By Kevin Chiri

I hope many of you have noticed the changes and improvements we have made to our web site in recent months.

Lobservateur.com has expanded greatly, now offering columns, obituaries, lifestyle news and getting the most interest of all, a feature at the end of any story where you can add a blog comment.

For those of you who aren’t so familiar with blogging, yet the newest innovation to come to us courtesy of the ever-expanding Internet, it is the latest thing where people communicate via the Net.

There are a lot of blog web sites, made just for people to blog about….well, just about anything. A lot of people make their own blog sites just so they can sit and talk about….well, themselves.

Yet, there is something about the blog sites that has gotten a lot of interest.

Most blogs that are more popular are the ones that are associated to a web site already in place. Many web sites now have access to join blog commenting on their own content.

Of course for us here at the newspaper, that would be….well, the news.

So at the end of every news story we have, you can write a blog comment.

Additionally, our home page now shows the top ten, most blogged-about stories on our site. That seems to not only alert people where most of the talking is going on, but it also brings more people into the conversation. And if you know much about blogging, once the first comment goes up, there is usually somebody with a differing opinion to get the conversation heated up.

Blogging is something that you can love or hate, depending which side of the blog comments you are on. But one thing is abundantly clear, for our web site or the many others out there—blogging is very popular.

Lobservateur.com was averaging around 70,000 page views a month, but with our blogging apparently adding to the interest coming to our web site, we saw our page views jump up to an all-time record of just over 82,000 in January.

So if you haven’t checked out our web site lately, give it a look. And yes, we are now selling advertising space there as well. If you are interested in a very inexpensive way to reach your target audience through a growing web site, give us a call at 652-9545 and we’ll fill you in on the details

The days until my second grandson come home from the hospital are dwindling.

My newest grandson, Jerry Scott, was born 12 weeks premature back in December, and even though he wasn’t scheduled to enter this world until March 13, nobody can stop these babies when circumstances change.

My daughter Chrissy has spent many a day traveling to the hospital, as has my wife, to hold the little fellow and count down the days, not expecting him home until somewhere close to that March 13 due date.

But in recent weeks, the doctors have been suggesting he might be home several weeks early and now they are saying it might be later this week.

Thankfully Chrissy seems to have most of the basic things she needs to bring a baby into the home, and that is so thanks to a friend of our family.

It is times like these when you see and feel the real love of friends and family come together. When potential tragedies or disasters like this hit, all hard feelings are forgotten, and any other problems that may have seemed big before are suddenly like a grain of sand.

We have seen such amazing help for my daughter and my son-in-law since Jerry Scott was born, but nothing as unbelievable as the shower thrown for Chrissy on Saturday by a family friend named Mitzi.

It wasn’t very long after she heard about the baby being born that Mitzi told my wife she wanted to be the one to throw a shower for Chrissy. That was great since my wife was logging many hours back and forth to the hospital already, and the burden of putting on a shower would have been a lot to handle.

But Mitzi is one of those people who does things for people as if it is second nature. Never have we seen a person who has such a giving heart to others—not just us—but to anyone she sees is in need. Her husband Danny has always been the exact same way. He has had an air conditioning business in Slidell since my wife and I were going to school with them, and even through many ups and downs in his business, Danny has always been a giver to help people in need.

Some people look at those who belong to all the right civic organizations, or those who are pillars of their church family, and figure they are the real, true Christian givers that they know.

And many of those people do, in fact, qualify in that way.

But Mitzi and Danny are two people who give over and over to others, never ever expecting anything in return, and actually even seeming embarrassed if someone acts like they need to reciprocate.

Mitzi didn’t just put on a shower for Chrissy. She put on one of the most beautiful showers you had ever seen, according to my wife. There were amazing decorations everywhere, wonderful food that Mitzi made or bought, cute little table treats for everyone, and on and on.

But what may be more amazing is that Mitzi was doing it for our family at a time when she has a huge load of family burdens of her own, that include some serious illnesses and diseases to some of her kids. Yet there she was on Saturday, smiling and friendly as ever.

Sure, there are many wonderful friends many of us have, and we certainly appreciate them all. But people like Danny and Mitzi are the kind who have the giving spirit you hope and pray your children learn while living in your own house. That is the real heart of Christian giving that is spoken about in the Bible, and we have witnessed it over and over from these two dear friends of ours.

Kevin Chiri is Publisher of L’Observateur and can be reached at (985) 652-9545 or at kchiri@bellsouth.net