New Orleans

Scott (and his lucky wife) were invited to attend an engineering conference in Louisiana last week. Even though some incredibly wonderful friends offered to care for the boys while we went (I know, we have the best friends ever) we decided to make a family trip out of it and spent 4 days in New Orleans together. And as an added bonus, our good friends the Linfords were there too! We were able to get adjoining hotel rooms and it was wonderful to have someone fun to play with while the guys spent the day at the conference. Sadly, we didn't get a picture all together! We had a great time experiencing New Orleans with them though.

Our hotel room had a large window with a little boys' dream view: it overlooked the Mississippi river, which had river boats and barges going up and down it all the time. On the street below us was a train track and a road with lots of truck activity. And since we were on the 19th floor, we didn't have to hear any of it! The boys were in heaven watching everything and they spent nearly all our time in the room playing in the curtains and watching the show the boats and trucks and trains put on for them.

Joseph loves to perch his little body right on top. Ian thought it looked like a boat and hoped on too.

 

The architecture, food and insectarium were my favorite tourist attractions of the trip.  Check out the iron balcony in the above picture. While some of the French Quarter was keep-your-eyes-to-the-ground-nasty, several streets had beautiful porches and lovely greenery. Here is a Catholic church and the world famous Cafe du Monde which served incredible bengiets (deep fried doughnuts). A man was playing what looked like a homemade tuba outside the cafe.

Aside from the albino alligator we saw at the aquarium, we didn't get to see any live alligators. Darn. But we saw plenty of alligator souvenirs! Look at all those jaws!

Above, Joseph is eating a squid at a restaurant some NO native friends recommended. See that tasty leg sticking out of Joseph's mouth? Below is Scott at the insectarium. This was my favorite thing in NO. There were tons of live bugs and lots of interesting bug information. Ian loved it.

Behind the normal cafe at the insectarium was the Bug Appetite Cafe. Here a chef prepares candies with bugs in them, including Chocolate ChirpCookies. She just got this batch of water roaches and hasn't decided what to make with them yet.

 

And here is Ian eating a piece of toffee with a cricket in it. Not to be outdone by our toddler, Scott and I ate one too. And regretted it. Notice Ian's black eye in this picture. He ran into a wall one evening and got a small cut near the corner of his eye. He woke up with a shiner. It went nicely with the fat lip he got the next morning from splitting his lip open on the door in our hotel room. Boy is it tough to keep two active boys safe in a hotel!

It was a fun trip. We ate and ate and ate and by the time we were headed home we could eat no more. When we got home it was time to celebrate Joseph's birthday!

PS Scott says I need to clarify some things because some people are left with the impression that New Orleans is a cool city. The take-away from this post should actually be that it was fun because Scott's employer footed the bill and invited us there in the first place, and our buddies the Linfords had an adjoining room to ours, which was incredibly fun. We still think that there are probably more than 100 US cities that you have never heard of that are cooler than NO. Go to one of them instead. Seriously.