The reason why my body is sore tonight, my hand is bruised, and my knee is a bit swollen. But considering Mad fell 842 times and got back up and tried again time and time again I had to skate a bit longer to not let her down after my one and only spill. I wish I was half as resilient as our little ladies! We will be going skating a lot more in Texas too! So much fun, minus busting my ass.
Tonight my little bit got to stay up late with Paw-Paw and watch ET for her first time. Funny I can remember watching this movie with my daddy when I was a little girl. Such precious memories being made. She LOVED it and always loves hanging out with Paw-Paw. We can hardly wait for him to move to Texas in a few months!
Woke up to a very rainy day. Nothing new on this trip, and certainly nothing new in New Orleans at any given time. It always rains. So we dropped our three little ladies off to have some fun with Aunt Stacey and “her mama and dem”. Then Matt and I headed over to my Granny & Paw-Paw’s old house that my Nana now lives in. A huge tub of old family photos that somehow survived Katrina (a miracle in itself) was pulled down out of the attic, and for the next six hours Matt and I scanned over four hundred old family photos with an app on our phones. Many that I had never seen. A lot of them made us laugh. A few brought me to tears. I learned a lot of stories I had never heard from Nana and my Dad when he showed up towards the end of our visit with Nana. When I get home I’ll slowly but surely be posting them for all of our family to enjoy. Minus the ones towards the end of Granny’s life when she was so sick. Those will be tucked away. So many special memories. So many priceless photos that I’m incredibly grateful to have and share. This is my daddy when he was a little boy, probably between the age Bitty and Mad are now. 
Even though we had a nice Cajun dinner and took in a late night movie a few days ago, Gigi insisted we go on another date. We love being with our lil monsters, so it’s not often we get out and about this much. But Gigi said so, right? Ha ha.
We had originally planned on going on a date to Commanders Palace one night on this trip. Unfortunately, I packed for a fun filled kiddo vacation with a piggy and didn’t pack proper attire for Commanders Palace, so that will be another time when we don’t only have sambas, flip flops, and jeans packed for my love.
Instead we headed to Magazine St. Walked hand in hand through several little unique stores. We happened upon a fun place called Joey K’s that locals seem to love. And once again stumbled upon another place that’s been on the triple D! We will have to find that episode and see what food he tried. It had a great vibe and the food was fantastic. Of course it helped that I was in the best company possible, my husband.
After dinner, we headed to Da Parish to have a daquiri with Stacey. It was a great evening out!
Home can be a lot of things to people. For some it’s the home they live in. One they grew up in. The entire city, town, or state they live in or was born and raised in. There are many things that remind me of “home”, the green bridge is one of them. Mind you I loathe bridges, pretty much all of them, except this one. The bridge located between New Orleans and Da Parish that leads you to “Parish Road” (or if you read the street sign the way people that aren’t from there do Paris Rd), the one locals know as the green bridge, that probably hasn’t actually been green for at least two decades. For me I feel home the second I lay my eyes on this bridge. Oddly enough I’ve had many others agree with that very sentiment with me. Even our children get excited when they see it and call it by name. Maybe you have to be from this little town to fully get it. Maybe you have your own “green bridge” so to speak that is your “home”. 
Got up early this morning to take just our little Mad with us to the French Quarter for a couple hours. We had fun popping in and out of various shops as they opened up for the day. Made a stop for iced cafe au laits, chocolate milk, and to share an order of beignets before shopping in the French market. All while Aub enjoyed some fun at Aunt Sandy’s and Bitty spent the morning with Paw-Paw. 
This evening Gigi insisted Matt & I have a date night. We enjoyed a nice little Cajun dinner and a movie. This has been a fun filled, yet laid back vacation and we are loving it.
I’ve heard about the dinner bell from family over the years. About my Maw-Maw’s half sister owning it once upon a time. That even some of my Maw-Maw’s recipes were in the cookbook they sold. But I had never been, until today. We took the drive out to McComb, Mississippi, 80 miles south of Jackson for lunch.
It’s only open 3 hours a day for lunch. They serve buffet style home cooking, but it’s on large round tables that they seat you with other families, that has a large lazy Susan built into it. 
Since it was seven of us, Paw-Paw & Gigi went with us, we were seated with another family of four and enjoyed the small talk with them. The girls especially loved the rumored fact that they still use Granny Lily’s fried chicken recipe to this day. What a treat to taste a recipe that taste just like their great great grandmother cooked it for them? There were several dishes on that table, including the fried chicken, that tasted just like the food that my Maw-Maw always made.
We had a fabulous time there, and will make a habit of heading out to McComb when we visit home more often. 
Got up early this morning for a quick run the the farmers market with Gigi for some Cajun eggs, Italian cookies, & produce before taking a day trip to Alabama for some fun in the sun.
The girls had so much fun taking turns burying each other in the sand and splashing around. Sweet little Violet rolled around and rooted in the sand the entire time. She slept hard after we got her rinsed off on the boardwalk before the drive back. It’s was a beautiful fun filled day that we won’t soon forget!
