Ron and I were blessed beyond belief to be able to attend the National Youth Gathering in New Orleans with a group of our youth from church. The weather was HOT, hot, HOT, but the gathering was just amazing. Our kids were awesome, we attended some super Bible Studies, workshops and mass events.
Our family group for the week.
The kids, after a 17 or so hour bus ride!
The girls relaxed by the fountain and cooled off while waiting for Pastor to bring their bookbags :)
This was the point where Ron was saying “Wow…I’m glad there are only 15 of us!”
Sunday’s servant event…clean up at a theraputic horse farm.
We ate jambalaya and cajun potatoes
and gumbo (and alligator, but no one got a picture of that one :-)
Martha and I made a no sew blanket.
That was given away within MINUTES of completion, to a mom who lives in the 9th ward, for her 8 year old daughter in her new room! How cool is THAT? 
No words for this one…
every night we gathered in Martha’s HUGE room for a “debriefing” of our day and to go over everyone’s plans for the next day. One of the highlights of each day!
Nephew Nathan (traveled with our group) Nephew Aaron (traveled with his Indiana group) and Cameron got to meet up.
We fought a crowd of 25,000 going into and out of the Stadium each evening!
Rachel got to meet up with the Indiana cousins (and girlfriend :) for a few moments, too!
The view from our seats.
Our kids got to help hand out boom whackers. Yeah…25,000 people with boom whackers. Interesting…
We always tried to keep our eyes on the guy in the Indiana Jones hat! Helped us keep track of him in the crowd!
We got to ride the cable car
and shop in the French Market!
And got to go for a riverboat ride.
and pose with the locals, before heading on the bus toward home!
