Friday Finale

The group put in one more day at the Drywall house with a small hard working group from Augsburg College before heading back home.

Bunk Houses (trailers) at Camp Restore

Steve decided to stay back and work another week since the camp was expecting one more large week of college spring break volunteers and was going to have a shortage of experienced handymen. Despite being down a driver (forcing Rick and Tim to attend a crash course at Bob's RV driving School) the group left Camp Restore around 5:30 PM Friday and rolled into SOTH at 12:30 PM on Saturday,

Something Fishy is Going on!

Continuing a mission trip tradition the group placed it's scrimp order at a fish market on Thursday and picked up the order Friday afternoon before heading out of town.

St. Patrick's Day

The group went down to Bourbon Street to celebrate St. Patrick's day for dinner and a parade. The group experienced some real New Orleans cooking at La Bayou.

Bob sporting his St. Patrick's Day attire

 Rick, Mike and Jeff enjoying one of the great bands playing on St. Patrick's Day.

Thursday Work Projects

On Thursday, Mike, Jeff, Rick and Bob finished up there project completing the siding once the correct supplies arrived and a group from Augsburg came back to finish up the painting.

Sandy, Steve, Caroline and Tim continued to work on the Drywall house with the rest of the Augsburg College group.

An additional project at the Drywall house was scraping and painting the iron fence. The fence was started on Thursday and completed on Friday.

Augsburg kids with one SOTH big kid

Stole Away

We just found Louie in one of the underneath cabinets today. We will be putting him to work tomorrow!!!!

Day 3 Happenings

Walt our morning job site chauffeur

Both groups returned to their Tuesday work sites. Bob, Jeff, Rick and Mike would have finished siding if the correct materials would have been delivered. Steve, Caroline, Sandy and Tim worked with a group from Augsburg College finishing the insulation and starting to drywall.

Rick after a hard day (and a hammer falling on his head)

Day 2 Update

Jeff, Mike, Rick and Bob continued to work on their house and still have at least a day more of siding and finish work. The other group with Sandy, Caroline,Tim and Steve worked with the IUPUI group again at a new house putting up insulation and wiring for electric (utilizing Steve's talents).

The team worked hard preparing the evening meal for the whole camp of 260 volunteers plus staff. We always bring a little bit of Wisconsin with us as we grilled 300 brats and 80 hot dogs. We also served sour kraut, corn, rice, beans and apple crisp. No groups chose to eat away from camp (groups can opt to go out on there own but are asked to sign up on the meal sheet so that foot can be prepped for the right amount of people) and the meal was a great success.

Look what happens after a hard day!!!

Day 1 Projects

Today we were divided up into two groups with Bob, Mike, Rick and Jeff working with a group of 14 from Augsberg College working on siding, painting and finish work. The college kids finished the priming and painting while our guys did the siding work finishing one peak. They have the peak on the other side and finish work left.

Bob making sure things run smoothly!!!

Paint crew hard at work.

The other group of Sandy, Caroline, Tim and Steve had an adventure running around all morning. The owner of the original house that we were going to work on had family in town and didn't want a work crew. By late morning we arrived at the second house but the house lacked supplies. The drywall supplies arrived after lunch. Working with a group of six guys from IUPUI ( Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis ) the sanding was done before lunch. The group finished up the mudding, taping and touch up prepaing the house to be painted. With no supplies to do anything else the group finished up by 3:30 PM.

The drywall professionals at work.

Drywall Crew

Chalmette Battlefield site of the Battle of New Orleans (War of 1812)

The British flags marks the spot from which the British army advance on Andrew Jackson's American troops.

New parks service building with displays and videos that tell the tale of the Battle of New Orleans. Where over 2,000 British soldiers were either killed or captured while only 20 American lives were lost.

That's How We Roll

Life is tough on the road as you a can see Bob's RV is the only way to travel. The RV sleeps eight and will sleep the six guys during our week at Camp Restore. The RV rides like a dream even in windy conditions. Way too much food and a ton of sheep's head at the table help to pass time on the road.