The Sunshine State

Hello fellow bloggers and others. This is Brad. Shanna has asked that I blog about our trip to my mission in Louisiana and Florida. We'll start in Louisiana. I served in the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission from 2003-2005. Shanna and I have been trying to see her Brother Brian and his family in Florida since they moved there 3 years ago. As we were searching for tickets we discovered that it was cheaper to fly into Baton Rouge, rent a car, and drive to Fort Walton Beach, Florida. So on Tuesday April 27th we arrived in Baton Rouge. Our first stop was the state capital. I have included a few pictures from the capital grounds and from the top of the 30 story high capital building over looking the Mississippi River.

We then went to dinner at Boutin's, a local Cajun restaurant. Shanna had cat fish and crawfish etouffee and I had crawfish etouffee and fried crawfish tails. I missed the crawfish taste and it was fun to introduce this unique food to Shanna.

The next day we started our drive to Florida. I spent about half of my mission in the city of New Orleans so we took a small detour through the city. I wont bore you with all of the details of the things we saw. Although we did go to the French Market which is a small out door market place with all sorts of different vendors located right outside the French Quarters. We walked through and saw dresses, purses, scarfs, pens, fresh food, t-shirts, and much much more. We also went to Jackson Square which is where the first Catholic church in America was built. It was a lot of fun to be back in the city and see how well the city has recovered from Katrina.

After visiting New Orleans we drove to Fort Walton Beach, Florida. We were really excited to be in the sunshine state and to see Brian and Natalie and their kids Kennedy and Nathan. Although we were very disappointed by the lack of sunshine. It was nice the first full day we were there so we did make it to the beach that day but the other 4 days were rainy and overcast. We would ask for a refund from the state of Florida but we had so much fun with Brian and Natalie that it made up the difference :) we love you guys! Thanks for the party!!!!

We went shopping at their local outlet mall, we went to the AF Base airplane museum, we went out to eat, to a movie, mini golfing, and we went on a nice walk and saw lots of local vegetation (as seen in the following photos). It was so fun to spend time with Brian and Natalie, we will miss them so much as they begin their own family journey to Japan for a few years.