Who we are
Danielle & Jeff
Austin - 12, Maddy - 9
Trina - 4, Brayden - 2, Sydnee - 1
What an incredible place to visit, not so sure I would want to live in New Orleans though there are some very nice areas on the north side of the city.
So I spent 10 days in Orange, TX and New Orleans. Had to go to Orange for work but was able to take the weekend and visit Nawlins. The French Quarter Festival was in full swing both Saturday and Sunday. I always thought that Mardi Gras was the big festival but apparently it is just the most renowned, the French Festival and Jazz Fest are two of the biggest and most popular among locals and nearby states. The F.Q.F. takes place on the Riverwalk and encompases the streets over to Bourbon, there is so much going on, three large stages for musicians that rotate acts every hour or so. On top of that there are many street performers both musically and theatrically along with all the other types of street performances you might see. Like I told Danielle in one text "Didn't need to see that" lol. Definately Bourbon street is not a place for younger kids, that type of education so young may not be good for them.
The food is great, so many types of food, all with the sothern flair to them. I love fish so the varieties of fish was great. There is also a wide variety of sausages, many fo them with a cajun flair, spicy just the way I like things.
On both days there were many street vendors for artists of all types, I found one great local artist there on Sat. but didn;t want to buy that day and then he wasn't there on Sun. guess I should have just bought the first time. Oh well lesson learned.
Spent both days walking around the festival and doing some sigt seeing around the city, just in case you did not know. There was also a farmers market and other markets where you can purchase many other items. The city is famous for it's VooDoo type of heritage or black magic. The cemetary we all see for the funeral parades in many movies is the one that has the most famous of all buried there, the Queen of VooDoo Marie Laveau. She is practicallyright in the middle.
There is so much heritage there and it is great to see. There is also what most people know about it, Bourbon street has anything and everything for sale, needless to say if you haven't seen it before you visit most liekly you will see it when you are there. Vegas is know as the city of sin but I would have to say that Nawlins is rigt there with it if not even more so. Still a fun place to visit and I would recomend anyone to at least visit, just don't go to Bourbon during the night unless you really want to.
Yes it is that time of year, the Easter time of year where new clothes for the year are bought and there are plenty of things going on. The kids are enjoying hte nice weather when we have it, getting outside and playing again. They really enjoy playing on the playground after being cooped up all winter it seems like. I think Danielle also likes to have them outside rather than inside buggin her all day.
So part of our Easter time of year tradition it seems is pictures. I Love them.... Well sort of. Though this year was pretty good, we were able to get thru them fast and didn't have to deal with very much whining for the kids. Usually there is wailing and gnashing of teeth and dead kids everywhere. Ya know dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria that type of stuff.
All of the kids were great for pictures and they loved it. Sydnee was the only difficult one for part of it, she did not want to sit down, she just wanted to climb on the little ladder, so we ended up getting a picture of her sort of sideways with her climbing, she just did not want to hold still, she wanted to go explore and climb things. So we did what we could with it.
Glad that it is over and yes I am glad that we do have updated pictures. Last year it was soooo bad that we didn't even get a family picture together, so much improved this year.
So the football season has ended and now the wrestling begins. Austin told us last year that he wanted to get into wrestling, well we waited to see if it was something he really wanted to do until this year and he still wanted to try it.
It has been three weeks since the start of the season and practices, and today we had his first meet at Juan Diego in Draper. There were so many kids there, all grade levels Kindergarten thru 8th grade, both girls and boys were able to compete.
So Austin in his first match he wrestled against a boy who had been wrestling for 3 years already. Austin was able to hold his own but eventually lost the decision on technical points, we were proud of him that he fought so hard and scored many points of his own, you could tell that as the match went on he got better against the other boy.
Austin was not very fond of loosing his first match but sat and watched older wrestlers and we talked about what he could do in his next match to get better.
The second match went better, he was able to wrestle a boy who also was in his first year of wrestling.
Austin totally dominated the match, the other boy did not score a point on Austin and Austin was able to pin him nearly halfway thru the match. He was so excited to win, so not bad for his first time out, 1 and 1. He is very excited to wrestle, the fact that it is an individual sport I think he likes, if he makes a mistake he knows what to do to correct it for the next time. He looks to be talented at this so it might be good for him over the years.
Now that Maddison has seen the wrestling and the fact that she saw plenty of girls wrestling against boys she has become all excited for wrestling and really wants to try. Danielle and I are not as excited about it but hey if she wants to try it I guess next year we can try to put her in as well and see how she does. She does wrestle with Austin all the time so who knows...
WOW!! Sydnee is now 1 year old.
It seems like just the other day she was brought home from the hospital, yet then again we are counting down the days till we are able to drop her off in nursery in 6 months so we can have some peace and quite during some of church. lol
Sydnee had a wonderful time on her B-day she really got into the opening of her presents.
The birthday cake is a different story she was not so sure what to do with the candle. She would rather play with the fire than blow it out eventually her sister Trina had to blow it out for her.
The eating of the cake started out slowly as Sydnee figured out whether she liked the cake or not.
Then well as you can see there was no stopping her. For a little girl a big slice of cake sure can disappear quickly. It is amazing how much can either fit in or on a little girl.
We had a wonderful time celebrating the birthday of our little girl who now no longer can be called a baby and is now a toddler who is learning how to walk, is talking and her favorite thing to say, that she learned from her brother Brayden, "Stop It" and she points her finger at you. Oh boy do we have our wokr cut out for us later on.
