Brief visit to Mississippi

We headed back to Mississippi for our flight home but got there in time to tour a tiny bit. So the boys were interested in seeing a casino and where we had gone for our anniversary so we took them to see. We went inside so they could see the decorations and somehow ended up in a gift shop. Matthew found a watch that he wanted to get for my mom since hers had broken and it was $10. He insisted on getting her this watch, and it was actually very nice for $10...shocking! So when he got home he gave it to her and she was saying how much she loved it and he says "I only paid $10 for it." Ha! We laughed so hard...I guess it's still the thought that counts huh? Anyway, the boys had a good time checking out Biloxi and they found a cool "Star Wars" figure at the welcome center. We walked on the beach a bit and then we were ready to just get to the airport and head home....we were beat! I know people tell me I've got energy and I'm always on the go...but I've gotta tell you....we could barely keep up with Liz, John, Luke and Noah. We'll have to train for it months in advance the next time we're meeting up for vacation with them. HA!

NOLA

Okay, in case you're like me and have no idea who NOLA is...ha! It's not a who, but a where...New Orleans, LA! We went with some friends over the Thanksgiving break to New Orleans. I kept seeing this NOLA all over the place and I finally asked "Liz, who is NOLA anyway?" She just cracked up...and I will probably never live it down...makes sense now. Maybe I was just too cold to think, and I have to admit I had a terrible cold and was on several medications too...that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Anyway, Sean, the boys and I flew in to Mississippi and rented a car there and drove into New Orleans. None of us had ever been so it was an exciting adventure. We were staying in the heart of the French Quarter, right in the middle of all the excitement!

We got there early so we took the boys to the aquarium. It was a really nice place, very kid friendly. I think they're favorite part was the playground and the things you climb on...the sea life was okay but if a boy can climb, that's way more fun to them.

Then we were off to meet with our friends: John, Liz, Lucas and Noah. They've been there a lot and she's from LA so they made great tour guides! I'm not so sure they loved being there with me, I was just dragging from being sick and I just couldn't get warm no matter what! I wish I would have felt better for the trip and I do plan to go back...maybe closer to the summer though or I'll at least pack warmer next time. They took us to all the famous sites of the town: Bourbon Street where the boys caught a glimpse of a lot of what they'll probably need therapy for in a few years. ha! Hunter could not stop talking about the "naked butts" he saw on the pictures in the windows. I had no idea that it was going to be that risque at 2 in the afternoon. But people were walking down the street already hammered, drinks in hand and it was a very wild sight that I don't think any of us will soon forget. There were street vendors and beggars on just about every corner. Everyone was standing at the corner of Bourbon Street and I ran across to take a picture and a guy was standing there and offered to let me go back across and get in the picture so I gladly passed off my camera to him. I'm not sure who freaked out faster...Liz or Sean. The guys pretended to be taking off with my camera but I knew he was a bouncer at that bar because I had seen him from a distance. We saw some characters, got some beads and just had fun people watching!

We ended up at Pat O'Briens for hurricanes and dinner...the very best muffaletta sandwich I've ever had! I would highly recommend it if you're ever there...that olive salad they put on it, YUMMY!

The next morning we ended up going to breakfast at Cafe Du Monde...that's where we quickly became addicted to beignets! We had powdered sugar all over us but loved every second of it.

We toured the streets, rode a trolley, admired the art, toured St.Louis Cathedral, went shopping in the French Market....just had a great time. Oh...and did I mention the Catfish Po'Boys? YUMMY! As you can tell...I seemed to fall in love with the food there just as much as the excitement of the city.

We also went to the Children's Museum...though to hear Hunter tell all about NO, we didn't do anything but look at pictures of naked people the entire time. My... how distorted that little mind can be huh? Ha!

We ended the trip at Hard Rock Cafe. We hated to part ways with our friends but hoped to be seeing them again real soon!

Hunter's turkey

Hunter had to make a turkey out of a paper bag for his class project for Thanksgiving. Well, we had this grand idea of using mod podge to stick torn paper pieces to make it look like feathers. That was a great idea and everyone was on board so we all made a mess with glue and paper and put it all together. It was all good until the glue dried and the bag was stiff and SQUARE! Hunter was so mad because "turkey's are not square". We tried to explain to him that this is pretty good considering it's made from a paper bag...but he's such a perfectionist and expects that we all should be that way. We were just happy to be finished with the family project and I personally thought it turned out very cute. So I was making him pose for a picture (which he was delighted about as you can tell from that extremely happy look on his face). HA! Right after I snapped the picture he was so mad and upset about this square turkey he punched it and it went flying right off the table. I know we shouldn't have....but we just cracked up laughing, which didn't help his attitude at all. We were laughing until tears were running down our face...which then brought tears to his face...but not of laughter so much. ha! We felt bad but finally talked him into believing that his turkey was great, of course he still said it was horrible...but what can you do?

