Nawlins

Back from our trip. We had a fantastic time. New Orleans, albeit a pretty dirty city, is a very fun place to visit. It's like no other place I've ever been and I thought it was very romantic: the street cars, the Mississippi River, jazz music playing EVERYWHERE, enormous oak trees, and charming narrow streets with colorful buildings and cast iron balconies overhead. Kind of a weird mix of lots of places: San Fran, Las Vegas, Paris, and Disney Land...but dirty. :)

We went to the National World War II museum and spent over 4 hours there. It was incredible. We went on a swamp tour and saw about 10 alligators and the Cajun swamp people. We visited the amazing and spooky cities of the dead and the grave of Marie Laveau the Voodoo Queen. The New Orleans water table is so high that the dead float right back to the surface if they are buried underground and are thus in huge aboveground tombs. We had a very romantic riverboat dinner cruise up the Mississippi River the night of our anniversary. We went on a run through Tulane University campus and Audubon park. We went on a walking tour of all the huge old mansions in the Garden District and read all the interesting history. We saw a couple movies and went to a voodoo museum (or I did...Ben was too scared). We took the street cars everywhere. We ate at the very popular restaurant Jacque-I-Moes. We toured an old haunted house. We spent a lot of time in the French Quarter listening to jazz, shopping in the French Market, sitting by the Mississippi or in front of the St. Louis cathedral watching the nutty street performers and fortune tellers, strolling Bourbon street, and eating at Cafe Du Monde. We ate an enormous amount of delicious food. Red fish, cat fish, shrimp jambalaya, craw fish etoufee, alligator cheesecake, and red beans and rice. And Oh the Beignets! We had an order of beignets I believe every single day. Amazing.

I loved being with my Benny. It was so good to just be us and spend some time one on one. You forget how easy everything is and how many things you can't do with babies in tow. I seriously felt like some sort of celebrity on the plane ride out to New Orleans. Sitting in my own seat with lots of room, leisurely reading my book, beating Ben at ipad chess, and having someone bring me a cold drink. Ah, yes. A very far cry from air travel the last 15 months.

But I must say that we missed our girls MUCH MORE than I ever would have imagined. Their were tears at the airport and conversations about them all day long, every single day. We called to check in and just hear what they were up to CONSTANTLY. There were many more interesting things to do in New Orleans than we got to(although expensive!)-- we wanted to tour an old plantation, go down to the Lower Ninth Ward where Katrina hit the hardest, tour Mardi Gras world where they keep all the floats-- but we started wishing our time would go by faster because we were so anxious to get home to Rosie and Eve. They of course had a wonderful time with their grandparents who did a stupendous job taking care of them. We will be forever grateful. We keep saying over and over that we will never leave them for that long again...but I guess we'll see how we feel a year from now. :)

We are so lucky to have been able to get away for a bit. So lucky to have such a great, supportive family. And so especially lucky to have these two little girls to come home to.