New Orleans, and Jack turns 5!

Today we celebrate a very special day - our little man turns 5 years old! It's so hard to believe that he went from this:

To this:

In just 5 short years! He really keeps us on our toes. You can't get away with anything with him around. He's super funny, really smart, and it's so much fun to hear his take on the world. We really look forward to everything that this coming year has to offer. (Kindergarten!) 

This past weekend, Justin was at his buddy Joey's bachelor party in New Orleans. I made the drive Sunday morning to both hang out for a grown up night, and pick him up to come back to us and the kids so that he can fly with us on Sunday back to California.

We had a really great time. Neither of us had ever been to Louisiana before, so it was a new experience, and we had fun tasting all of the awesome food.

My first time to Mississippi too! 

Biloxi. I really saw all the sights. 

Louisiana! 

Our hotel was on the corner of Iberville and right up from Bourbon Street. Good thing it
was walking distance to everything, because cars in the French Quarter are ridiculous! 

Yummy full southern brunch at the Court of Two Sisters.

 So it rained while we were having brunch. We looked out the windows (we were seated on a balcony on the second floor) and were all like, "wow, that's pretty, look how hard it's raining..." (says us Californians who haven't seen real rain since about November 2013.) Anyway, as soon as we finished and paid the bill, we walked outside to a flash flood!

Yes, it's very disgusting, but we had to ditch our shoes and walk barefoot. The water was literally up around our calves in most places. But we tried to make the best of it and had fun splashing our way back to the hotel (although I tried not to look down at what was in the water. Ew.) 

Pop-Pop and SuSu went to New Orleans on their honeymoon in 1977. They
ate at this restaurant. I had grand plans for us to eat at it too, but...let's just
say that New Orleans got in the way. 

Probably not my best decision to wear all white...

We waited out the rain and took naps, and then headed to a nice dinner out at Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse. It was superb! Yummy yummy.

After dinner, we walked around to see (and smell) some of the French Quarter sights. We also had delicious beignets at Cafe Du Monde but somehow they all got eaten before I took pictures :) 

almost bought this for Caroline...

After a few drinks we headed to Pat O'Brien's where we got really great seats at the dueling pianos bar. It was amazing! We had a great time singing and laughing for hours. Also, we drank sneaky sneaky hurricane drinks that came back to haunt me later. Ouch.

When we took this picture, I thought "wow this is so cute!" Now I look at it and think,
"wow, we look rough."

Beads!

 I stopped taking pictures with my phone at this point, which was probably a good thing. It was a long night but we had a lot of fun and stayed out way later than we thought we could. However, Monday morning was ROUGH (at least for me...)

This is my doing-my-best-not-to-be-sick-and-throw-up look on the ride back to the beach.

So Monday we got up, drug ourselves out of bed, and hit the road. Soon we got home to see the kiddos...and MAN were they PUMPED UP to see their Daddy!!!

We've had a great time so far hanging out as a family again. We are loving our week of vacation but really can't wait to get back to our friends, our routines, and our own beds again in California on Sunday!!