March 25th we flew to New Orleans for a triple birthday trip to celebrate the twins and Nana's birthdays. A couple of months earlier Melissa realized that we didn't have any trips scheduled until July, she mentioned it to me and after a quick look at google flights we decided to visit New Orleans after the twins' birthday. I called my mom, she'd never been/wanted to go... so birthday present.
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| Our Airbnb landlady suggested the Audubon park for an evening visit. Everyone enjoyed a simple stroll through the park to get out some wiggles after the flight. |
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| With all these live oaks, Lily became a veteran tree climber. Helps when the branches touch the ground. |
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| Well we are celebrating Nana's birthday with this trip, might as well have a picture. |
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| We had dinner at Dat Dog, from the kids' ketchup on beef dogs, to Nana's crawfish sausage, we all enjoyed something special. |
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March 26 - Extra family! In my mind the US South was nearly the East and Jordan's family lives on the east coast, so I called and invited him. Since it was still during school, it was going to be just Jordan and Grant (homeschooling this year). However, because Jordan is involved nothing can be as it seems. I texted Jordan the morning of the flight to verify his travel plans, they were coming in at midnight, and he texted back to ask if Ben could come. Spring break had been extended. Well, that was one too many for the Airbnb and for the car, but who cares! We didn't tell Nana until after we had checked into the Airbnb and she was confused why we got such a big place!
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| Riding the streetcar in to the city to visit the World War 2 museum. |
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| The museum was huge and really interesting, but not completely child friendly. They had a few great interactive exhibits and everything was cool. But there was certainly a generational divide in how quickly people wanted to move through. |
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| At the helm of a US cruiser. This was pretty cool, everyone tried flipping switches and twisting knobs. |
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| After the museum, everyone was hungry. So we headed straight to Café Beignet. The sandwiches were surprisingly good, but the beignet's were amazing! Everyone really enjoyed them. Ignore Finn's grumpy face... the food hadn't arrived yet. |
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| That's my girl Hannah! |
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| After lunch my family went back to the Airbnb to relax a little while, I think I needed quiet time as much as the kids (after going to the airport at midnight). Nana and Jordan's family stayed downtown and visited a couple of stores. Then we met at a Swamp Tour! |
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| We opted for a regular catamaran tour, rather than an airboat. It was a great choice, we still went fast in the fast bits, but in the slow bits it was quiet, the kids could walk around and the captain passed around... |
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| some cool heads! This is an alligator gar fish head. |
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| And this is one of the worlds cutes gator/girl hybrids. |
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| Oh... competition! The wildest part about these preserved heads was the backside, where they'd been removed from their bodies. You could see brain and bone and muscle. I'm amazed any of the kids handled them. |
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| We saw a good handful of alligators. I'm pretty sure they are used to the boats and just as excited to see us as we are them. |
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| This might be why they like the tour boats, marshmallow snack time! |
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| The log on the right side is a gator, we swear! |
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| After an afternoon on the bayou, we opted for a quiet dinner at home. As quiet as the Bayless family can be around new food! Shrimp Po Boy, muffuletta sandwich, spicy gator nuggets, red beans and rice, chicken sandwich, sweet potatoes, boudin balls, and maybe more... I think I blacked out after 2 bites of each. Oh and we were starting dinner at 8 PM, so much for schedules... we're on vacation! |
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| March 27 - Wednesday we all went to City Park. It was a beautiful park and the kids convinced us to rent "bicycles." Nana, Melissa, and I sure got a workout! |
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| Ben and Jordan following on their trikes. |
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| Grant and Jordan. The trikes were so much faster than our big rig. |
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| After a few hours at the park we went to the Jazz Museum. There was a live performance to watch and a few exhibits. The kids all seemed to enjoy the singing. |
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| And loved the drum! |
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After the Jazz Museum we went to the French Market. We spent an hour looking at all the stalls, trying several treats and wandering. The kids all finally got their Mardi Gras beads, they'd been trying to pick up bits of strands from the ground, so we'd been promising to find some real beads.
