Motherhood Bliss: New Orleans Weekend

Dani had a swim meet in New Orleans last weekend, so we decided to make a weekend out of it and have a little mini family vacation. We left early on Saturday and started the weekend off with the Insectarium

The kids loved all of the bugs, spiders, blue crawfish, butterflies and other insects.

They both wanted to climb on this big termite guy and take a picture. Cade said "Look mom it's a Thor bug" LOL....everything superhero is always churning in his mind!!

Brooks pretended to wrangle the alligator!

We all even got to pretend we were fish!

The highlight of my insectarium trip was standing right next to DREW BREES!!! Quarterback of the Saints football team. Normally I would have asked for a picture, but he was with his mom and kids and I didn't want to be "that" girl asking for a picture while he was with his 3 kids. So I just pretended to take a picture of that HUGE turtle and instead got proof that we actually did see him.

Next we had to drop Dani off at the Lakeshore Arena for warm ups and it was going to be a while before she swam so we decided to attempt to find some good New Orleans food for lunch.

Josh found this little Cafe with "good reviews". We weren't in the best part of town but it was close to the swim meet so we decided to stop. Let's just say we were the ONLY people eating there at 12:00 on a Saturday and I found a hair in my food...which quickly made me nauseous for the rest of the day! Other than that it was Greeeeaat??!!

Dani swam her one race of the day, see here for more on that. And we were off to our next destination, the aquarium to see the "sharks and the fishes" as the boys were requesting to do all day!!

The aquarium was VERY crowded with it being a Saturday and it was raining outside, but we got a few close up encounters with fish, sharks and seahorses. We even found Nemo AND Dori!!

Brooks' highlight of the aquarium was getting to "drive" the boat through the swamp.

And the shark viewing area was pretty cool too!

We then moved on to the IMax and watched a movie about African animals.

Everyone but Brooks was interested, so about halfway through I took him to the bathroom and we stayed at the top of the theater so he could dance off some of his energy!

After getting my appetite restored from lunch, we found this awesome New Orleans restaurant about a block from our hotel called Mulate's and they had a live band playing some New Orleans Zydeco music. Cade had so much fun dancing on the dance floor while we were waiting for our food. Check out the video for more on that!

The food was great!! I got the blackened redfish, Josh got the seafood platter and Dani got the seafood pasta. The boys got some of it all!! Great New Orleans food and no hairs in our dinner!!

Next stop, Cafe' Du Monde for beignets!! My favorite, but apparently no one else in the family is a huge fan! They were so yummy though and the boys enjoyed blowing the powdered sugar on each other.

A little shot from the boardwalk shops to our hotel. We stayed at the Embassy Suite Lofts and it was a great little hotel in a good location.

The next morning we decided to go to the WWII museum. Daddy really wanted to check it out and we knew the boys would like the plane exhibits.

First we took a simulated train ride back to the times of War.

Then the museum began. I believe that was the quickest I have ever walked through a museum. The boys were not very interested since they didn't really understand what everything was. So I took them through quickly before they could destroy anything, while Josh and Dani took the slower pace and enjoyed everything.

We stopped to take some silly pics...

The telephones kept them occupied but then we had to stop once they were calling their friends over for a party in the middle of the WWII museum....wasn't the most appropriate timing!! So we moved on quickly.

Daddy and Dani were very impressed with the museum!! Next up, the planes exhibit!!

Of course as soon as we went in the boys were referring to the planes from the Disney movie Planes..but they still really enjoyed looking. I am sure one day they will truly appreciate the real meaning of all of this history!

Brooks really wanted to ride in the cars....

For lunch we were recommended Bud's Burger joint so we enjoyed eating there before Dani's last leg of her swim meet. It was really kind of a hole in the wall place but it was pretty good!!