Cypress Gardens

We decided to take a trip to Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, FL. This was FL's first theme park so needless to say it's an older more "Hershey Park" like park. But that's exactly what the boys have been asking for. They're a bit tired of the big time theme parks and just wanted to go to a smaller more down to earth park...and that's exactly what they got. This park was pretty nice, we were there at opening so we beat all the crowd, they had a special so we only paid $5 person and we got to ride everything we wanted....the Tilt-a-whirl we rode at least a dozen times in a row. This wasn't an old school one with the canopy either, this was a really good one and we were spinning fools for sure! We had a wonder day, great weather and even got to see some pretty cool animals and a butterfly garden. They closed the park that very day for a while to re-vamp but when they open back this year we'll go again I'm sure.

Matt's field trip

Matt's class went on a field trip to see the Symphony and they had to dress up. So we thought it was time for him to wear his first tie! It took a lot of struggle and then some bribes but he did it and I have to say, he looked so cute! He said "okay, I'll wear the tie but I'm not tucking in the shirt. Not even for 2 DS games." ha! I figure the tie was good enough, and that's somewhat trendy not to tuck your shirt in...right? He's not a fashion figure by any means, not until sweat shorts are in high fashion...but for this one day I got to see him dressed up. That'll probably be the last time for a long while too...bummer.

Halloween aftershock

So we just couldn't get enough of Halloween this year. Some friends of ours had a Halloween Party and we had heard all about this party and it's the bash of the year. Sean and I were all set to go and Hunter was so excited to see us in costumes that he had to go change into his newest one and pose with us for some pictures. He even took it one step further with his silly glasses, chapped lips and all. After that we all met up for our pre-party at a friends and headed out to the real party. This party certainly lived up to it's reputation...I couldn't believe it! They had decorations like you would see at a professional haunted house, a dj, more drinks and food than anyone could ever imagine and it was all topped off with extremely fun people ALL in costume! I went as Daphne from Scooby Doo, though not a single person got it! Everyone kept calling me Wilma Flintstone...whatever. I told Sean he should have been Shaggy...but no, he had to be a rocker. Rick was Elvis and those two really fell into character. Sean was out head banging with every rock song and then would pass the mic back to Rick for anything remotely close to Elvis....they were center of attention all night which is totally rare for either of them. We had so much fun, I danced so much I actually hurt the next day. The really funny thing is that we rolled out of this rager party into 2 minivans since we all carpooled. Nothing like rolling out of a bash into mini-vans...proves we're a little older huh? Ha! The great part is that we risked very little chance of getting pulled over. Ha! We are counting down to next year's bash for sure!

Halloween 2008

Hunter decided at the very last minute to be a Power Ranger and Matthew stuck with his decision of not dressing up and not going trick-or-treating. He's never been into Halloween or costumes and for Hunter every day is Halloween, or at least costumes. He loves all the scary gory stuff that goes along with it too. Matthew would much rather just stay home and give out candy. So we went and joined Kenzie, Keegan and Brandon to go trick-or-treating. We didn't hit many houses before Hunter decided he had enough candy and wanted to go home too. We actually had a big bag of candy that he had collected but when we got home and he gave all the chocolate to Matthew (since he can't have it) then he was literally left with about 5 pieces and Matthew had a full bag. I'm not seeing that it was a very fair deal...Hunter did all the work and Matthew got all the goods, but we did give Hunter money in return for all the candy he donated to his brother. When we were little you never got chocolate from houses and when you did you were very excited! Now, seems that EVERYONE gives chocolate and it really bums Hunter out since he's allergic. Poor guy, hopefully one day he will outgrow these allergies...or at least maybe people will go back to not so good candy. ha!

