New Orleans!!

Okay, I really love cities!!  I love love love walking around everywhere or using public transportation.  I love the excitement you can find just around the street corner.  I Love the energy in a city.  If I didn't care about having a backyard for my kids I may just totally dig a city lifestyle.  I keep saying I'd like for us to retire to a city apartment but also have a ranch or something bigger too.  I was definitely digging our 2 1/2 days in New Orleans this past weekend.  HUGE shout out to Big J's sis and his parents for taking great care of the small ones while we were gone!!  I LOVE vacationing with our kidlets and miss them every moment we are gone when it's just the two of us.  But I'm glad to know they are in good hands and I love reconnecting with the hubs on a one on one basis.  The real reason we were in NOLA was because Big J had a conference but we were able to do some fun things together on Thursday and Friday and he mostly did conference stuff Saturday while I moved around town.  Here's our vacation in pictures:

I talked the man into a SWAMP TOUR!!  I think secretly he really wanted to go because he finds those swamp shows interesting but I still had to talk him into it.  Well, and I found one that didn't have an outrageous price tag so that helped.  We loved our tour!

We saw a number of birds on the tour--the most numerous being the Great Blue Heron.  Also saw a bald eagle, a kingfisher, egrets, some Anhinga's, and various other small birds.

Can you spot Mr. Allie Gator?  While we were watching him he moved into the marshy water and seemed to make a move for the egret but the egret was keeping a watchful eye on 'ole Allie.  Our guide guessed this was about a 12 foot gator.  

This one looks big until you see the soda can.  He's probably only 3-4 years old.  The guide said gators grow about a foot a year for the first several years of life but then only an inch or so a year.  Crazy!  

Remnants from naughty Katrina

Swamp People

This gator never had a chance

Next to Cafe du Monde.  Yes, we visited.  Once a day.  Beignets....MmmmmMmm!!  Also had the hubs try Pecan Pralines for the first time.  He was a fan.  Me not as much because I prefer pecan pie and turtles and pecan log.  Pecans are among my favorite foods, can you tell?  They rank pretty close to avocado.  

This mask almost came home with me.  I hope I don't kick myself later for not getting it.  If so, I may just have to go back.

While Big J was at his conference I visited Mardi Gras World!  It was so fun to learn how they make the parade floats and discover the vast amount of work that goes into the 11 days or so of Mardi Gras parades.  The artistry is incredible.  

Sneek peek at what's to come for 2013 Mardi Gras

So crazy cool how they make Styrofoam come to life

This beautiful butterfly is made of discarded Mardi Gras beads placed one at a time

Even crazier is this 42 foot mural that is going to be covered with beads to make up the World Record bead mural.  The artist, Stephan Wanger shown here, just started last week so he's got a ways to go.

So, I helped him.  He wants for many people to be involved in his quest for the world record mural so he invites anyone on the tour to help him glue on beads.  Of course I had to take part so I could tell my kids I was part of a world record.  When this is finished it will be an amazing piece of art and have millions of beads that thousands of people helped put on.  Cool!

Seriously there were so many cool parade float pieces but I chose to put this one on because it was one of my favorites--> fun and colorful.

I LOVED walking the streets of the French Quarter.  And I just adore these balcony's.  There is so much rich architecture in New Orleans.  Also on Saturday I went to the 1831 Hermann-Grima house and though they weren't doing tours I was able to see the stables, courtyard and first floor of the exquisite home.  

 A fun part of the conference--Big J accepting his award for being chosen for the Tucker/Cohen Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation put up in the fields of political Science or Political History, which is given out annually by the Association for Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies.  This is a pretty great honor and he is thrilled they like his work--making it all a bit more worth the time, work, dedication and sacrifice he put into grad school with three children.  He is pretty amazing, right?!

So, all in all I think we experienced a great deal of New Orleans culture in our 2.5 days.  We visited friends from Princeton who live there now and saw the Garden District on the way out to their place.  We had excellent food and walked along the great Mississippi River and all over the French Quarter.  I loved walking around Jackson Square with the many talented artists displaying their artwork for sale.  There were so many styles and I loved many of them.  I'm afraid if we ever lived there I'd be a regular and spend entirely too much money on artwork.  We traveled through swamps and hat shops and Mardi Gras floats and the French Market and basically just had a great time.  I'm so glad we were able to go but I'm also so glad to be home.  I enjoy travelling with the kids more but it is nice to give more focus to my most important relationship for a few days.