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Tuesday, January 26, 2016

When A Good Weekend Goes Bad

The weather this weekend was beautiful so we decided to head up to the property in Huntsville. It's always a welcome change to spend time outdoors soaking up the sunshine and Nathanial is able to let off some steam by doing manly things like ripping down fences. 

There are several large piles that needed to be burned so we figured that would be a good way to kickoff the day. 

Nathanial got the area ready by cutting up a huge dead tree, mowing the grass, etc. 


I loved seeing him and my dad together.


The fire started pretty quickly but some of the larger parts weren't going. Nathanial headed over to add some gasoline to the fire. 

What happened next is a blur. I remember a large whoosh sound and seeing a big fireball.

Nathanial took off running amid screams from my dad and I. At first he seemed to be fine but when he started pouring a case of bottled water on himself, I knew it wasn't good. 

His arms turned red and then gray pretty quickly, so he agreed to go the emergency room. They got us right in and began the process of trying to stop the burning. His face and arms were burned pretty badly. 


I'm not a great crisis wife to begin with and when the nurse started talking about the worst case scenarios, I lost it. I was crying so loudly she asked what she could do for me. I wanted to say stop terrifying me, but instead just pulled myself together. 

We spent the next few hours at the E.R.  Once his skin was cooled down, they applied burn cream and bandaged him up. They gave us some supplies for the rest of the week along with good instructions on how to care for the burns. 

It is evident God protected Nathanial given the amount of hair burned off around his head and his complete lack of eyelashes. We are so incredibly thankful. 
It could have been so much worse.

Nathanial has handled everything extremely well. No whining and minimal wincing when the burn cream is applied. He's a trooper. He has even managed to make it to work all week. Today has been  his highest pain level because parts of his skin are really stiff and other parts are raw. Please pray for his continued healing and that there will be no complications or infections. 


Sunday, January 10, 2016

The Big Easy

It's a good thing I didn't resolve to blog more this year since I've gone 10 days without posting. 

Hope your year is off to a great start! 

We rang in the new year from New Orleans, from the comfort of our "boutique" hotel room because we're an old married couple and still jaded about large crowds. 



As Nathanial puts it, our trip to Louisiana was great minus the few hours we spent at the Sugar Bowl. Ah the life of an OSU fan. 

We got into New Orleans the afternoon of New Year's Eve. We drove around the French Quarter for nearly an hour trying to find a parking spot so we could see the parade. We finally decided to check into our hotel and then ride the street car over to the parade. There wasn't much in the way of signage so we were lucky to hop on the right route. The street car was jam packed with people. 


The parade was short but so fun. My favorite parts were the local bands. They definitely had swagger. 


After the parade, we met up with some of Nathanial's college friends to catch the end of the OU game. 

We headed back to our room after dinner. We used Uber for the first time and it was a great experience! We even missed the surge pricing because we headed back so early. 

Our hotel was labeled as a botique hotel but apparently that just means super tiny room. It was fine for the short time we were in the city but I wouldn't recommend it for a long stay. 

We tried to do all the touristy things before the game Friday. We had beignets at Cafe Du Monde. 



We walked around the shops of the market and surrounding French Quarter. Our best finds were a Sugar Bowl ornament and some yummy beef jerky. 

We had lunch at Mr. B's as recommended by my brother who frequents New Orleands for work. 


I had the shrimp. It was so messy.  

Nathanial got the bourbon pork chop and had a much better dining experience. 


We spent time after lunch exploring the city and then it was finally time for the game. 

It was raining pretty hard so we used Uber again. There was a pretty long line to get into the Superdome. Nathanial forgot he had his pocket knife on him and got scolded and had to throw it away before we could go inside. Criminal. 


Our seats were on the 50 yard line. Despite the blowout, it was still a fun game. 



We didn't get back from the game until after midnight so we had a pretty leisurely start to the day on Saturday. We decided to stop by the Oak Alley Plantation on our way home. It was my favorite part of the trip!




The tour was fascinating. I was especially impressed by the cedar wood surround that was painted by French artists to look like marble. 


Nathanial also took Monday off so we rounded out the weekend with some time outdoors at the family property. 

Some Mondays aren't so bad!