Jordan and the boys went home Thursday at 1 AM. Ben and Grant were so much fun with our kids! They snuggled and wrestled and teased. I'm so glad Jordan and the boys were able to visit, but we need to get together with the whole family. We missed Amanda and Ruth and Sam (but being on a mission in Africa is a pretty good excuse). |
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| March 28 - Thursday we explored a little in the French Quarter and walked along the river. |
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| We stopped at another Café Beignet, couldn't leave NOLA without a second serving. This location had a player piano and a stuffed gator... so that was neat. Somehow the beignets tasted even better the 2nd time. |
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| Melissa and I had talked about trying to find a stop in Mississippi during the drive to Dauphin Island, Alabama. Turns out Melissa's stomach came up with an awesome idea. She was hungry and chose Burger Burger in Biloxi which was next door to a playground. Kids loved it, decided they were hungry too and ate in a single stop. Then Nana saw a fabric store (Peace by Piece) across the street and played her "its my birthday trip" trump card. I had flashbacks to going fabric shopping as a kid, but this was nothing like that. The family who ran the store was amazing. They started with food and drinks for the kids, then invited us to watch the automated longarm sewing machines in the back, then gave the kids dimes to ride the mechanical pony, then gave the kids more treats, Mardi Gras coins and little toys. It was such a fun stop, I don't remember having fun like that as a kid in fabric stores. |
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After the fabric store, it was just a few blocks to Biloxi Beach. We kept telling the kids "don't get wet," but that didn't stop Finn from getting almost soaked top to bottom. This beach was the site of several Civil Rights wade-ins in the 50s/60s, so sad to think people had to protest for the right to visit a public beach.
We took about 9 hours to drive the 150 miles from New Orleans to Dauphin Island, and almost every minute was well spent. |
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| March 29 - Friday on Dauphin Island, we visited the Alabama Aquarium. |
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| Even Nana got to touch rays and sharks. |
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| Finn thought the visit was "OK" |
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| Selfie on the boardwalk. |
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| Then we changed and headed to the West End public beach. The water was cold, but the sun was warm. |
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| Melissa and Nana took a long walk down the beach, the island was so narrow you could see both coasts. It was only a couple hundred yards wide at this point. |
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| The temperature didn't matter, everyone had a blast. |
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What a cute couple! Who's that rando girl?
We ended up having a really fun dinner Friday night. The seafood store on the island will steam for you, so we got a few pounds of blue crab claws, potatoes and corn. Everything was so spicy! It was really good, but some had to switch to left over Aldi take and back pizza from the night before. Just having a big steaming crab boil was lots of fun! |
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| While in Rome! Easter Party with the Methodist Church! The Dauphin Island United Methodist Church held a big Saturday morning Easter party. The kids had an egg hunt, games, gifts and snow cones. It was fun to be a part of the community for a little while and not feel like tourists. |
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| We had another 2.5 hour drive back to New Orleans for our flight and all day to do it. So we visited Grandma and Grandpa Aurich on the way. They were driving west across the country from Florida and happened to be in New Orleans just a day or two behind us. We met at the NOLA Children's Museum for a couple of hours of fun. |
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| Learning about river erosion. |
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| Controlling water flow with Nana. |
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| Loading up river barges. |
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| After a fun afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa Aurich it was time to head to the airport, and back to Utah. |
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| March 31 - Happy Easter/Nana's Birthday. We had a quick Easter hunt and baskets with our kids in the morning before Church. |
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| Then Josh had his kids all afternoon, so he and Melissa led everyone in egg decorating. |
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| Cuties! |
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| Finally at 6, it was time for the "cousins hunt." All lined up and jonesing for more candy. |
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| We then had Easter dinner/Nana's birthday. It was a potluck. |
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I had a meeting April 2nd at Roseman University College of Pharmacy. So we stayed another couple of days in Lindon. The kids got to watch the tree cutters at work (city is piping the ditch, so they had to cut down all the ditch bank trees, boo!) and collect leftover sticks for the garden.
It was such a fun trip. I'm so glad Melissa felt the nibble of the travel bug and started the movement toward what turned out to be a really fun week. Oh and just FYI, the south is not near the east. Jordan's flights from Philly were just as far as our flights from SLC, but at much less convenient times! Thanks for coming Jordan. That was fun. |
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