A) Yes, it was the best. weekend. ever!
B) As with most of our ideas, we usually lack planning. {ex. deciding to drive to San Diego with no hotel reservations, only to realize upon our arrival that it was the week of Comic Con}. New Orleans was no different. We wanted to take a road trip, we had never been to NOLA, so we booked a hotel and just went. Turns out, it was the first weekend of the series of Mardi Gras parades. No biggie, really, except we probably paid more for our hotel than we would've any other time of year. Anyway, we got there late Friday night. BTW, our kids are AMAZING little travelers. We started early on Saturday morning with breakfast at Cafe Beignet, where Adelyn discovered beignets for the first time. She was in pure powdered sugar heaven and became obsessed with getting more the rest of the day. We walked around Jackson Square and learned a little history from Dave about his favorite president, and then we hopped on a carriage ride that took us around the French Quarter and to the oldest cemetery in town {which happens to be where they filmed a scene for Easy Rider....the scene that then made the Catholic church ban future filming in the cemetery}. After the carriage ride, we wanted to try the beignets at Cafe Du Monde, but the wait was over an hour. Boo. We stumbled upon a street performance that was pretty entertaining and then found another little cafe that served...you guessed it....beignets. Adelyn, seriously, in heaven. After that afternoon snack, we headed to an awesome Insectarium for the kids. It was seriously super cool, and I am not a huge fan of bugs. We bought a pass that included the IMAX and the Aquarium so we headed there next. After that, we went to eat an early dinner at Ralph and Kacoo's {a recommendation from our friend, Ashley, who is hopefully reading this....I am updating my blog, yay!}. We scored because our waitress had a private room that was open, so we totally got to relax without having to worry about the kids disturbing the other restaurant patrons. It. was. awesome. We also got frozen hurricanes, per Ashley's recommendation, and they did not disappoint. Random sidenote, we tried chargrilled oysters for the first time, and they were seriously yummy. After dinner we decided to walk around the streets a little and Blake became part of a street act. The guy was making balloons and told Blake to come out to see him. He totally hooked him up with....pictures below. It was so cute and the girls thought it was hilarious to see their little brother out there with the guy. Now this is where we might seem like we were losing our minds....we found a spot to sit for the parade. We sat there for a few minutes until we realized we were literally the ONLY people with small children in sight. I sparked a conversation with the lady next to me {as I am holding my light up to-go cup full of frozen hurricane} and asked her if the parade was inappropriate for children. She heard that people may not be dressed, but they would be painted...ok, that seemed fine to me, as long as everything was covered. We sat there for a little while, and then decided we just couldn't be "those" parents and started back toward the hotel. As we headed that way, there were a TON of people heading toward the parade and the crowd just kept getting bigger and bigger...and crazier and crazier {pretty sure Addy got a decent glimpse of a flasher's boobs}. We made it back safely, however, and spent the rest of the night swimming in the hotel pool. *I sent Dave to check out the parade while I took the kids swimming since it was supposed to start at 6:30, but he said it hadn't even started when he was down there around 7:45. Anyway, the kids and I pretty much passed out from our long day, but Dave was still wide awake so he headed to the casino to play Craps. He needs practice for our upcoming Vegas trip! The next morning we heard of a family friendly parade starting at 12:00, but we needed to head out. We managed to get one last beignet fix at a drive-thru Cafe Du Monde in Kenner, and then made the long drive back home. We managed to pack A LOT of fun into one day in New Orleans!!
For the record, it was a GOOD call to leave the parade....this lovely float has been tweeted a lot this week:
Nothing screams "Parent of the Year" like a Giant Man-eating Vagina. Glad we left. ;-)
