When we came back from Buffalo, we were so excited to see Dada again. We started settling in after all of our travels with some cleaning, when we were greeted by a not-so-welcome visitor on our front porch:
The photo doesn't do it justice, but that is a black widow. She'd made a lovely home for herself under one of our porch pillows while we were away. We had a
very brief discussion about whether or not we should kill her, and after the deed was done, we were able to definitively identify her by the beautiful yet disconcerting red hourglass on the bottom of her abdomen (not sure why I didn't take that picture instead!?). Finding her empty egg sac a few minutes later was less than comforting, but armed with some spider spray and a vacuum we did our best to feel better about not having more uninvited visitors…. Spiders aside, we fortunately got to spend a few days together before Oscar had to take a surprise trip to Qatar. We sadly said goodbye, but knew he would have some fun stories to share we he got home.
While Oscar was away, we had a wonderful visit from our good friends the Gendins, our first neighbors in Chennai! They were on their home leave and stopped by to visit us in New Orleans. The kids had so much fun visiting with each other, and we had a fantastic time showing them our city.
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| crawfish at Frankie and Johnny's (I love Livi's face in this) |
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| a poisonous (if you eat it) grasshopper that our budding entomologist held |
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| a baby alligator |
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| dodging raindrops to visit the reptile house |
For all the avoiding of photos that our kids do, it's hard to believe that when they are in the mood, it's hard to get them to stop. We end up needing pictures together, pictures alone, various poses for each child… A new dinosaur in the zoo exhibit was in high demand:
The next day we headed out for our first street car ride and a trip to the French Quarter.
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| "I've got the best seat" |
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| Cafe du Monde beignets in Jackson Park |
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| front row for a sea otter show at the Aquarium |
A small sampling of the Grajales photo session this guy posed for:
We weren't done yet! On the Gendins' last day in town, we headed back to the Quarter for a brunch at the famous Three Sisters Restaurant. The food was actually mediocre (at best) but the king cake was quite a hit, and the flooded streets after a torrential downpour provided some fun dodging of puddles.
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| "3 kids, a charm gate, and a transformer" |
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| turtle soup |
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| he LOVES his king cake |
The streets completely flooded after a rainstorm while we were eating - note the lack of a curb! The tourists were taking off their shoes and wading through the streets, but I insisted we dodge the puddles instead of braving the nastiness that covers the streets of the French Quarter.
On our way to catch a cab, we wandered into a random shop on St. Peters and fell victim to some sparkly costumes…
We all missed Oscar while he was away, but he fortunately made it back while the Gendins were in Gulfport and we took a little trip to visit them at the house they were renting near the ocean.
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| snuggling after a fun day at the beach |
The photo doesn't do it justice, but that is a black widow. She'd made a lovely home for herself under one of our porch pillows while we were away. We had a very brief discussion about whether or not we should kill her, and after the deed was done, we were able to definitively identify her by the beautiful yet disconcerting red hourglass on the bottom of her abdomen (not sure why I didn't take that picture instead!?). Finding her empty egg sac a few minutes later was less than comforting, but armed with some spider spray and a vacuum we did our best to feel better about not having more uninvited visitors…. Spiders aside, we fortunately got to spend a few days together before Oscar had to take a surprise trip to Qatar. We sadly said goodbye, but knew he would have some fun stories to share we he got home.
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