Halloween party

Carol's neighborhood has a Halloween party each year. We carved pumpkins and the did a lot of games for the kids. They also had bobbing for apples and our kids wanted no part of that...they are way too much of a germaphobe to participate in something like that. Ha! They ended up just asking the lady if they could just have an apple....oh, and it had to be one that wasn't in the water that everyone had put their face in too. ha! The pumpkins they did all by their selves, I was pretty impressed with what they came up with. Of course it was nothing like what they had wanted to do, but they quickly learned that simple get you to the games and goodies faster.

Our 10 year anniversary

For our 10 year anniversary we had wanted to go back to Vegas, but it just didn't happen. Maybe it was just lack of planning, lack of money or just lack of time...but our trip to Vegas for our 10 year anniversary just didn't work out. Instead we decided to take a weekend in Biloxi, MS. I know it doesn't sound very elaborate but we can have fun pretty much any place and you throw a casino in the mix and that's just a bonus. Sean and I had a really great time. If you couldn't tell we took all these pictures our self. ha! We really overdid it for sure....you can tell from the bags and dark circles under our eyes. When we landed we had no clue what to do or where to go so I saw a driver for our hotel and asked if there was a shuttle. He said there should be one outside but of course there wasn't. So he was there to pick up some VIP/high rollers and asked them if they would mind us catching a ride in the limo with them and they were happy and willing to share. It was about a 20 minute ride and we had a great time riding with Dolly and her family...they were a riot! We tipped the driver nicely, because he gave us a ride and at that time we actually had money. ha! The hotel was pretty nice...typical casino hotel I would say...but the people were so nice! We ended up going down and gambling into the next morning and found ourselves eating biscuits and gravy at around 3AM... The next day we walked around, exploring and ended up at the Hard Rock Casino. I think the next time we go that's where we'll stay. It looked much closer when we decided to walk to it from our hotel, turns out it was about 2 miles I'm guessing. Probably wouldn't have been so bad if the wind weren't blowing but we were a little cold. So we ended up staying there just about the entire day, it was just a younger crowd and better music...just more our speed. The next day we ended up jumping into the hot tub outside....then somehow I got into the pool. I don't even swim in peak summer but I guess I had just enough drinks that I didn't mind the cold water. People were coming outside in winter coats looking at us like we were from Alaska....little did they know we were from warm weather huh?

On the last day we called the limo driver who we had befriended on the first day and he told them we were VIPs and came to pick us up...this time we didn't have to share the limo. He was a really nice guy, turns out he was from NOVA and had moved down with a girl. He was cracking us up talking about her...apparently it didn't work out. Ha! We really had a good time on the trip and we had hoped to go back sometime soon...but our old faithful Allegiant Air stopped flying there....looks like we're back on for Vegas next.

Mom's birthday

For mom's birthday she didn't want to go out, so we ended up ordering Chinese and staying in. Sis, Rick and the kids came over and we surprised mom with a new mattress. Lord knows she needed one, the one she was using was nearly 17 years old...how sad is that? So you can tell by the look on her face that she was truly surprised and a mattress was a good choice. ha! We had dinner and followed it up with cheesecake for dessert. Yummy!

Day at Universal

We had planned a day at Universal with our friends Ray, Janet and Brandon and we were almost there when Matthew started to feel sick. We pulled over to get him a sprite but that didn't seem to help...we weren't sure if he was feeling car sick or if maybe the stomach flu had taken it's turn on him but he didn't feel like going to the park so we knew it was serious. So rather than all of us missing out, Sean just dropped Hunter and me off and we met up and hung out with friends all day and just rode home with them. I don't think Sean really minded missing out because he's not a huge fan of theme parks anyway, AND it just so happened to be football Sunday. ha! Matthew ended up feeling better after they got home so fortunately it was just car sickness which he seems to get often....that's better than the stomach flu though for sure! Anyway, Hunter and I had a really good time hanging out and riding rides and meeting some of the characters...again.

Seaworld Spooktacular

We headed out to the Sea World Spooktacular to see all the cool Halloween decorations and they had a really awesome trick-or-treat path set up through the entire park. The kids got tons of candy and Hunter was so excited that almost all of it was stuff he could have too. That's unusual that they have candy that is Hunter friendly. They also gave out these tiny little bananas. Hunter loved those but Matthew not so much...no chocolate or sugar, he has no interest. Ha! Sean and I also took advantage of the treats at the hospitality center...who can pass up free beer? We're worried about that little park perk going away since Anheiser Busch sold out, not sure the park will ever be the same without the free beer and cool horses.

Anyway, here's a few pictures from our day.