Darren LeBlanc

Exactly 3 years ago, today, this picture was taken. It’s one of my favorites.

This is me and Steve Moss, coming out of a katrina-destroyed house that we were gutting. (No, I don’t have long sleeves on…that was the stuff that was on the walls.) I had the privilege of leading a group of students and young adults to New Orleans to tackle the $10,000+ task for a lovely family who needed some help. Politically, it was a tough time there as it had been a year since Katrina hit, but many (MANY) home owners didn’t have the finances to rebuild. The government was telling people they needed to begin rebuilding or the homes would be torn down. We met up with an organization that plugged us in with this family, and we basically tore the place down to the studs to same them the cost of having that done.

You can ready our daily account of the trip written by me and other members of the team: 
http://b14parents.blogspot.com/
(NOTE: the link that says pictures, will NOT take you to pictures of the new orleans trip. I’m in process of fixing that now. Also, start at the bottom post if you want to read chronilogically:)

I have a fond memory that didn’t seem to make it into the daily updates. This is what I remember. First, you need to remember that this house had not been touched in over a year since the storm hit and drove everyone out. Subsequently, there was 8-10ft of water flooding for weeks following…so things weren’t in good shape. Well, as we were tearing out the kitchen, we obviously found the fridge. It had food in it that had been air tight for the whole time…you get the idea. Well, as I began to pull it out from the wall, the door cracked a little. Whew…there is no word to describe the smell that came out of there. The entire house cleared from the smell that came from this thing in the literally 2-3 seconds that it was cracked open. It was unreal.

As we were moving the fridge out to the trash, the door slipped open again and some black sludge oozed out the bottom onto the leg of my pants. This is where it gets funny. Well, as I was walking through a group of students, one of the girls got a whiff of my new found odor and without missing a beat, she turned, bent at the waist and threw up on the grass. I smelled so bad that I was making people around me puke. I covered my leg so the kids could get in the van with me for the ride home. I’m pretty sure I bagged those clothes for the garbage that night. Ah, good memories.

New Orleans marked the last event that I led in the Boat14 Youth Ministry. And  last saturday 45 people from that era showed up at my house to remember those days in which we grew, served, loved, laughed and lived life together. Some of the students wanted to get together for a bit of a reunion party…and I was totally on board. One thing I firmly believe in is making memories and visiting them often. Relationships are built on memories, and outside our relationship with God, as a Christian I believe my relationship with others is paramount. I work really hard on my relationships with others.  Anyway, click the image below (of my backyard during the party) to see the gallery. And thanks to everyone who came…you all made me feel loved and valued. And as a point of reference, for those of you following me on twitter or facebook, you may have noticed my comment about experiencing such amazing joys, but also such devastating lows. This was one of the recent highs that played into that.

Boat14 Reunion Pics: HERE

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Olivia and I have had a great couple days.

FRIDAY: We spent the night in Red Bank at the fabulous fireworks they do there every year. Saw a gazillion people we know, and had the pleasure of sharing a blanket in a beautiful location (thanks to the folks who got there at 11am to save the location for all of us!!)

SATURDAY: We joined up with pretty big group of folks and took a boat out of Point Pleasant. A 30 minute ride up the coast and we were in perfect location for the Long Branch fireworks.

Click the image below to visit the gallery. Nothing fancy, just a few shots snapped with my little point and shoot.

I posted the gallery HERE.

If you have a few minutes, click through each image and read the captions. I told much of the story of the trip just through the words written under each picture. I will however, blog about the trip…hopefully this week.

My favorite: the view from my deck at Shumba Shaba Lodge. We stayed in thatched huts build into the cliffs.

So I’m home. Got home yesterday actually, but did nothing other than hang out with Olivia and go to bed. Tonight I’m a little more up to staying up to chat with all of you. It’s 8am in Zimbabwe, so I am getting a bit tired, but I decided to grab a couple pictures as a preview. I spent 90% of my time behind the video camera so I didn’t get as many pictures as I’d have liked. I only took about 2000 :)

Here is the star of our show, her name is Neatness:

Here is her home:

And here is the chapel that is part of her school (which by the way, is one of the best schools in the country):

I sorted the rest of the pictures and I’m down to about 300. I’ll get them up soon and tell you all about it.

If you have sat through a church service in which I was doing the music (what many Christians call “worship”), you have likely heard something by Jeff Deyo. He has been someone I have looked up to in the worship arena for half a dozen years now. I saw Jeff and his great band this past week down at Calvary Lighthouse in Lakewood. I just wanted to share some of the pictures with you. Click the picture below for the full gallery:

It’s 3:30am and I’m sitting down to blog. What does this mean for you? Well…it means that I’m not typing the “missing blog” entry tonight. I need a few hours for that one. Soon…

But I had a lovely adventure with my girl today. After church we went to Sandy Hook and visit the Fort Hancock area as well as some of the beaches. Check out the gallery.

