And now for the happier moments

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We had a lovely Thanksgiving day aside from all the sickness. I was able to see cousins I have not seen in many, many years. While our feast was being prepared most of us took a break outside to try and fish in my Aunt's pond. She has quite a bit of property with her home that includes the pond, an old barn, and old chicken coop. It was fun exploring the barn with the kids. We didn't have any luck catching fish but it was nice sitting around the water visiting with family. We also too various family photos and attempted one big family shot.....all I can say is at least we got everyone together.


Friday was a very long and busy day. My cousin, Michael, arranged a private tour for our family at the New Orleans WWII Museum. They had so many neat things there and I really liked the set up of the museum. The kids struggled since there was not much for them to see or do, but they survived well enough. I left with a 'map bag' as a souvenir, but I mostly wanted it because it was the right size for a mini diaper bag!

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After this the family headed over to Mothers Restaurant, which apparently is a popular place in downtown New Orleans. We were a group of 19 trying to arrange seating in a small place. The type of dining set up of this restaurant is very similar to a place I had been to before in Galveston years ago. You walk in and stand in line while looking at your menu. You go up to the cashier, tell her your order and pay, then find a seat for yourself. Servers eventually come around and call out your name and bring you your food. I can't say that I like this type of dining set up, but it sure is different. It was raining all day Friday, we showed up at Mothers right around lunch time and so they were very crowded and we were slightly damp. The kids were tired and misbehaving and my patience was wearing thin. However, they quickly and thankfully passed out shortly after getting back in the car. I couldn't really say I saw much damage still in downtown New Orleans, but there were definitely businesses that never reopened and the roads and parking lots were rough and cracked badly.

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We continued on to a small town named Jean Lafitte. My Aunt knows a man there, Captain Craig, with a shrimp boat and she also buys shrimp from him. We got the chance to board his boat and check it all out. The kids were thrilled. I had to pee really bad and there were no other places around to go. He let me use the boat's bathroom. He told me it was not a "flushing toilet" and I told him it wasn't a big deal to me, it was just pee anyway. So this "toilet", I discovered, was really a wood box with a hole cut out on the top, a toilet seat screwed over the hole, and a big blue bucket underneath. BJ lovingly took a picture of me as I was trying to close the door to the bathroom to document this experience. My mom bought 50 pounds of shrimp and then we headed back to New Orleans to check out the levees and areas of damage.

There were several houses that were still standing but had clearly not been touched since Katrina. You could see X's marked on the houses with numbers next to them and my Aunt explained that was to show that the house had been checked for bodies and the date it was done. The roads were terrible! I couldn't imagine having to drive through that everyday. What blew my mind more than anything is when we got to the areas of the levees there were houses RIGHT THERE.

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I say that because there were literally houses 20-30 feet away from the levees to their back door. The levees were like a part of their backyard! I had no idea people lived so close to them. What amazed me even more was that it was the one area where I saw the most houses rebuilt. I am sure if we had gone down more streets I would have seen more newer homes, but the fact that so many people chose to rebuild so close to the area that failed them so horribly before......it really confounds me. What was also interesting is that these homes, the one near the levees, were really nice homes. I mean 2 stories, beautifully landscaped, white pillars, decorative doors, the whole 9 yards! We headed on to an area where the kids could get out and stretch and we took pictures by waters edge. It is hard to imagine that what we were looking at is a lake. It stretches on and on like the ocean.

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Saturday we attended the Wildlife Center. BJ and I have been to other drive through wildlife parks before, but none like this. The biggest difference is you don't have your own car. A huge tractor pulls these covered cars where you can sit or move about freely and feed the animals. No worries about your car getting scratched or covered in dropped corn feed! Phoebe was nervous and really indifferent most of the time. It wasn't until the last 15 minutes of the tour that she became interested in throwing corn. She would take a piece of corn, hold it tight in her fist, bring her fist up to her ear, hold it there for several seconds, and then finally throw her arm forward and release. She was so funny to watch doing this. Sophia, of course, was excited and loved feeding the animals along with her cousins. The rest of our Saturday was wonderfully lazy with naps and vegging around the house.

It was a wonderful, full, trip to Louisiana and we can't wait to go back!