I guess you could say it’s becoming a tradition for my best friend and I to head to the aquarium with our kiddos when we visit home. Today we also included lunch and shopping at the riverwalk. It’s always an adventure when we get together!
Wrapped up another fun filled week of VBS with our three sweet girls and their four cousins! It was an amazing week and I loved getting to have so much time with my nieces and nephew! This was Aub’s first year to volunteer for VBS since she’s going into seventh grade this year and she really enjoyed it.
Celebrated our son’s 21st birthday tonight and our grandbabies are spending the night at Maw-Maw & Paw-Paw’s. A perfect way to end a perfect week!
A day spent watching our little ladies waking up excited to see what the Easter bunny left for them. Our traditional Easter egg hunt like my granny always did filled with both candy and change. And a nice home cooked meal shared with family and a friend.
A little pre Easter fun dying Easter eggs with the girls’ Maw-Maw, Maw-Maw Susie, and their Nannie Boo. Before leaving some carrots out for Peter Cottontail.
How cute are these eggs my Mother in law crocheted for me?
We said our goodbyes early this morning to head back to Texas after a whirlwind weekend. Even with dad’s scare yesterday it still turned out to be a fabulous weekend with tons of good memories made. The rain held out until today and while it was no fun driving in it from Baton Rouge to Baytown we missed the worst of it both by our house and in New Orleans.
When we got home we unloaded the huge container of produce to see what we had, and it was a lot. We were able to share with friends and the girls are excited to bring each of their teachers a bag full of goodies tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll be prepping a lot of produce to freeze for future meals.
We caught a lot of interesting things, but I think we all agree the one lone boiled crawfish was the most amusing one!
Our take home from the Irish Italian Islenos parade yesterday….
Boiled crawfish: 1
Zucchini: 1
Apple: 1
Grapefruit: 2
Corn on the cob: 2
Eggplants: 2
Pineapples: 2
Cabbages: 8
Bananas: 8
Bags of mini carrots: 10
Oranges: 11
Carrots: 15
Onions: 24
Potatoes: 42
Lemons: 46
Our favorite parade, the Irish Italian Islenos! 50 floats, 30 marching groups, the cast of “Night Watch” (the TV show about New Orleans first responders) as the grand Marshalls’ of the parade, and 400,000 pounds of produce to be thrown this year!
It was a beautiful day. A bit warm, but at least it didn’t start off with rain like last year. We enjoyed a day of fun and laughter with family and friends. Matt’s coworker even joined us this year with his family. Dad insisted on coming with us, even after having a knee surgery earlier this week. So I put him under the canopy in the breezy shade in a comfy chair out of the aim of float throws. The girls had so much fun with their friends as did I with two of my favorites that I’ve known forever.
Things got scary midway through the parade though. I noticed my dad was in a lot of pain and a bit disoriented. Unfortunately, our car was trapped on the parade route and even one of his friends that I called couldn’t get through it to get him home. I went over to the car to start prepping it so that we could leave as soon as possible. I looked back across the street at him to a sight that terrified me. I could tell from the way he was slumped back in the chair something was very wrong. I ran over to him and checked his pulse. Then started screaming for someone to call 911. He had a pulse, but was completely unresponsive and laying limp in the chair. I sent someone to get me his insulin bag as the fire department arrived literally in a matter of seconds from the call being made. They weren’t able to check his blood sugar and said EMS would when they got to him. I knew it didn’t need to wait, so I checked his sugar myself and just as I knew it would be it was very high. This is when I realized how thankful I am that I had come down when he found out he has diabetes six years ago and learned everything I could about it with him. This is why I knew the signs. This is how I was able to check his sugar and give him the proper amount of insulin before EMS was even able to make it to us through a parade. By the time they arrived he was sitting up and almost back to himself. The daiquiri he drank was not a good match for his diabetes. It scared us all and I know now he will be reevaluating his decisions. Typically if he gets a daiquiri he sips it, but on such a warm day he drank it faster than he usually would. He felt awful that his grandchildren saw him in this state. It broke his heart knowing how much it scared me. At the end of the day I’m just thankful I was there with him and knew what to do to help my dad. I’m also thankful that my best friend stayed by my side through the entire ordeal while our kids daddies tried to keep them distracted. And for how quickly the first responders got to us.
