Naw'leans!!

We just returned from out first trip to New Orleans!

A very short but eventful trip.

It was a blast. Actually we went for the wedding of a good friend of ours.

His new wife and her family are from there and since Chris was asked to do a reading, we decided to go ahead and make a mini vacation out of it.

New Orleans is an interesting place. When you start driving into the city it really is not very pretty. It's dirty and crowded. But when you get towards the old historic area it is everything I ever pictured and more.

There is so much to do and so much history there. And you walk everywhere unless you want to take the street trolley, which we ended up doing a few times. We only got our car out of parking once the whole time we were there. The old homes and hotels and shops are so cool.

They had this big flea market called the French Market. We took the girls and did a little shopping. It was neat to tell the girls that I used to spend a lot of time at those when I was younger.

Madison was so amazed that there were street performers and we had to stop and listen to a band that was playing even though at the time it was raining. It was real New Orleans Jazz style music.

It was so cute, Chris ran into the store to pick up some things and I stood outside with the girls and Olivia asked me if she could play her harmonica that Chris had bought the girls at the flea market. I said sure. So she took the hat she got and placed it on the ground and began to play!
It was so funny, she wanted to earn some money. I told her that she really wasn't supposed to do that but she did have a few people look at her and think she was so adorable.

There was a beautiful catholic church that had a gorgeous interior. We were allowed to walk through and see the stained glass windows and elaborately painted ceiling. It was a quiet and peaceful setting with candles lit up as offerings everywhere.
They had this plaque on the wall that listed all of the Rectors at that church beginning in the 1700s to current. Imagine the history those church walls have seen.

Our hotel was pretty nice. It was called the Pelham Hotel and it was an old historic building.

Great to look at and be in but there is NO sound proofing. They are basically old interior doors with deadbolts on them. Which is why there are safes in all the rooms.
At 4:00 in the we heard everything from people arguing to dogs barking and parakeets chirping.

We ate VERY well. The first place we went to was called the Pearl Oyster Bar.

They had really good red beans and rice and jambalaya. I had

this sandwich called a Muffelatta. It has meat and cheese and this Italian olive tapenade type salad. Pretty good.

The wedding was at this beautiful plantation called Southern Oaks.

It was so hot that day and we were glad that it was a short wedding ceremony. The best part was the parade at the end of the ceremony into the reception area inside.

It is a tradition at weddings there that ironically began at funerals.

The wedding party followed this big jazz marching band and danced waving white cloth napkins

in the air. The bride and groom carried these festive umbrellas and as they passed us, we all followed them waving our white cloth napkins until we made it into the reception area. There the band continued playing "when the saints go marching in" and others like it while all of these waiters and waitresses served hors d'oeuvre after hors d'oeuvre. Ranging from grilled tuna and jambalaya to crab cakes and fried catfish.

It was so much fun. An experience that I will never forget and am glad that I got to experience.

Probably the only disappointing thing other than it going by too fast was that we decided to hold off going to the Aquarium of the Americas for the day that we checked out. We would go there

and then head for the drive home. Unfortunately it was closed

on Mondays. Madison was so disappointed. She loves aquatic life and you may not know this but she has always wanted to be a marine biologist. So she was really bummed out. But we had a great time and I think that next time I would like to go with Chris alone some weekend. A mini getaway for the two of us!

Dance Recital

Olivia just had her third dance recital and I know I am a little biased but she is such a great dancer. I honestly think that this is her thing. I remember as a baby she would crawl over to the stereo and rock back and forth and bop her head up and down.

It's great to watch her up on the stage when she is there with all of the other kids and most of them are just standing there looking out into the crowd or waving to their parents, Olivia is so focused and paying attention to her teacher. We are so proud of her.

She had three performances. First was her tap routine "Walk Like and Egyptian" which for some reason she is wearing a Genie outfit. But it was cute nonetheless.

Her second routine was her gymnastics class and they tumbled across mats to the song " Welcome to the Jungle" (Note the 80's theme going on) I have to admit I am a little embarrassed that I can't remember the song to her ballet routine but I know she did great.

Here are a few of her pictures from the recital. The only thing I really don't get is that they want the kids to wear so much makeup. But it's only once a year and Olivia feels so pretty when she's all gussied up!

Botanical Gardens

Friday I took the girls the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It's a place downtown where there are different kinds of huge gardens with all kinds of plants, flowers and water feautures. Some of the gardens are indoor but most are outdoors.

Usually they will feature a new artist for the season with installations throughout the gardens.

Last year we went with mom and the artist feautres was Dale Chihuly. He has amazing glass sculptures. There are still a few of his scultures in the gardens. The floating glass balls that are in a huge pond are so cool!

This year the artist featured is Nikki Nights. She makes these enormous scupltures out of wire and fabric and then paints some of them but mostly covers them in mosaics. She uses glass, tile, rocks, and all kinds of other stuff. Most of them are interactive so the girls could climb up on them or go inside of them.

They were just stunning. And the ones covered in mirrors were so cool with the sun shining on them. Although I have to say these pictures do not do them justice. All in all, it ended up being the perfect day. The temperature was just right. We never got too hot and the humidty was abnormally low.

The girls had a great time. Although we had to rush back to get Olivia ready for her dance recital. She was soaking wet from the splash park that they have in the kids play area.The best part is that it only cost us $10 for all three of us to get in.

It's about time

OK so I thought it was probably time to create a family blog.
I was starting to feel a little left out. I love to see what my family is up to and all of the adorable pictures of my niece's and nephew's and I thought just maybe my family would want to see my adorable girls too!

Well,
We just returned from our trip to the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
It is close enough that we can drive there in less than a day and it less expensive than flying (although not by much now a days with the price of gas rapidly rising).
We always go with some friends of ours from Tennessee (Brian, Amy and Adam) and this year we added our friends the Martinez's (Antonio, Dede, Gabby, Chris and Josh).

The guys spent A LOT of time fishing on Brian's boat out in the ocean. But I can't complain too much since this year they actually provided us with some red fish for dinner. Yumm!!

I just bathed in the sun and enjoyed my time NOT working. The girls mostly played in the sand and made new friends with the neighbors next door.
We didn't get to do much swimming this year because the jelly fish were early this year. There were TONS of them. The first few days there were so many that you couldn't even get in without getting stung. You could literally stand at the waters edge and count them by the dozens.
Fortunately, the last few days they had cleared out for the most part. It took a lot to convince Madison to get in and it was pretty much over for Olivia. She was convinced that she would get stung if she got in (even though she watched me swim for over 30 min. with out incident).

Our friend Antonio caught a little sand shark from the shore and while trying to let it go, Brian got bit by it. For a small shark the bite was pretty bad. Not bad enough to get stitches or anything but it gives you an idea of what a big shark can do.






All in all, it was a good time. I wanted to stay a little longer but I think that no matter how long we stay that will always be the case.

We took tons of pictures, here are a few of my favorites (my camera is not as great as Christy and Leora's but it gets the job done).
Actually, Olivia did the majority of the photo taking. Since it is digital, I just let her go to town. She did a pretty good job and managed to even take a few of herself! There were two in particular that were so cute. One was of her own eyes and one of her feet. Somehow she managed to make them sepia tone, although they are a little blurry, they turned out really cute!!