Our blog!

We planned on starting this quite sooner, but life has been busy for the Howes! We want this blog to be a way that we can communicate with our friends and family across the country, even when our schedules don't match. This is a way for all of you to see into our life as we embark on every new adventure, as well as a way for us to look back and see how much we have grown and the things we have accomplished.
For those of you who don't know, Austin and I (Courtney) were married in April of this year! We got to enjoy about a month of wedded bliss and then Austin had to go to Phoenix for the summer to train for his new job. Austin is a member of Teach for America, an outstanding organization whose goal is work towards making an excellent education available to every child, no matter who they are, where they are from, or what they have. They recruit college graduates to dedicate two years to teaching in a low performing school. see for more info on that! TFA works all over the country, and Austin was assigned to come to New Orleans and teach secondary special education! He is employed at O. Perry Walker High School in Algiers, which is only about 12 minutes away. More to come from Austin later on the tales of being a high school teacher!
While Austin was in Phoenix, Tom and Libba (Austin's Dad and StepMom) were very kind and let me live with them while he was gone. I worked at a Starbucks in Shreveport and had a relaxing summer! Austin returned home on July 19th and we moved to New Orleans on the 21st! We have been here now for three weeks and we are finally beginning to get settled. We are renting a duplex Uptown in a really neat neighborhood. We are one block off of Magazine street, which is a cool new area with lots of great restaurants, bars, coffee shops and stores. There are a lot of people our age in the area, and many of Austin's coworkers live on our street. We have spent the past three weeks painting and fixing up our apartment. It even has a little backyard for Roxy, and she loves sunbathing there. I'll post pictures soon! I have been applying for jobs and interviewing, and am working at Starbucks here in the meantime. I have a second interview tomorrow with a nonprofit organization, and I am really hoping to get the job!
We will be writing more later, but I just wanted to give a little background for anyone who doesn't know what is going on with our lives! We love and miss all of you!

Courtney