More from New Orleans

Ok, I decided to do a real post about my trip to New Orleans. As I may have mentioned before, Dwight took over 300 pictures of our trip. But I, for some reason, am never able to download more than 5 at a time onto my blog. So I decided to just post my top 5 things about my trip to New Orleans. so here they are, in no particular order, just the order I downloaded them in.
1. Oak Alley plantation. I loved ALL the plantations, but this one was my favorite. I could have spent the entire trip just touring the plantations and been happy. They all had huge trees, and a lot of history to them. Some of the history may not have been so happy, but it was history, and very interesting history too. Couldn't you just hang out all day looking down at those trees?
2. Jay. He was the best tour guide ever. Very flamboyant! He had a funky southern/creole accent that made him hard to understand, at first, then as you got to know him better, I mean really got to know him, you could hear every word he said clear as a bell. Even Dwight and Tom LOVED him. (Dwight took this photo of Jay, and Dwight only takes pictures of things that he loves. i.e. my behind)
3. Atticus. This particular picture was taken by me. It is Atticus' reaction to being left alone with dear aunt Amy. He clammed up the second he saw his dad walk out of the bathroom though. He is one of the cutest babies of those who have never come out of my womb. And by the end of the trip, he loved me. Plus, he is super squooshy, and it makes him fun to hold and snuggle.

4. The stinky "white" kids pretending to be poor dirty bums. That girl was so talented running a spoon across her wash board. Their song had no tune, and they were all off beat, but I think they were hurricane victims, so Dwight took their picture. There were many of these dorks all over the French Quarter. It was like Kurt Cobain and Seattle all over again.
5. Hanging out with Tom and Katie. If I was going in order of best to worst, this would for sure be at the top. I don't get to spend a lot of time with my sister in-law, we live in different states, and when we get together it is usually in a big group. I had a lot of fun with both of them. And it was especially great to have Katie there because we both had the same interests for this trip. And if she hadn't been there, I would have had to go on the scarey French Quarter ghost tour all alone. Then I would have had to walk all alone through the French Quarter, past all the bums, to get to my car. So thanks for saving my life. I would have probably been raped or something had you not been there with me. You saw my butt... you know it would have happened.

Great New Orleans pictures!

Last weekend Dwight and I took a trip to New Orleans and met up with my brother Tom and my sister in-law Katie. We had alot of fun, and feel really good about all the relief work we did while we were down there. Brad and Angelina are very happy with us. I was going through my pictures to see which ones I should post. I noticed a trend, whenever Dwight had the camera, his groupings of pictures generally started with one of me. I thought I would start by sharing some of those with you all.

Sorry about this last one, I am going to say it is just from a bad angle. Anyway, my husband is a sicko.

Life can be so stressful...

Every night we have the same routine. It's 9:00, I tell the kids it is time for bed. 9:10, I yell up for them to calm down and go to sleep. 9:15, I yell up "Go To Sleep!" 9:20, I yell up "Who wants to sleep in the garage?" 9:30, I yell up "LAST WARNING!" It is quite effective, and by 9:45 there is silence. Well, last night at about 11:15, Ella came downstairs sobbing. I quickly paused American Idol and asked her what was wrong. She wouldn't respond, or couldn't respond because she was crying too hard. After a few minutes I started to worry about what might have happened to make her so upset. Finally, she calmed herself enough to say "I lied to my friends and I am worried they might find out." So I asked her what she lied about, and she didn't want to tell me. Now, I of course had to know. So I nicely, but firmly asked her to tell me what she lied about. After a good 5 minutes of prodding her, she finally told me, "I told my friends I had special powers, and now I am worried they might find out I don't". I had to come up with a response quickly, it was about 11:30 by this point.

Here is a list of my possible reactions:

1. Just laugh...


2. Tell her that's why you should never lie and then tell her to get back in bed, or sleep in the garage.


3. Comfort her and help her think of a way to keep making her friends think she has special powers.


4. Tell her to not say anything more, and when her friends call her out on it just say, "What? I was totally joking! You don't think I really thought I had special powers did you?"

Keeping in mind that it was late, I was in the middle of American Idol, I needed to hurry and watch it so I could get to bed and get up at 6:30 the next morning, I thought I gave a pretty good response. I told her #4. Then I told her never to lie again or I would tell everyone the real truth. (which I am already doing right now)

Man I wish my only stress in life was worrying if my friends would find out I didn't have any special powers.

I'm saving this for you Katie!

My sister in-law, Katie recently confessed an obsession with candy. I was very disgusted and disturbed to hear about the lengths she has gone to with her candy feddish. Her daughter found an easter egg in her neighbor's front yard, that still had a piece of melted candy in it. Anyone else, I would hope anyway, would have thrown the whole thing away. But, Katie saved it in her fridge, and then later ate it! Well, today I was cleaning out my garage. It is jammed packed full of crap. My goal was to empty at least 5 rubber maids worth of stuff into the trash. I was on my third, when I came across a box of church stuff from when we lived in Calgary. In August of 2000, Dwight went to a primary board meeting and recieved this....

I was going to throw it away, until I thought of poor Katie and her need for nasty old candy. Fortunately, I am meeting her and Tom in New Orleans this weekend. She is going to be so happy when I bring it for her to snack on, on the plane. That's right! I am saving this for you Katie! Let's just hope and pray my kids don't find it first......seriously. I can't afford a trip to the emergency room right now.