NOLA

We made it to New Orleans early Sunday morning. I was really excited to see the city, but it was COLD!


We wanted to watch the sunrise. We weren't disappointed.


It was gorgeous from the top of our cruise ship.


After a quick trip through U.S. Customs we were on the trolley headed for our hotel. Or so we thought. We were so busy taking in the sights that we missed our stop and had to ride it again. Oops! Then we missed our connection and ended up walking about 2 miles (with a week's worth of luggage in tow) to our hotel because we were both too stubborn to admit defeat and get a cab. We finally found our hotel and dropped off our luggage before heading out to explore the city.


We found Jackson's Brewery and I had to take a photo. These things do not excite Jackson like they do me. If that said "Jenna's Brewery" I'd be up on the building posing for photos. ;)


Anyway, it tickled us because it was called "Jax" just like our main man Jaxton Porterfield. We are pretty sure he doesn't need a house of beer t-shirt, though, so we refrained.


During our exploration we saw a dog that looked exactly like MacKenzie. Jackson was able to hold me back from stealing it.


We found Jackson Square and loved the St. Louis Cathedral. It was gorgeous!


Jackson in Jackson Square. See? It doesn't get old for me.


We grabbed lunch at a local sports bar so Jackson could watch the Colts vs. Texans game.


This was his face when he realized that he was surrounded by Texans fans. Ha!


It was a cool bar and worth the visit if you're ever in NOLA and need (fine, want) to watch a sporting event.


We wandered up and down Canal Street and found it kind of sketchy. That's being nice. There were bars on the windows and questionable people everywhere so we made it a quicker walk than anticipated.


The most awesome surprise was that the Florida Gators (one of my favorite teams) made it to the Sugar Bowl so their fans were all over town prepping for the January 2nd game. Chomp. Chomp. I had a great time yelling, "Go GATA" at fellow fans...only in NOLA would this be totally acceptable behavior. :) We also made our way to the Hard Rock to get my Mom a guitar pin. That's an important stop in every city, naturally!


We stopped in for dinner at a place called "Coops." We had to wait in line and chatted with a guy who was on the filming crew for the Kardashians' realty shows. He was so interesting and our conversation got cut off too quickly by a two top coming available!


Jackson was pretty excited about his friend chicken. He also loved his sausage and RABBIT (gross! I'd never eat Peter Cottontail!) jambalaya. I heaved. To each their own.


We made the requisite stop at Cafe Du Monde for beignets. Holy cow those things were awesome. We fully intended to go out on Bourbon Street but made the mistake of going back to hotel to rest first. We never made it back out. Yep. We are officially old. In our defense we had walked over 13 miles according to my pedometer and were exhausted.


This morning we got a free breakfast at our hotel before going on a self-guided tour of the Garden District. (Again, we don't know why we got upgraded but it was lovely.) We just googled a walking tour and had the same one that other people had purchased in a $30 book. Suckers. :) You can find the tour we followed here: http://www.frommers.com/destinations/neworleans/0020020034.html


Some of the houses were just awesome.


This one still had places to tie up
a horse.


The fence looked like corn because the lady of the house missed her hometown in Iowa.


This was one of our favorite places. It looked so inviting.


This is where Archie Manning lives and where Eli grew up. I think Eli has some brothers but who cares about them? It was funny to pass the Manning house when we did because the coaches' wives from the Sugar Bowl were there for an event so it was very lively. (Don't even get me started on bowl game events for coaches' wives because I will not stop ranting. Ever.)


This was a random headstone. Creepy.


I just loved this tree.


This restaurant is supposedly the best in all of NOLA. It was too expensive and fancy for our taste but everyone we spoke to loved it.


They have to bury people above the ground because the city if below sea level (don't get Jackson going talking about that) and when it floods they'd have really issues. We didn't get to stay long in the cemetery because it freaked Jackson our so much that, when I accidentally bumped into him, he almost wet his pants. (Baby.)


We headed back to Bourbon Street from there and were again shocked by all of the strip clubs. We knew it was a party area, we just didn't know it was the kind of a party. We couldn't settle on where to eat lunch so we ended up at Cafe Du Monde again for beignets. The line was MUCH longer at noon than it had been that previous evening. That place just makes a killing. There is never a "good time" to go, it seems.


This was Jackson getting the news that our flight was delayed. Doesn't he look pleased?


Since we had a little extra time (gee, thanks Southwest Airlines) in the city we hopped into the "fanzone" for the Sugar Bowl. It was really cool and I even got a free shirt because Jackson was willing to share his email address.
(That's love, folks.)

We eventually made it to the airport and sat through more non-weather delays (insert annoyance here) before making it here to Houston.


Jackson loved the crying kid on our flight. Can't you tell? ;)

We were so happy to have "real
food" that we had quite the dinner of nachos and boneless wings at the BW3s here in Houston. It was kind of silly how good it tasted after being in NOLA for a few days. (I just didn't love the Cajun food. Ok, I hated it.)

Now we are, fingers crossed, making our way from Houston to Indianapolis. Let's hope for a smooth flight so we can ring in the new year at home with MacKenzie!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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