April 2008

This posting is a little longer than the others as there were four reasons for Trish to head to Louisiana in April. We'll start with the first. Trish's youngest sister Alana had a milestone birthday April 8th so the sisters decided to get together to celebrate over a long weekend. Ben volunteered as the designated driver. Everyone arrived in New Orleans: Trish and Noelle from Portland (Noelle lives in Vancouver WA), Della from Chicago and Alana from Denham Springs.

First stop- the French Quarter for beignets. Everyone knows what they are right? If not, book the next flight to NO and head to Cafe de Monde for a treat you will never forget! The cute little guy in the picture is Flat Stanley. (Google him- it's a fun project that school children around the world are involved with. This one, dressed as a NO tourist started the project at Trish's school.) Flat Stanley went everywhere with the 4 sisters and they had so much fun taking pictures with him that he could start his own blog!

Next stop- Electric Ladyland Tattoo. No really! And we weren't even drinking! Trish is a tattoo fan with a frog (remember lifelong obsession?!) on her left shoulder blade and a band around her left ankle (another frog sitting on a band of lily pads) that also includes 2 fluer de lis and three A's (her children's initials- Allisa, Ashley and Anthony). Anyway, somehow Trish managed to take Ben from "I would never get a tattoo" to "we can talk about it" to "Me, first!" So coordinating tattoos were applied by Annette, a true artist!

The tats are each 2 Chinese characters. Ben's translates to "handsome, skillful provider" and Trish's to "pretty princess". When the four characters are listed together, they translate to "soulmate".

Next stop- Jazz Festival on the Waterfront. Great music, good food and more conversation as everyone celebrated Alana's birthday.

The next day, everyone headed to see Mom & Dad with a stop through Baton Rouge at the State Capitol. Fortunately, there weren't many other people around so we took turns rolling down the hills, walking through the grounds and reminiscing.

After stopping to see Mike the Tiger and stopping at the cemetery to pay respects to our grandparents, the group finally made it to Sulphur. Aunt Dee and her family joined us for dinner (chicken & dumplings, thanks Mom!) and the girls talked nonstop for hours.

The following day, we joined Aunt Jill and her family for lunch at a very yummy Cajun restaurant. Everything was fried and so yummy! There were even fried pickle slices! While we can't eat like that all the time, it was so good! It seemed like the time past way too fast and all too soon it was time to head to New Orleans. Which brings us to the second reason for this trip...