New Orleans Trip

Thanks to my sister, I have a pretty nice part time, work from home job, supervising foreign exchange students. I qualified for both me and Owen to go to The National Meeting. This year it was in New Orleans. We left early Thursday a morning and didn't get home until really late Sunday night. Here are a few highlights from our trip :)

We went to a little restaurant right in back of our hotel after we got there. It was called Daisy Dukes and it was really good. We went there the next morning for breakfast before our swamp tour.

This was the view from our hotel window. The Main Street to the left was Canal Street. It had some shops and restaurants on it. The same gift shops over and over again with many distasteful novelties. I didn't realize Mardi Gras went both ways. Women don't just flash for beads, apparently men do as well. Eww. Luckily we were there a week or so  BEFORE Mardi Gras - thankfully.

Friday morning we went on a swamp tour and it was freezing. My favorite part of the tour was when the tour guide said the boat might bump into things like logs so not to be concerned. My friend asked if he was sure it wouldn't be an alligator that make the boat bump around and he replied, "maybe a frozen alligator." Ha! If was that cold. He said that they usually wear shorts this time if year, so it was very abnormal to be that cold. 

On the Bayou. I couldn't help but sing all of The Princess and the Frog songs to myself the whole time :)

These are little muskrat things, they have a different name, but I don't remember it, that live in the swamp.

We saw one baby alligator head in the swamp. It's up kind of near the top left hand corner of the picture. It's a really dark green and it almost looks like the end of a giant pickle of something. Anyway, the tour guy said that alligators hearts slow down to 2 or 3 beats per hour when it's really cold like this. They basically go dormant and can stash under water for  up to 8 hours ag a time. They can go 2 months with out eating because thief metabolism slows down so much. I learned some interesting things :)

He saved the day by having a baby alligator on the boat so we could hold him.

I was kind of nervouse. I said I would only hold it if I could have one of the ladies on the boats gloves :) apparently he was really cold.

They have turtles that live in the swamp as well. This was a shell of a turtle you would see in the swamp.

Petrified alligator head. They had these for sale EVERYWHERE!

We had a team spirit night. We wore all bright neon colors and glow in the dark stuff :) this was just a part of our team.

The BEST part if the weekend?! Seeing my sister! We just laughed and laughed all weekend long. It went by wash too fast. 

They have a huge WWII museum and so we went and checked that out on Saturday afternoon.

I wish we would have had time to read and hear every single thing, but we were short on time. The air planes were awesome! They had an observance walk way- 141 steps, may I add, and I found my self experiencing a bit of vertigo. Then I saw this sign:

That made sense. I have never experienced that before, but I felt like the ground was moving and slight dizziness accompanied it. However, after I got home I came down with a nasty virus, so I wonder if it had been coming on on Saturday and I just didn't realize it?

These were some German shelter something or other.

We sent this picture to my Grandma and Grandpa. He served in WWII.

Saturday night they bussed all 900 of us to Mardi Gras World .

The men weren't interested in dressing up ;)

Mardi Gras world was a big warehouse that has all of the floats for the parade. It was actually a lot cooler than I expected. I snapped a picture of this unicorn for Evie.

They had another Alligator on Sarurday night. He was quite a bit bigger than the other one. I didn't want to hold this one - no gloves around ;) they are so prehistoric looking. The lady that brought this one said they call them the last living dinosaurs. 

We had a few hours to kill after our Sunday morning meetings before we had to leave for the airport. So we walked down to Jefferson Square and walked around the French Quarter. This cathedral was open and we were able to look inside. It was really beautiful.

 The architecture was beautiful around the city!

We found this little cafe that made delicious beignets! I think we got some every day we were there! I took the above picture to show Evie. Little birds would fly in to the cafe ... Kind of gross, actually! 

They actually taste a lot like my grandmas scones. Oh, so good :)

Another picture I took for Evie. It's interesting how our view on things change once we have children. I find myself looking for the simple, little pleasures in life because I know that's what my kids notice. 

I

I missed the kids quite a bit. It was hard to leave, but my mom and dad took care of them and Evie spent a few nights at my brother and sister in laws house, so I knew they were in good hands. The travel back was horrendous. We had two plane changes. We didn't get home until 1:30 am Monday morning. I was so exhausted from traveling, but more I realize my body was getting sick. I was sick on our anniversary yesterday. Owen spent all say taking care of me and the kids. He his such a good man and I am very lucky to have him. Things still look bleak at this moment. He had lots of interviews, and now all we hear are crickets. Sometimes I wonder how much longer we have to endure this. I wonder what The Lord has in store for us, of if he has anything in store for us. It must be the sickness talking. I haven't been this sick in a long time. I pray nobody else in the family gets it.