Congrats to Elena and Justin Dunn. Liv and I just got back from their wedding today (ceremony #2), it was lovely. Olivia kept trying to steal the show on the dance floor, but my peruvian friend was going to give up easy.

 Congrats guys. So happy for you!

Here is the gallery:

PS…I’m planning on finishing the “missing blog” for monday morning.

I have two congrats to give today…and both of them come with galleries….and both of them are my sisters :)

Congrats to Shannon for winning the first place rank in the division with her softball team. Shannon is the only freshman playing on varsity right now! Here is a shot of her getting a double in a game this week. Click the image for the full gallery.

Congrats also to my sister-in-law, Genevieve.  Genevieve graduated from TCNJ today with a degree in English. Here is one from her ceremony. Again, click the picture for the full gallery.

I took a break. It was in some ways, the first break I have had in quite a while. It was nice.

Olivia and I went out to San Francisco to visit my cousin Chad and his wife Shawna. I turned off the blackberry, ignored email and basically left my phone in the bag. Despite some pretty bad weather (especially for May in San Francisco) we had an incredible time. Here are a few anecdotes:

FLIGHT
The flight out was Olivia’s first flight. She did great for the whole first 5 hours and 35 minutes. The last 20 minutes had her a little upset with the normal ear pressure issues. “Daddy, I have to get out of here before my ears pop!”

RAIN
It rained everyday we were there, which from what I’m told is very unlikely for this time of year. Strangely enough though, it seemed that the rain just worked out perfectly, we did mostly everything we would have wanted to do….EXCEPT, take great pictures of the city (i occasionally moonlight as a photographer…haha). And to be honest, that was probably a blessing as well. Instead of my incessant shooting, I actually did a bit of relaxing. We also got to visit some great places, like the Bay Area Discovery Museum and the new Academy of Sciences. The rain broke long enough each day for aus to visit a park, or take a nice hike as well.

FRIEND #1
Olivia’s first friend of the trip was definitely baxter (the dog). She is in love with animals and took to him pretty quickly since he is markedly less moody than our dear marmalade (the cat). The highlight of most days was getting to walk “baxtah”.

JAPANESE TEA GARDEN
The rain broke just long enough for us to walk through the Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate Park. We had Jasmine tea and hot chocolate together. Well, my little girl decides to pick up the tea pot and pour a glass of tea while I was taking this first picture. Then as I was cleaning it up, she managed to spill the hot chocolate all over herself. After the delectable  cocoa when down her front we actually just looked at each other and laughed.  

Napa Valley
After the tea incident, we got in the car and just drove. She napped in her car seat while I toured the american wine county….or at least drove its roads. Here is one I snapped from the car while my little lady was snoring (she does that often in car seats).

FRIEND #2
When we got to the airport we were greeted with a lovely 3 hour delay. Well, thank God that we ran into this lovely family from CT that was on our flight. Their little 4 year old and Olivia became best friends and played for hours in the airport. Then they couldn’t stop visiting each other on the plan. It was quite cute.

Anyway, I’m back now….but kinda wishing I could “vacate” for a little longer. You could tell my brain was still on vacation today… I’m not sure I have ever had such an unproductive day at work :)

Thanks so much to my cousins, Chad and Shawna!
Chad works for Apple by day, and is a time lapse photographer  and a wine maker by night. Shawna is a respected Life coach and a beautiful expectant mother!

• http://chadrichard.typepad.com/timelapse
• http://lifestepscoaching.com
• http://furthermorewines.com

By the way, you can visit the full gallery HERE. I added captions so it all makes sense. But in case you don’t feel like loading another page, here are a couple more pictures…

Well, my little lady is just loving her new Flower Girl title. Tonight, we met up with some of the bridal party from Vanessa Joy’s wedding at an unnamed bridal store (I’d mention the name, but then I’d have to tell you how horrible they were to Vanessa tonight, and I’m not in the mood for that type of post).

I helped her get her dress on and she ran around the store like she owned the place. She kept saying “I like my dress…I like my dress”.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures. Just click the image below to visit the gallery:

On a totally different note, today Olivia dropped a new one on me. Driving home from the dress fitting, she said “I want Mommy back.” She has never said that…I mean, we have talked about Mommy a lot, but I don’t think she has ever said that. At the end, she was ok with knowing that we would see mommy someday. In a very unusual state of affairs, she had talked me into tears, but she herself was quite alright :)