Quickly, because I'm falling asleep

as I type. No kidding. My head just about fell into my Ramen just there.

Okay, so Scott and I have had the most AWESOME weekend! We spent it (well, the whole week, really) dashing around Texas and Louisiana, dropping in on his (soon to be my! Holy cow!) family and friends. So many great people. Southerners have so much heart, and so much fire in their bones. Everyone else seems almost apathetic by comparison.

Pictures and more details later, maybe, if I feel like it and can find some time. For now:

• Tuesday: class/work, ate ourselves silly at Fortune Chinese before leaving town, flew to Houston, stayed there that night with Scott's mom and sister Jenny at her apartment.
• Wednesday: drove to Austin (2-3 hours), picked up Ross and Juliann (Scott's older brother and sister-in-law), had some more good Chinese at this cool place his family always eats at, saw some sights (Austin Arboretum, ate some Amy's Ice Cream, drove around this really pretty woodsy place, walked around, almost fell in the river, etc.), open house! (So fun, but so exhausting! Man!) hosted by the Johnstons--family friends that go way, way back. Great people. David kills me.
• Thursday: Thanksgiving with the Johnstons. Also went on a really nice walk with Scott--we saw a lot of his old stomping grounds, including his elementary school where he did his Eagle scout project. (Awwww!). Drove to Lake Charles, Louisiana (5ish hours)--his parents' house. Was that the night we had the fire in his backyard? Yeah, I think so. His dad built a fire in the fire pit for us. He's awesome.
• Friday: Drove around with Jenny and Julie (Scott's mom) & saw a lot of cool stuff in southern Louisiana, including the Tabasco factory (only place in the world it's made!), lots of beautiful gardens & a bird sanctuary. Scott and I found these nasty nasty nasty intestines floating in the muck in one of the jungly places we went. We think someone tried to feed the alligators. Stayed on a plantation estate that night--we were in the servants' quarters, but everything was still so beautiful and nice. Really elegant. We all fell asleep watching this really lame ghost movie (The Off Season, maybe? Can't remember the title). So fun.
• Saturday: New Orleans! Holy cow. So much to see and hear and do and eat--the French quarter (which we did not eat), the famous (huge!) flea market, the beautiful beautiful beautiful second-story condos all over the place (everything's so verdant & lush! Victorianish without being gaudy for the most part), Jazz musicians, all kinds of street performers, Begniets (I know that's spelled wrong--French doughnuts piled with powdered sugar. Mmmmmmmmm.), Jambalaya (I actually like it way better the way Scott makes it!), awesome old churches and hotels and bars (didn't go in those, obviously)...we did wander down Burbon Street for a while, which I hated. So so offensive to the spirit, as prudish as that sounds. It's like the Vegas strip only not as flashy and with no patches of classy hangouts at all. We also did this haunted history tour--pretty cool ghost stories along a walking tour of the nicer parts of the French quarter & other historical spots. Maybe the weirdest thing was to see the hurricanes' impact on the South in general and New Orleans especially. We drove past the Superdome--it made my heart ache to think of so many people stranded. It's bizarre to think of what's now (again) a bustling town--metropolis, really--like New Orleans being covered in filthy water and, really, almost destroyed in parts. Most of what we saw has been rebuilt, but there are still places where everyone's still trying to get back on their feet and get their lives put back together more than two years later. In unrelated news, I saw more black people in two blocks in New Orleans than I think I'd seen in all of my life to that point. It was great.
• Sunday: oh, we drove back to Lake Charles that night (about 3 hours again, I think. I'm gonna have to sit down and count up how many hours we spent in that car this week. Let's just say that Scott and I watched a whole lot of movies and tried to nap a lot, sometimes with more success than other times). Sunday we sang in Scott's parents' ward's sacrament meeting (me, Scott, Julie, Jenny, and Scott's youngest brother Matt--Scott's dad had left for a business trip to Germany the day before). So fun--Scott sang a solo! Gaa! I love so much to hear him sing. It does crazy things to my head. Oh, and we got to meet more old friends--cool people I've heard stories about. After church we dashed off to the airport again, hopped on a plane, and are finally back again.

Whew!

I am so so so tired. Doesn't help that I've got more to do this week than there are hours in which to do it, really. Man alive. I'm going to bed.