We finally made a trip to Louisiana. Mom booked us a hotel in Kenner since we'd be staying on that side of the bridge for the majority of our visit. On Friday night, we checked in and got the kids to bed. Elias slept between Zac and me, quite restlessly as he filled up on a LOT of junk food during the drive. So much fun, so little sleep.
Saturday morning, we headed to the Audubon Zoo to meet up with Karen and her brood. At one point, we got separated, so we went one way while Karen and my parents went the other and we had a hard time catching back up. Karen and her family left, so we enjoyed the day, just us and our kids. There was an Asian Heritage festival going on, so the entire zoo was incredibly crowded. The food smelled great, though. We stopped in the Cypress Knee cafe for catfish, chicken, and gator bites. Elias' neglected diaper soaked through his shorts, so we went back towards the entrance to meet back with my parents. We dropped them off at the hotel, then headed to the mall to walk around a bit. I had a craving for a real New Orleans poboy, so Zac spent about 40 minutes making calls to various seafood locations to find me a shrimp poboy where the shrimp was deveined. I learned I'm high maintenance when it comes to poboys, but I'm fairly certain I am 100% reasonable in requesting shit-free shrimp.
Sunday morning, we decided to go to Cafe Du Monde for beignets. My dad was still asleep, so we went and ate, then brought some back to my parents. They weren't in the mood to go anywhere, so we took the van and headed to Slidell to visit with Mawmaw and Zac's cousin, Christina. Mawmaw had some tamales for lunch and Zac told her we have another baby coming in December. Jac and Leah spent most of the visit in the front yard digging up crawfish holes in search of crawfish. Jac managed to find a baby one, but released it after we took a picture. We left for Marie's and hung out with her for a little while, but missed seeing Francesca since she was out with some friends. It's hard trying to squeeze in so many visits in such a small amount of time, especially when driving consumes most of the time. After Marie's, we met up with Jena at Italian Pie for dinner. The lasagna is the best. So good, I didn't even think to get a picture before I ate half of it.
Monday, we woke up relatively early while my parents slept, so we went to Target and walked around the eerie Esplanade mall until lunch time. Zac wanted Reginelli's, so we headed there for lunch and Jessie came to meet up with us. I went with her to her place while Zac brought my parents back to their room for a nap, then came back to get me. It was a brief visit, but as previously mentioned, it's hard planning to see so many people in such a short time frame. She had to go pick up Orrin, so we headed to the Lafreniere Park to see Katie and meet Chase and baby Jacob. We walked around the bird sanctuary and Katie let me hold the baby (even when he spit up on me), until Karen called and wanted us to eat dinner with her. Had I known the visit would be less than pleasant with Karen, I would've just stayed at the park with Katie. Since Mom decided not to get her tattoo and I'm not supposed to get one while expecting, we decided to come home a day early instead of spending one more night in the hotel.
Did I mention we didn't have hot water in our room's shower? There was also food under the bed, like Cheerios and candies that we didn't put there. They didn't even have extra pillows to spare... Not going back there again. So, avoid the Econo Lodge in Kenner off Veteran's.
