Vacationing: Weddings, Babies, and Stuff

My sister got married! Her and her husband are a super adorable couple.  The wedding was perfect - it was beautiful, it was small, and it was relatively short (for the sake of my feet at least b/c I totally picked the wrong shoes to wear).  The wedding party as a whole had a great sense of humor which we all managed to reign in for the actual ceremony -- for the rehearsal not so much.  The pastor literally said "I really worry about all of you getting through this tomorrow."  She was just a bit too serious, but really nice and she did a good job.  The wedding photographer has a whole series of hilarious pictures that I can't wait to see!

Two of my oldest friends had babies over the summer so I got visit with all of them for a few days, which was really nice especially since I don't know when I'll see them again.  Both of the babies are boys and both are adorable.  N. is about 3 months old and has a precious smile.  J. is soo tiny I was afraid to hold him at first, but he makes the funniest faces - I have a feeling he is going to be a hilarious child.  

Also while at home I had my annual sno-ball.  This time it was mango w/condensed milk.  Actually its good I wasn't down there longer b/c I might have gained 10 pounds from eating those things.  I enjoyed lots of fresh vegetables as my dad decided to do a garden this year.  He used to do one every year, but hadn't been recently.  I ate probably a cucumber a day and way too much creamed corn.  

In other news, I still have to pack. I am very bad at this obviously.  Today I sorted through my books and I'm determined to get rid of half of them, but that still leaves me w/over 200!  Oh and I found out that I will be going to Ukraine in December. Hurray!! I might actually finish this graduate program. 

Update from the Northshore

So far, what I have heard is that it wasn't that bad. My friends in St. Tammany Parish don't have power, but say the storm wasn't too terrible. I think I am more nervous b/c I am not there, and just have a bit of an overreaction to hurricanes now after Katrina, and I should remember that I have in fact lived through a couple of Cat. 2 storms.

My mom in MS says they are fine, they in fact still have power, but its still hard to get in touch with people in St. Tammany Parish, namely my father and brother.

Did you know fact of the day: 2 million people evacuated Southern La. That is a lot of people!

Still a bit worried about my friends closer to Lafayette, they were really close to the eye of the storm, but again it has seriously weakened, so they should be fine. Fingers crossed.

Updated to add: There was just a tornado warning near my family in Mississippi, so they aren't out of it yet. Still haven't heard from dad or my brother. In Plaquemines Parish, the water has overtopped the levee, but it is not breached. They are dumping sand and putting up sandbags, but even some places in St. Bernard are getting flooded. Pretty serious, as water is also going under a lock there.
Water was earlier coming over the seawall in Mandeville, its pretty low lying and tends to flood, but I'm not sure how serious of a situation that it currently.
Baton Rouge got perhaps the worst wind of the storm. Gusts up to 91mph. They showed some scenes near LSU and it looked pretty bad with trees down everywhere, and that was before the main part of the storm had even passed through.
And yes, I promise that I have been doing other things than constantly watching the news.