A Fabulous Trip to New Orleans

Chris and I made a trip to New Orleans this past weekend to celebrate an early anniversary. Our actual anniversary is on July 24th, but since Hayden's birthday is on July 22nd, we thought we'd go ahead and celebrate our anniversary a little early. We had a wonderful trip and some much needed rest and relaxation.

We stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast called Ashton's Bed and Breakfast. We stayed in the Creole Queen room, and our bathroom was almost as big as the bedroom...it was really nice. Breakfast was always wonderful, and I would definitely recommend this as a place to stay if you ever visit the area. It's not too far from the French Quarter, and you avoid the massive hotel tax you get if you stay at a regular hotel. We loved it!

We were worried that we would get rained on the entire weekend, but the only rain we got was on Friday on our way and for a little while when we got there. We ate on Friday night at a restaurant neither of us had ever been to before called Mulate's. The food was excellent, and they even have some live cajun music and dancing every night. They have two what-you-might-call good cajun dancers, but anyone and everyone can join them. After we watched for a little while, we ended up joining in, too...we looked like idiots, but we had fun doing it.

After a late sleep in on Saturday and some very good breakfast, we headed out to the Creole Creamery...a local ice cream shoppe with tons of yummy flavors. Because of a late breakfast, we ended up calling our ice cream lunch, and that is my kind of lunch. Both of our sundaes were good, and we even got a little entertainment. The Creole Creamery has what they call the Tchoupitoulas Challenge, which involves 8 scoops of ice cream, 8 toppings of our choice, and more whipped topping than you could want in a lifetime. It is a $22 concoction, and you have to finish the entire thing by yourself to get your name on a plaque. Two guys came in as we were finishing our ice cream, and they took on the challenge. I took some pictures of their bowls (mixing bowls) of ice cream. I have never seen something so huge in my life. Don't know if they were able to finish it, but I'm sure they went into diabetic shock after it.

We've been to the zoo and aquarium in New Orleans a couple of times, so we wanted to do something a little different on this trip. So, we went to the WWII museum. The WWII museum is in New Orleans to honor native Andrew Higgins, who invented the Higgins boats that were used to unload troops at Normandy. It was super interesting and something I would recommend. I took lots of pictures, but you couldn't use flash...so I only included a couple of pictures.

Saturday night, we enjoyed a super good anniversary dinner at Emeril's NOLA. This is about our 6th trip to an Emeril's, and it never ever disappoints. This was our first trip to Emeril's NOLA, and we sat at the chef's bar, because you can watch the chefs prepare the food. After that, we walked off our food at the Riverwalk (by the Mississipp River). Oh, and as if we had not had enough food already, we went to Cafe Du Monde for some beignets...you just gotta do it.

After breakfast on Sunday, we left the bed and breakfast and headed to the French Quarter to walk around some of the shops down there. People down there are selling anything and everything. It was very interesting just to walk around and watch people and look at all the stuff they make and try to sell. After a good walk, we headed to Court of Two Sisters Restaurant for our traditional Sunday brunch. I would definitely recommend this brunch if you are in the area....such a wonderful buffet, and I'm especially fond of the omelet station.

So, with full stomachs and rested and relaxed bodies, we left New Orleans and headed north to get our Little Man. It was a wonderful weekend.