We arrived in New Orleans Wednesday afternoon. A mixup on the plane caused us to not get lunch, so my first order of business was food for the kids.
We found a little spot across the street from the hotel (Daisy Dukes) and the kids ordered pizza, and I ordered a bloody mary. I semi-noticed that the menu said unlimited bloody marys, but didn’t think about it until my drink was almost gone and the waitress asked if I wanted another drink. She brought another drink which, after traveling all day with two semi-grumpy kids, I had no problem almost finishing.
But the best is that after I paid our bill the waitress asked if I wanted to take it with me…um, ok.
But then the next best thing is when she brought me an entirely full styrofoam cup for me to take with me.
The next day we got up and tracked down a park down by the Mississippi River. Mallory thought it was boring because there wasn’t a playground, but it was still a good spot to let the kids run around. One of the other wives came with us – they have a son who is two months younger than Carson – so they had fun playing football and chasing each other. The weather was awesome, and we followed up the park with a nap and then a trip to the pool. The hotel has a small baby pool that is only 3’ deep at the deep end.
Carson practiced his Denarding…
Thursday night we went out to dinner with Scary Larry, Miss Cheri, Big Mallory & Bryceroni to a fancy restaurant so we could experience some local cuisine. Of course Larry & Rick hated every minute of the meal, including the bill, but Cheri & I enjoyed crab & salmon cakes, and Mallory devoured some fried shrimp (after peeling the breading off of them…). After dinner, Big Mallory & Bryce watched Little Mallory & Carson so the grownups could go check out Bourbon Street.
Wow. INSANE. We went to Howl at the Moon for a beer and then started walking around. I was totally overwhelmed by all the debauchery and public drunkenness. I saw a kid peeing on the side of a building, and a lot of very inappropriate store fronts. It was bizarre.
On Friday I got to go on a carriage ride through the French Quarter with a bunch of other wives. We stopped and got a hurricane drink from the oldest bar in North America or something. It was STRONG. I took a nap that afternoon. I took only one picture – of the beads hanging from everything on Bourbon Street.
Friday night we went out for pizza at a place down the street from the hotel. It was OK, but I really miss Aubrees…
On Saturday (New Years Eve) I was going to try to go walk around the French Quarter and take pictures of the kids, but they said they wanted to go on the train (trolley/streetcar) so we brought the stroller back to the hotel and jumped on a streetcar and headed towards the garden district. There is a nice park near the zoo, and we were going to try to do both but I couldn’t deal with getting too far from the trolley stop with two kids and no stroller. So we played on the playground for a bit and then hopped back on the trolley, but not until I got some cute (and some goofy)pictures.
Yep, still only one lost tooth.
New Years Eve found us on a paddleboat for a dinner cruise. Carson had too much fun with his friend Mikey…
The ever-elusive family picture…
And some pictures of Mallory with her friend Riley. They are so cute together.
The paddleboat was decked out in Michigan flags…
The kids loved watching the big paddle go around; we can see this boat from our hotel room and they are constantly yelling that they can see our boat. It was cute the first time, and maybe the second. Four days later, I’m done hearing that they can see the boat. :-P