Steamboat Natchez

On our last day in NOLA we channeled our inner Mark Twain and took a trip on the Steamboat Natchez.  The Natchez is one of only a handful of steam-powered paddle-wheeled boats left in the U.S. today.  This was a two-hour cruise on the Mississippi River.  Two hours sounds like a long time, but it was really quite enjoyable.  We were able to see a lot of neat sites along the river- including large ships and barges, interesting buildings, an oil refinery, and the Dixie sugar plant.  There was a guide narrating our journey over the loudspeaker so that we knew what we were looking at.  I actually learned a little about shipping on the Mississippi. While the narration was happening on the outside, there was a band playing on the inside of the ship.  We went inside to hear them, but didn't stay long.  We much preferred being outdoors.

The guide also pointed out the areas near the river that were the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina- including the lower ninth ward.  There is still some visible damage today.











Here's Tom and Huck, they liked sitting in the very back so that they could watch the paddle wheel

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We also got to visit the engine room where we saw the engine and learned how it works.














The weather was still unseasonably cold, so Olivia and I purchased new sweatshirts before boarding

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Mardi Gras World

We got into the Mardi Gras spirit in NOLA by visiting Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World.  This is the company that makes the floats for Mardi Gras and various other high-profile parades.  We had to pay to take a tour of the factory / warehouse, but it was worth it (especially since I had a coupon).  Instead of paper tickets, they gave us a special string of mardi gras beads that served as our entrance passes.  The warehouse was huge and had many floats and decorations from past events stored in it.  I couldn't believe how much stuff was in the warehouse.  Even more amazing was that this was only one of eighteen warehouses owned by the company.  On our tour we learned how the floats are made and got to hear about how the parades are sponsored by different krewes.  We also got to see some of the employees working on floats for next years' event.  One really nice worker spotted Owen and Olivia and gave them beads and a toy football that were left over from this year's festivities.

 After the tour was over, we were allowed to wonder around the warehouse and have a closer look at all of the cool floats from years past.  Some of our favorites were Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, a large panda, and the Wizard of Oz.  Olivia wanted see each and every inch of the warehouse.  Owen, on the other hand, was not quite as interested.  To pass the time while us girls did some exploring, Brian and Owen started tossing the toy football around in the warehouse.  Silly boys.

After the tour, we were each given a piece of King Cake- a pastry typically associated with Mardi Gras.  It was pretty good- but not as good as my sister Hannah's cakes =)  This is probably the closest that I will ever get to attending Mardi Gras, so I'm glad that it was a fun experience.

Audubon Everything

There are many attractions in New Orleans bearing the name "Audubon".  There is Audubon park, zoo, aquarium, IMAX, insectarium, and golf course.  We visited every single one of these attractions except of the golf course while on vacation.  We only had one day of good weather during our whole trip (what else is new), and we spent it at the zoo.  We found the zoo to be very nice.  There were plenty of areas for kids to play located throughout the park (see the giant spider web below).  There was even a water-play area.  The animal exhibits were nice.  There was a "bayou" area that showcased different animals native to the area.  This area was particularly well done- as it should be.  There were a few animals that I had never heard of in this section- the nutria (river rat) being one of those.  I guess you learn something new everyday.  Also impressive were the rhino and south american animal exhibits.

After leaving the zoo, we went to see a film at the IMAX theater.  There were several to movies to choose from, but we saw "Hurrican on the Bayou".  We picked this film because it was about New Orleans, the wetlands, and Hurricane Katrina.  I found the movie to be very informative.  Owen fell asleep during the movie (surprise surprise).  Olivia stayed awake, payed attention, and actually learned a few things from the film.  She is also now terrified of hurricanes.  Great.  

As I stated earlier, we only had one day of nice weather.  Wednesday was cold and rainy.  We stayed in our room til mid-morning waiting for the rain to slack off.  One we caught a break in the rain, we made our way to the Audubon Aquarium.  This was a decent aquarium.  There was an interesting "rain forest" area where you could see a huge anaconda.  That was cool. It was no Georgia Aquarium, but it was not a bad way to spend a rainy morning.

  

My favorite of all the Audubon attractions was the Insectarium.  It was surprisingly cool.  There were lots of interesting exhibits featuring all sorts of bugs.  There were also a lot of interactive experiences.  One area- labeled "the underground" took visitors into a dark tunnel where you were surrounded by large, fake bugs.  This was supposed to simulate what lives in the soil under our own feet.  There were also machines that demonstrated how quickly a spider can strike (using a puff of air to simulate the bite) as well as video games that help teach what types of bugs live in which climates.  There was even a 4D theater that presented an animated bug show- which was a lot like "It's Tough to be a Bug" at Animal Kingdom.  The kids even got an opportunity to get hands on by touching a Madagascar hissing cockroach.  Yuk!  I still can't believe that thy touched that thing.

Here's another gross yet cool thing about the Insectarium- they had a cafeteria that gave samples of dishes that used bugs as ingredients.  They even had free pamphlets with recipes on them that you could take with you.  I am still considering making "chocolate chirp cookies".  Brian grabbed a crispy cajun cricket and tried to persuade Owen to eat it, but that wasn't happening.

The last room in the Insectarium was the butterfly garden.  You weren't suppose to touch the butterflies, but when one lands on you what can you do?