The girls enjoyed the end of the parade while their Paw-Paw continued to start feeling more like himself until we were able to put him in the car to leave. I don’t think he would have gone to the parade if we weren’t in town. But I do beleive everything happens for a reason and we were meant to be with him this weekend.
Met my sister, Godson, and nephew at the park for a little play time before we headed to the Parish for a few hours on our last day in town. We went to the cemetery. Mom hasn’t been able to go in years now. Then we met Laurie, Michala, and Paw-Paw at Rocky’s, because really you can never have too much Rocky’s in your life. Okay, yes you can, which is why I’m glad I live six hundred miles away from daily or weekly trips there. Then we headed to our new Parish fave, the Coffee Haus in Arabi, for a sugar free french vanilla iced cafe au lait before heading to feed the ducks (and geese) at Park Cheniere. It was a fun filled few hours in Da Parish that we wrapped up with snowballs at the pink snowball stand in Violet on Judge Perez, always a fave. Before we said our goodbyes (for now) to Laurie & Michala we headed to Marietta St for pictures her Momma requested we take with our little ladies. Momma Denise says some of her favorite memories on Marietta are of Laurie & I walking up and down that street barefoot and wanted pictures of us with the girls doing the same. We didn’t ditch the shoes, because we needed to get back across the lake soon, but I’m really glad we took the time to make those special memories with our girls that we’ve shared together for over two decades now. Marietta St may have changed a lot since the storm, but it will forever be home to us.
After picture and hugs we headed back across the lake to finish up packing. Have I said how much I miss my husband and my little Najah?
My cousin Ginny and her two babies came over to visit for a bit. Which was long over due. I can hardly get over how much she looks like her daddy these days!
Sandy, Chris, and my two favorite down da road kiddos came over for a few hours too. This was a strange week for us. Typically Sandy & I are glued at the hip when I’m in town. But a new full time job changed our routine up a bit. I’m glad we had this evening together and can’t wait for some summer fun together.
This was an interesting week to say the least. I finally got my mom out of town for the first time in years since she was put on oxygen. We had a three generations trip that has been loaded with great memories. I did however have a difficult time being away from Matt. More difficult than either of us realized. I’m not ashamed to say I shed tears more than once or that we slept on hangouts together just to feel closer to each other. I’m thankful we still share a love that strong a decade later and don’t think it will be easy to pry me away from him for some time. Also, I got to spend time with my two best friends at the same time! Got to spend time with one of my oldest friends, family, parading, and exploring. It was an absolutely beautiful week, but I’m ready to get back to Texas to the man that holds my heart tighter than he will ever know! Or well, maybe now he does know;)
Today my little lovelies got a snowball at Goody’s. As I was watching them pick out their flavors I realized they are the fourth generation in my family getting snowballs from this very snowball stand. I can still remember going to Goody’s with my Paw-Paw. Hard to believe this place is fifty years old.
Matt & I like to exchange “traditional” anniversary gifts. For 10 years it was tin/aluminum.
I spent weeks completely baffled as to what I’d do for him. I knew what I wanted to give him, but it didn’t really go the traditional route, so I had to find a way to make it be. After a little thinking I finally decided on what to do. I ordered the matte finished black soprano ukulele he’s been eyeing for some time. Then I bought the supplies and took to teaching myself how to stamp aluminum picks with lyrics to song he likes as well as a few others just letting him know I love him. One being “10 years later I still pick you”.
We weren’t able to exchange gifts until we got home from New Orleans, because when we left we planned to be home two days before our anniversary. Then we ended up extending our trip to go see The Lumineers and honestly that was plenty enough present for me.
Yet when we got home he had two crosses for me for my cross wall, one with tin on it and the other aluminum. He also ordered a ring that I had once told him I liked from James Avery. A simple silver band that says always & forever on it. He had it engraved with “10 years” between two fleur-de-lis. This fella truly knows the way to my heart. I don’t need big and flashy. All I really need is his love and he gives me that whole heartedly daily. How lucky am I to have him for my better half?
