Voodoo 4th of July

Happy 4th of July, ya’ll!

We’re in New Orleans. We never intended to visit New Orleans, but here we are. 

Rather than write much, I think I’ll try and let the photos say it all. I have this dream of catching up on writing and actually spending the day in one day.

Hmmmm…

We left Natchez relatively early this AM. Natchez, MS was the 2nd largest slave selling market in the antebellum years. We saw some amazing plantations in the town (and as we left via Route 61 South). We might have wandered around Natchez a bit more, but Eleni broke down after 9 minutes of being in the car.

Eleni’s usual line of defense…

1. Most of the time, once Eleni gets tired and we start hearing the sighs, we just ignore her and let her get herself out of it. Most of the time, this works. She spends a lot of time playing with her plastic animals and puppets. Today, not so much.

2. Alex is an amazing distraction – he works so hard at helping her get out of bad moods. He offers her options of things to play with or questions such as “do you want me to read you this book?” Today, he was distracted. “Eleni, it’s my turn with the music and I’m listening to Star Wars music. I can’t hear it. Stop crying!”

3. Eleni’s blanket can usually solve all the problems in the world. Not today.

4. Whoever is in the shotgun seat holds Eleni’s hand and sings with her. That didn't work.

5. I already told you about the Princess CD. But, it was Alex's turn. And so, 

6. OK, confession time. Gum. Gum. Chewing gum. Immediate success. “What you say?”

7. "OK, it's movie time!" This has turned into a more pro-active option though - it's great incentive each day. 

Things settled down. We moved on from Route 61 to 10 East. 

New Orleans. You can see the Superdome...

"This is the best hotel!" Alex and Eleni loving our room (before they found out there is no pool!).  CDC monkeys in New Orleans! 

We took trolley cars down St. Charles street. Walked from Canal street to Bourbon Street in the brief rain shower.

Bourbon street. Music permeates this street - different genres of music blasting from each bar we passed. Alex was loving it - he bopped down the street happily!

Eleni loving the masks and clown dolls. Now all Alex wants is an alligator head. You can buy an alligator head in most shops from $6.99 and up. No, we did not get an alligator head.

An endearing moment: Eleni sharing her strawberry smoothie with me. Her suggestion.

Quiet times on the Mississippi. Eleni is under the bench.

Banana tree in Jackson square

"Well, in eighteen and fourteen we took a little trip along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip. We took a little bacon and we took a little beans, And we caught the bloody British near the town of New Orleans." Clearly Neil is not censoring this blog.

For all the Sequence game fans out there!

Calm times in the hotel room. We walked around the block that our hotel is on, and made up stories about the different houses (many could be settings for haunted houses,by the way), and then we went out to dinner at the Voodoo BBQ.

So, Alex already destroyed a pair of shoes on this trip. We bought him new sneakers 2 days ago, but he has horrible blisters. Where is this story going? We bought him some flip flops today and guess who wanted some new ones, too? For $2.50 we bought Eleni happiness. This is Eleni fast asleep at 8:30 PM.

One of my favorite parts of today was having coffee and donuts at Cafe Monde near the French market. Another dear memory was letting Alex stay up a bit later so that he could watch the fire works from our hotel balcony. While we waited, we sat around for a half hour and looked at the photos of our trip and drank root beer. He's growing up. He just wanted to hang out. . . 

Some words from Alex (when asked what is the best part of this today and/or this trip), “Root beer, and Elvis is the King! That’s it.” 

And, that's it! I'm all caught up...