N'Awlins (or so the locals say)

Many of you know that Bryan and I went with my side of the family for an after-Christmas cruise to the Western Caribbean. We got back last Sunday (the 3rd) and it's taken me forever to post about it. Why? Well, I'll tell you. Between all of the everyday stuff I have to do (laundry, cooking, cleaning, keeping my sanity) I still feel like I'm on a freakin' boat! My equilibrium is still way off, even a week later. I'm hoping it goes away soon, or else I may just permanently move onto a cruise ship (not a bad idea!).

To make it easier for me and a little more organized I'm going to separate the posts from the cruise into two parts. Part One will be about our visit in New Orleans, which is where our cruise ship departed from. The second part will be about the cruise itself and will be full of pictures (just warning you!).

When we heard we were departing from New Orleans I was super excited! I've always wanted to visit there and see what all the hype was about, but until now I really had no reason to be there. I'm too conservative to visit during Mardi Gras, so this was a perfect opportunity to see New Orleans, and it didn't disappoint! We were greeted at the airport by a stretch limo, which my parents had arranged to pick all of us kids up in. It was a blast! Riding to the hotel we got to see the Superdome, which is where many people stayed during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And when we got to the hotel my parents were ready outside with their cameras. It was like our own little paparazzi!

Here is our limo! We are so high class :) And I apologize for my appearance. No makeup+4 am wake-up time+6 hours flying+crying because I miss my kids=not a good look for me. But the limo was awesome!

That night we walked through the French Quarter to get to our restaurant for dinner. It was so fun! The streets were blocked off to traffic so we could walk down the street and see everything. There were lots of not-so-family-friendly venues (we kept our eyes straight forward most of the time!) but besides that, there were several balconies full of people throwing down Mardi Gras beads, street performers playing music and being live statues, and lots of old building and awesome architecture to admire. It sort of felt like we were in another country!

Dad, Kory, Kelli, and Jeremiah (well, their backsides at least) walking down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. See the sign on the balcony at the top right? It's a rental sign for the balcony. You can rent the balconies for parties and stuff. Who knew? I didn't (but I do now!).

Something else I didn't know - my dad owns a cabaret?? Haha! Just kidding! We saw this sign and my dad (who you can barely see in the picture) was a good sport and posed for us.Here you can see my dad and Bryan flagging down the bead throwers from the balconies. We got quite a few!
These are some of the "live statue" guys. They were really cool!Mom showing off her fried crab. It literally was a whole little crab, all fried up. Gross!Proof we were there!

The next morning we got to visit another part of New Orleans. We walked to the Mississippi River area where we got to see just how big the river really is! There is an old Catholic cathedral there that we visited as well. The art and architecture of the cathedral was awesome! They were getting ready to start mass so we stealthily took pictures and left. On the way back to the hotel we stopped for beignets, which are French-style doughnuts. They serve them warm with powdered sugar. They were so good!

Some of the buildings. Almost all of the buildings we saw in the French Quarter had balconies. We could also see in some places the water line from the flooding - mostly on doors that hadn't been replaced. It was like three feet high!
No, you aren't tilting. I didn't take that good of a picture, but this cool building is their courthouse.The ceiling of the Catholic cathedral.This was a really pretty park between the cathedral and the Mississippi. There were birds everywhere!
See the brown strip behind us? That's the Mississippi!Here is New Orleans in the background. And...this picture was taken from the top deck of the CRUISE SHIP!!!

I really enjoyed our visit to New Orleans because after Katrina we heard so much about the French Quarter and the Mississippi River and saw so much footage of the area on the news, and it's amazing to see how they have restored everything and moved on with their lives. The buildings were so fun to look at and the people there are all so nice. Hopefully we have a chance to go back there one day and really explore the city and the shops (and get more beignets!).