The end is near...

It's Friday today and as I'm writing this blog, we've completed our assignment (hoorah!!). On Thursday evening we had a fun time together to celebrate the completion of our tour. Tom and Grace made it a fun evening with lots of sharing of our experiences and some fun games. I produced a set of DVD's with a photo slide presentation that Tom handed out to all the couples and single guys. Also, us first timers received our CRWRC pins and a Kenner pin. We worked only 4 hours this morning and then cleaned up the work site and handed in our tools. After cleaning the work trucks thoroughly we took our showers. We were pleased with the amount of work we have accomplished in the past three weeks. In my particular house, we put on the siding and got the house 80% insulated. We also completed drywalling the master bedroom and about 50% of the kitchen. The next DRS crew should be able to complete the drywalling, mudding and painting. The lady that owns the house will come over next week for Thanksgiving and have a look at how far we've come. I think she'll be very pleased. The other teams have also accomplished a lot of work. I have to say, these old guys and galls can work!!! It was hard for me as one of the youngest to keep up with them. The oldest guy was Peter Faber at 76 years. When you see him, he looks like 68-69 and he's one of the hardest workers. I hope to be in as good a shape as he is now when I'm 76.

Today we said farewell to 4 couples. It's a bit sad to part ways after being together for 3 weeks, 24-7 but on the other hand it's also nice to be going home again. Annie and I miss our kids, grand-kids and friends by now. Three week assignments are just about the right number of days to be gone. We are thankfull to God that no one got into an accident or seriously hurt themselves. I think it's a miracle because the work sites are often clutterred even though we try to keep them organized. Also, the traffic here in New Orleans is crazy. It's like the 401 in Toronto. So, tomorrow, Saturday, we'll be heading back home again. We hope to stay over near Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday night and on Sunday night we're planning to overnight near Fort Wayne, Indiana. We hope to arrive back in Acton on Monday afternoon DV. Please pray for a safe trip for us.

Well, we've got most of our big suitcase packed and we'll relax for the rest of the afternoon. Till we meet again, either in the flesh, blog, email, Skype, etc.

It's getting a little colder....

This morning we woke to brilliant sunshine but colder temperatures. A cold front went through last night with some rain and high winds. This morning it was only 50 deg F and and it never went higher than 64 deg F. I have been working in shorts and t-shirt so far but this morning I put my jeans on and wore a light jacket until about noon. By then the temperature was warm enough to work in a t-shirt. We're getting close to having the house covered with siding. Today we had to do a lot of repairs before we could put any siding on. About 30ft of fascia board was missing and we to worry new boards under the drip rails along roof line. These drip lines are like spring steel and it was very difficult to get the 1X6 boards underneath. Finally we got it done and after putting to last sheets of siding at the top of the outside walls, we went inside to fix the holes the plumber had cut. This house is like a cottage. It is build on concrete blocks. Drains and pipes run everywhere, including under the house. When the plumber replaced all plumbing, he had to cut 4X4ft and larger holes in the floor to get the new drains in. We spend the whole afternoon fitting the cut-out sections (3) back and replacing the new subfloor to cover them. All in all it was a good day with a lot of hard but satisfying work.

Annie worked in housekeeping again today and will do this job until we go home. We have a few more days here and then we go home again. On the one hand it will be nice to get some rest but on the other hand, we are going to miss the people we chummed around with.

Tom and Grace took us out to "Cafe Du Monde". This is place that serves beignets which are a New Orleans delicacy. They are like a doughnut covered in icing sugar. They were nice, but not really all that special in my humble opinion. Apparently when you visit New Orleans, you have to try these.

So far, God has been good and has spared us from any accidents which is amazing in that on construction sites it is so easy to twist ankle or get an injury. There are 21 of us here with 16 people working on construction sites. On the right is our offical group photo. Standing from the left: Tom Silvis (on site manager), Bill Lafleur, Don Koopman (in back) Dan Wubben, Ed Buisman (construction manager) Sjoukje Buisman (CM assistant), Jogn Schuitema, Judy Warners, Doug Warners, John Tjaarsa, Peter Faber, Harry Kerkhof, Lawrence De Raaf, Harris Rotman and Donna Rotman. Sitting from left: Grace Silvis (on site manager), Gerda Wubben, Carol Schuitema, Audrey Tjaarda, Annie Kerkhof and Boukje De Raaf. What a nice bunch of people eh?

Well, I hope that everyone is doing well back home. Good night and till the next blog.

Yesterday we went into New Orleans again on our day off. We went downtown New Orleans with another couple, John and Audrey Tjaarda. They're from Chino, California. Annie has worked with Audry and I've worked with John so far. We first went to see the WWII National Museum. This was very interesting and well done. We started out with having a coffee first (of course you have to have coffee in the morning before doing anything).

We got tickets for the museum as well as a multi-media movie about WWII. This movie has been made just for this museum and took longer than the Americans were in the war, i.e. it took 5 years to make. It is directed by Tom Hanks and was very well done. It showed a mixture of actual film footage, computer generated scenes, flashing lights, sounds and real props that appeared and disappeared. In one scene about the Battle of the Bulge, it actually snowed (simulated of corse) in the theatre. The seats rumbled when artillery strikes hit or tanks drove by. All in all quite impressive. The museum itself has a good collection of material about the war in Europe and the Pacific. A lot of information on D-Day is being displayed. It is amazing how much of a struggle it was to overturn the evil empire of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. We could have spend most of the day learning about all the exhibits, but since we wanted to do some other things as well, we quit at around 2 o'clock.

After visiting the museum, we went on a 2 hour excursion on the Nachez, which is a replica of a Mississppi sternwheeler steam boat. This ship can entertain up to a 1000 people and is, up to this point, the fasted sternwheeler on the Mississppi. We had beautiful weather again, sunny and around 74 deg F. We took the tour around the harbour sites and Naval station along the Mississippi. The guide had a running commentary on the sites along the river and the ships that we encountered. We had a great time. We also met Tom and Grace on the boat. We had planned to get on a different river boat, the Creole Queen. However, just when we came to the dock after visiting the museum, we saw our boat go around a bend in the river. In other words, we missed it. It was supposed to leave at 3pm according to a brochure we obtained (which later appeared to be out of date). However, when we got to the dock at 2:20, it was already gone (it left a little after 2). We just made it to the next boat, the Sanchez, which was supposed to leave at 2:30 and we were just about the last to board. Anyway, it all worked out and it was about 5 o'clock when finished the excursion and stepped into our Honda agian and motored back home to get ready to go out for supper.

On Sunday we slept in until 7:20am and then got some breakfast and got ready for church. We went to the First Baptist church again and had the opportunity to worship our God in a very meaningful way.

In the afternoon, Annie and I took a leisurely drive along the Mississippi. We had hoped to see some nice countryside. However, what we saw most was lots of refineries, factories and industrial sites interspersed with sugar cane fields. We had hoped to visit a plantation house but the only one we saw had a big festival going on. There were lots of people and lots of stands like a flea market. We didn't really feel like joining another large crowd of people. It was nice though to just get away with the two of us.

Annie will be working in the kitchen for the rest of our stay here which she doesn't mind at all. That's it again for now. Till next time.