Justin and I went to New Orleans with Mike, Laura, Gilbert, and Nicole for Mardi Gras to celebrate Mike's 40th birthday. We had such an amazing time adulting with our great friends:) Omi and Poppi stayed with our littles for the first two days, and Grams, Papa, and Georgia stayed with them for the second two. We are so grateful that we have family that loves our kids and took such wonderful care of them while we were away:) This will probably be picture overload, but there were so many great memories that I wanted to make sure to document!
On the plane ride out there, we had a great male flight attendant that gave us lots of tips for Mardi Gras - guys not wearing wallets, not wearing good shoes because we'd be trudging through pee and puke on Bourbon Street....all of the fun things! He also gave Justin, Mike, and Laura a stiff drink to start the trip off right:)
After getting the rental car and picking up the guys' tuxes for the ball we checked into our hotel and headed to dinner at Drago's, dessert at Cafe Du Monde, and fun on Bourbon Street!
The girls on the first night heading to dinner at Drago's!
The boys enjoying kicking off their Mardi Gras experience with hurricanes!
The weather was so perfect! It was in the mid 60's the entire trip!
Since having kids we haven't taken many pictures of the two of us, so there's a lot! Here we are in front of a cute Cafe:)
A little kiss and thumbs-up for my favorite guy of almost 14 years!
The best benet's! This cafe came highly recommended from everyone that we talked to that has been to NOLA. We were so glad that we went the first night of our trip (Thursday) because the line was SO long the rest of the weekend! We were able to just walk right up and enjoy the famous french pastry!
LOTS of powdered sugar!
I was pretty excited!
Powder sugar lips! We sent these ones to the kids:)
Our crew!
After the sugar overload we headed to Bourbon street to join the Mardi Gras party! Gilbert and Nicole tried a specialty drink called the horny gator, which was actually pretty good!
There were a lot of mounted police all over the city so we felt pretty safe:)
Our group got swindled out of some money by these ladies selling shots out of test tubes! Gilbert was first....
Then Justin!
And Laura got in on the action too:)
The girls and I drinking a grapefruit shot at a bar that we danced in....there was a pole but we skipped that kind of dancing:)
On Friday morning we headed North about an hour to Oak Alley Plantation. The property was gorgeous, the food was incredible and learning about the history of the owners and how they used slavery was fascinating!
The ladies!
A zoomed out picture to understand the size of these trees!
Mint Juleps! Lemon, traditional, and blackberry. I thought they all tasted like straight hard alcohol, but the group liked the blackberry and lemon best:)
Fried gator and crab cake!
Friday was Mike's actual birthday! Happy 40th Buddy! This was Justin's favorite dessert of the entire trip....he didn't eat Mike's, he got his own:)
Mike and Laura in front of "Oak Alley"
Justin and I:)
One without people in the background:)
The beautiful main residence!
We took a quick nap and got ready for some parades and Mike's birthday dinner! Our reservation wasn't until 9 PM so we got to see some of the parades close up! The thing that we didn't plan on was getting trapped by the parade route so we were 20 minutes late to dinner...oops!
Birthday boy at NOLA - Emeril Lagasse's restaurant. It did not disappoint - the food was amazing!
And our server was the best! When I asked if he was from New Orleans, his response was "born and fed!"
We headed back to Bourbon street after dinner and it was CRAZY! Body-to-body everywhere you went! Justin got hit in the head with a beer can, Laura got a drink spilled on her, and we all saw a lot of flashers!
We obtained beads from the parade, not flashing!
Mike was feeling good!
On Saturday we walked around the city and went to the harbor. You could see where some of the water lines were 20 feet up on some on the buildings from Katrina! This is the view from our hotel room:)
Saturday night we got all dressed up, filled a cooler with food and alcohol and went to the Super Dome to enjoy the largest Mardi Gras parade and concerts by KC and the Sunshine Band, Kiss, and Flo-Rida....interesting combination! The event was called the Endymion Extravaganza and we were able to score tickets through one of the dentists in Justin's study club. It was a black tie even that required ladies to wear floor-length gowns and men to wear tuxedos!
Justin and I in the hotel lobby before heading out!
Mike and Laura!
Gilbert and Nicole!
Our fun group!
The Super Dome all dressed up in Mardi Gras colors!
We had a table with some other people that we didn't know, but they were so nice and offered to share their food and drinks with us!
The floor of the Super Dome
Handsome guys!
Fun girls!
My hot date!
We got to the Super Dome around 6, the parade started at 8 and went until 11!
They threw all kinds of toys and light-up features, in addition to beads off the floats!
Kiss!
The King of the Endymion Parade
After more than a few drinks!:)
Kiss came on around 1:30 AM and played A LOT of songs! They were not our favorite, but it was part of the experience!
Finally Flo-Rida came on around 3:30 AM! We stayed until 4:30....he was still going, but we were beyond exhausted!
Sunday morning we went on a swamp boat tour!
I was sitting next to the guide and he had a cooler. He pulled over when he saw a baby alligator, but most of the boat missed it. So he asked me to open up the cooler and hand him a water, but there was no water in the cooler! It was a baby alligator! I screamed and closed the lid quickly! Gilbert ended up holding the baby alligator!
Justin enjoyed holding the little guy...I couldn't bring myself to hold it, but I had fun watching him!
Our guide was amazing! He was so knowledgeable about the inner-workings of the ecosystems on his family's land. It was such a great learning experience and one of favorite parts of the trip! Justin bought two alligator heads as souvenirs...
We made it safely home Sunday night, exhausted after a fun trip!
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