Charlotte

My dear, dear friend Charlotte came to visit!!! It was so wonderful to have her here! We have been friends since middle school, and even though there are months at a time we don't hear from each other, she's one of those friends that can just pick up right where we left off.

About 18 months ago, I flew down to Houston to be a bridesmaid at her wedding and had a blast!

Recently, her husband Tony was hired by Continental Express as a pilot, so she is free to travel the world, and came to see me!!!! She flew in just in time to come with me and my family to the Baton Rouge temple which was such a special experience. I'll write a little more about that later, but I'm so glad Charlotte was able to be there to support me and share that special memory.

Saturday morning, she helped us take our family pictures! She's so artistic and cute, it was nice to have someone watching out for flyaways and lipgloss emergencies :)

Then, we spent the afternoon getting lost in New Orleans. It was a blast-we had beignets at Cafe Du Monde


went down to the Mississippi River


shopped at the French Market, walked around Jackson Square, listened to an awesome jazz band singing "This Little Light of Mine", got crab etouffee at a funny little cafe, and crashed 5 weddings or so... Seriously! There were 5 weddings!!! We just snuck in the Cathedral for one of them and took a picture trying to sneak into the confessional.


Charlotte is so happy and easy going, we had fun sweeping and mopping the downstairs on Saturday night to get ready for Ben's farewell! She's such a trouper! She just jumped right in and cleaned the house-helped with dishes and everything. It was so nice to talk and just be together, doing whatever!

Sunday morning, members of the ward were asked to leave church after Sacrament meeting to go help clean up the tornado reckage that hit Bush, LA last week. We were out of town at the time, but a tornado hit just 30-40 minutes northwest of my house. Charlotte, Jacob, Dad, and I spent a few hours cleaning the home of one of our ward members! It wasn't as crazy as Alabama-the house was still there-but the roof caved in several places and the whole thing was a mess. Charlotte and I spent hours sorting through the back of the house. It was amazing how fast we worked! The cute little lady that lived there was really "arts-and-crafty" and had boxes and boxes of little scraps of fabric, ornaments, lace, patterns, and little things she'd saved over the years. We saved a lot of it, but it'll take a LOOOOOOOONG time for things to get back in order. I don't know what they'll do about the house. It just seems so daunting to try and put it back together.

And then, as we drive away, I feel so guilty that I can go home and take a shower, through a party in our big, nice house we'd cleaned the day before...... it's just so crazy.

Anyway, I had to say good-bye to Charlotte last night at the airport, but I'll see her soon for Dani's wedding in June! Yay!! Love you, Charlotte!