Laissez les Bons Temps Rouler

We spent a lovely couple of days in New Orleans during our spring break.  As I was planning out this trip, I was asked several times why we chose New Orleans as our destination.  There are several reasons for this choice: 1) It's far away enough to justify "traveling" there, but not so far that we'd have to spend a lot of time getting there  2) We've never been there before  3) Staying there is not terribly expensive  4) It was listed as a "top 10 city for families" by Family Vacation Critic and is listed as one of the "500 places to take your kids before they grow up"  and finally  5) Olivia has been asking to go to New Orleans for nearly two years now (thank you, Tiana).  Our vacation was a Monday-Friday vacation with Monday and Friday being our "travel" days.  The other three days were spent exploring the city. Even though our vacation was family friendly, we do have some of the same stories that the typical N'awlins revelers have.  We walked down Bourbon Street, someone in our family took their shirt off in the French Quarter, and someone else ended up puking on the side of the road in the French Quarter.  As you will see, though, our stories are not nearly as exciting (?) as they sound.

Our hotel was located in the lower garden district.  This was a nice area of town.  The hotel room was cool because it had a spiral staircase that led up to a loft.  The kids liked that they got to sleep upstairs in their own little area.  Another good feature of the hotel was that it was located one block away from the St. Charles Streetcar stop.  We purchased 3-day passes for the city transportation system on our first morning in NOLA and used streetcars and buses to get around for the duration of our trip.  I really like riding on the streetcars because you don't see these in many places.  They are also very convenient.

One of our must-see stops was the St. Louis Cathedral.  Naturally, Olivia knew the historical importance of this building.  This is where Prince Naveen of Maldonia exchanged wedding vows (again) with Princess Tiana.  Olivia is an expert in all things Princess and the Frog and was excited to see things that are in the movie.

Another interesting thing that we did was to take a carriage ride around the French Quarter.  Olivia was asked to sit up front and help drive the carriage. She liked this special attention.  We did this on our first day in the city and it was a good introduction to the layout and history of the area.

New Orleans is full of excellent food.  One of the things on our "to do" list was to have beignets at Cafe du Monde.  We beat the crowds one morning and enjoyed this delicious (but messy) treat.  The food is definitely one of the distinctive things about New Orleans.   Brian loves cajun and creole cooking, so he was in culinary heaven all week long.

So here is a picture of our walk down Bourbon Street.  We didn't want to chance walking down this infamous street at night, so we walked down during the day.  To be more precise, we took our stroll in the early morning.  Whatever reputation this street has at night time, I will have you know that it is extremely tame at 9 a.m. We were almost the only people up and about.  I did see many many bars, but they were all closed.  Yep, this is our Bourbon street story.  I told you it wasn't exciting.









And here's our puking / taking shirt off story....  One of the things that I absolutely wanted to do was to see the jazz band play at Preservation Hall.  They play three shows a night- at 8, 9, and 10.  Our first attempt to see the show was on Tuesday night.  We got in line at 7:30 to try and get into the 8 o'clock show.  When eight o'clock arrived we waited to get in only to find that we were six people away from being let in (the show sold out).  The guy at the door said that we would be in the front if we wanted to wait for the nine o'clock show.  The kids seemed to be in decent spirits, so we decided to wait it out.  We stood there for another hour.  Finally, nine o'clock arrived, the previous show let out.  We were near the front of the line and were excited because we were going to have great seats.  Brian picked Olivia up because she was feeling tired when all of a sudden she threw up all over him.  This totally came out of the blue.  She had not felt bad all day.  Naturally we were not going to go into the show after this.  Owen started crying right there in the middle of the street because he really wanted to go in.  Brian's shirt took a lot of damage, so I ducked into a gift shop to buy him a new one (which he changed into right there in the middle of the sidewalk).  It was so weird that this happened because Olivia was fine after this- no trouble from her for the rest of the week.

Not to be deterred, we returned to Preservation Hall on our last night to try and see the show.  This time we were successful.  We got in, but we had to stand.  Preservation Hall is a no-frills joint.  There is a room with six chairs for the musicians, a few benches for the audience, and a little bit of room to stand.  Brian and I ended up holding the kids for the entire set so that they could see.  They were heavy and the room was crowded- but it was totally worth dealing with all that to see the show.  The band was so good.  This was probably my favorite experience of all in New Orleans.

At this point you may think that I am done talking about N'awlins.  Well, I'm not.  I'm probably going to do a few more posts about the trip.  Right now, though, I am going to attach a short video clip of a jazz band playing in Jackson Square.  They were pretty good so I gave Olivia a dollar to put in their hat.  Well, Owen saw me do that and wanted to put a dollar in, too.  Brian gave him a dollar and this video shows what happened.  I call this video "Owen changes his mind".

Easter

We had a great Easter this year.  It's already such a great day, but it was made better by the beautiful weather this year.  The kids woke up early-ish to find that the Easter Bunny had come during the night and had brought them candy, a movie, and new Skylanders figures.  That sneaky bunny also hid the eggs that the kids had dyed the day before.  He really hid them hard this year- it took the kids a good 20-30 minutes to find them all.

After the morning festivities, everyone got dressed in their Sunday finest for Sunday school and church.  We had a great time celebrating the good news with our church family.  Following the service, we had our yearly portraits made by the cross in front of the church.  This cross is decorated with ivy and fresh flowers on Easter each year.   

Helping dye eggs is always so much fun!

 The finished product.















The loot.

Following the morning services, we left the church and went to Granny Buie's for lunch.  We all ate until we were stuffed.  Of course, no Easter would be complete without the annual egg hunt.  All of the kids (except Julianna who was asleep) lined up to find the eggs.  

Owen learned that you have to look high and low to find them all.

Claire found the egg with my name on it.  That is one old egg.
















Papa enjoyed taking his new scooter out for a spin.