Another Round of Visitors

Well, Mike and Angie arrived safe and sound on Wednesday evening and we hit the ground running and didn't stop until we dropped them off at the airport yesterday evening. We had a great time with them! We were less than stellar hosts this time around since our kids were sick, sick, sick much of the time they were here. I mean, I'm sure it was fun and all considering that the activities with our kids included, but were not limited to, the following: throwing up, diarrhea, diaper rash, fevers, pharyngitis, near sleepless nights, washing sheets at 2 am, more fevers, whining, crying, screaming, and teething, teething, teething. I'm quite certain that it was so enjoyable that the young lovebirds will go home and get to work having a few babies of their own right away--because we were THAT fun and glamorous. AND, all of that and Sam's teeth STILL haven't broke through. I thought we'd be in the clear after we discovered the ear infection, but no. They still have yet to break through, and I'd dare say this has been the roughest bout of teething I've experienced as a mom.

But, all that aside, we did manage to do some fun things. Our activities included: Oak Alley plantation, the Quarter, a ride on the Steamer Natchez, the Aquarium, a swamp tour, breakfast at Petunia's in the Quarter (best breakfast on the planet), several trips for sno-balls (twice in one day even), playing Wackee Six until all hours of the night, watching the Olympics, playing Wii, fishing in our pond, dinner at Deanie's, Kenner Seafood, & La Madeleine, lunch at Raising Cane's, and beignets at Cafe du Monde. We got them to try all sorts of good stuff when they were here: crab fingers, crawfish pistolettes, all sorts of seafood (softshell crab, oysters, shrimp, catfish), shrimp po-boys, sweet potato fries, and I'm sure I'm missing something... So, with all of this fun and a few sick kids in the mix, we are definitely exhausted. But we are SO glad we got some visitors. We love visitors! Thanks for coming!!! Here are a few highlights of their trip. (I definitely didn't take pictures of everything since playing photographer while taking care of a very fussy baby just didn't happen.)

Oak Alley Plantation:
This is one of my favorite places in all of Louisiana. It's just gorgeous! Garrett was kind enough to take the day off work to help with the kids, so he watched them while I took Mike and Angie here. It was such a nice break for me!
Here is the view from the veranda of the 28 oak trees that line the walk way out to the road (the trees are over 300 years old, by the way).

We did a little fishing in our pond where Mike caught the biggest fish we've seen come out of there! It got dubbed the "monster".
The Steamer Natchez

This old steamboat takes a ride 6 miles up the Mississippi River and back (docks right from the french Quarter) and gives you a river side tour of the city. It's a very fun and tourist-y thing to do. On this day, Sam felt particularly awful, so dragging him around was pretty hard on him, but he was a trooper. (but he did let us have it when we left to go home and screamed nearly the entire drive home, so we paid for it later)

(Mike and Angie look like frighteningly young parents here in this picture, but I had to get a picture of them with my kids!)

And here is a view of downtown from the boat. We could see Garrett's office building from there. In case you were wondering, it is the building that the arrow is pointing to. And if you look really hard you can see him in his office on the 38th floor... ha ha! He was working while we were playing. Too bad he couldn't have taken the day off to watch the kids again while we played...LOL! No really, we would have just enjoyed having him with us!
And this is the paddle behind the boat that we were all fascinated watching, of course.

And this is the best of Sam for the day, the best being not very good. It was a rough day for him.
And Tyler definitely loves taking a ride on that boat, but does not enjoy the horn that is very loud!
Sno-balls

Of course, we had to get our fill of these while they were here, and they were especially good for Sam and his sore gums. They helped him feel much better! Mike and Angie definitely approved of them. They were a big hit.

Touring a Swamp

We hopped on a boat and took a tour of a swamp. It is always fascinating to me. I think swamps are very beautiful in a lot of ways.
Cypress trees line the swamp. They are very cool looking.
And the boys enjoyed hanging out the boat and looking for alligators. (this was the day we finally saw some of our "regular Sam" show through a little bit. He was pretty happy this day.)
Sam especially loved sitting on Garrett's lap, hanging out the boat and literally yelling at the top of his lungs:
And we all got a little up close and personal with some of these:

All from the safety of our boat, of course (and under the care of our tour guide)!


We would throw out marshmallows to get the alligators to come closer. Tyler was THRILLED when the alligator ate "his" marshmallow. We also saw lots of blue heron, egrets, and turtles, but I wasn't able to get any pictures of them.

And that's a wrap. We had a great time and already miss our visitors! Please come back again soon!