lafayette. We first met Phillip, a rising sophomore at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, whose mom Mandy we'll be staying with for the summer. After that, we got to cool off and relax at the Comeaux's, who will be our alumni sponsors for the summer. Susan, a Notre Dame alum, made us a delicious dinner and some homemade ice cream cookie sandwiches. In the first 48 hours here, we've quickly learned that the food has a little more kick than we're used to--not only were the burgers spicy, but you could even taste some spice in the chicken salad we had for lunch the next day!
We went on a bike ride around Lafayette after dinner and got to see an adorable college town. On campus at the University we saw our first alligator in their very own cypress swamp!
Today was our first day at the Thensted Center in Grand Coteau, LA, where we'll be working in the summer program. We have the rest of the week to plan what to do with the kids and decorate our classroom. It was really nice meeting the nuns who work there, as well as Tidy and Julia who work to run the center.
After work we decided to take on the 95 degree weather and brutal humidity and attempt a run outside. Let's just say we lost the battle.

We'll plan to post once a week or so or when something big happens...as they say down here, we'll see y'all later!