NEW ORLEANS

My mom had a conferance for a week there. It was a little tricky to convince Eric to let me go for 3 days....

NEW ORLEANS

ALONE. NO KIDS.

In the almost 13 years we've been married I've only left one other time w/o kids and that was for a certification!
Most of the time I take all the kids and he stays home to work.
I didn't feel guilty. I could have been in Death Valley and been alone .... it would still been fun.

PEACE.

let me note I've been working 40+ hours a week w/4 kids in A LOT of activities.
I had 4 or 5 jobs AND my husband wasn't getting home until 8 most nights.
                                                            Needed a VACATION......

Outside pic of the hotel. There was Lutheran convention there with 40,000 kids from all over the world. They wore bright green backpacks.

Let me tell you ...the pictures on the front of HUSTLER- not really churchy- straight up naked ladies.

The city wanted to  get musicians to move back into the city. If they were good enough they had to put in 350 hours of sweat equity and they got these COOL houses for $75,000 interest free for life. They are currently putting in a music school and recording studio for the youth of the community. In 5 years the city should be back way better than it was!

The food was AMAZING. Craw fish, Beingets, po boys, bread pudding, crab, gator, jambalaya, ...yummm.

I swear I gained 20 pounds this summer. Paleo diet post will come in September!

The hotel was La Sonesta. Very pretty.
Ghostbuster. Sweet.
The Garden District has 3 million and up houses. It didn't get flooded.

Houses were all different colors. I knew my girls would love PINK

There were crazy street preformers everywhere. I had to pay them all to get a picture!

The guy with the dog kept grunting at me and pointing at his box. Very little teeth.

 The oil spill drew in lots of reporters. They were reporting right by the Mississippi river. I went back to the hotel room and saw the same guys on CNN. I didn't see any oil until I was in the airplane. EVERYWHERE.

I think the swamp is freaking awesome !

My mom. Sprung for the trip. AND the Gator tour. I wanted to do it SO BAD!

6 flags STILL abandoned after the flooding. So sad. People/developers haven't moved back

The flooding went right under the FOOD CIRCLE'S sign. This was the highest point of the Katrina floods. The low income project area was just south of this and TOTALLY wiped out. There were still lots of  houses that had been destroyed by the flood standing. Its been almost 5 years!  It costs the city $15,000 to tear them them down and they can't afford it. 

The Mississippi River is huge! I looked at swimming it...not a good idea. Dirty, fast and gators and sharks! Soemday when I'm old, I want to take a riverboat all the way down the river. I hear its not super exciting so I'll wait till I'm 80 or so.

Gator jumping by the boat

The houses by the swamp were on stilts. Only 3 people moved back after Katrina.

A lot of Cajuns lived in the swamps. They would get their boats and row out to the middle of the swamp at NIGHT. They would tell stories about making moonshine and see whos was the best. Many weren't educated, they would take the sons out of school so they could run the fishing business.

They feed the Gators hot dogs and marshmallows. This one was named Cindy. After Cindy Crawford. During gator hunting season this guy loves Cindy so much that he goes and cuts down all the traps set out for her!