Roam If You Want To

The most exciting thing this week was that Alan invited me to come to New Orleans. He was there for the Heart Rhythm Society annual conference. I was there to play and have fun. We had an amazing dinner at Emeril's new restaurant, Meril. Alan had a black fetuccini with blue crab that was spicy and fun. I had a pesto gnudi (like gnocchi) with spring vegetables. And a fun salad and tuna wraps and an amazing spicy Mexican hot chocolate cookie with dulce de leche ice cream and a homemade toasted marshmallow. And THEN they brought a cotton candy with a giant sparkler for my birthday! We had fun walking downtown New Orleans and seeing some fun art galleries. I had fun jumping around in the pool, walking the city, finding a vegan bakery, shopping for clothes and reading my book for a crazy long uninterrupted time. We had another delicious dinner at Restaurant Rebirth, which was a modern take on Cajun. Their blueberry brie salad and gumbo in a tiny cauldron were delightful! Alan had scallops and I had mahi mahi because it was served with a bunch of farm to table veggies. And they had a really fun carmelized white chocolate bread pudding for us. But the best part by far was visiting New Orleans First Ward. We were welcomed by at least 5 members of their small ward whose visitors probably outnumbered their members. Sister Tony gave cute New Orleans pins made by the RS to ALL the visitors.  The bishop's kids came in without shoes, socks or ties, and we were told that was no surprise. But their 8 year old, Simon, greeted us at least thrice because he decided we were good people. And there was a talk about never missing an opportunity to testify of Christ. Then we had to catch our Lyft to the airport with Ms. Wanda,  a friendly extreme talker with a daughter who had just earned her Pharm D. 

Meanwhile things carried on here at home thanks to the capable and versatile Mariana Ward. She brought the kids to Eve's two soccer games, fed them multiple meals, presided over Griffin making buttermilk pancakes, and brought them to church. AND she set up our back patio for BYD, which was set to start at 4:00pm today. We walked in the door at 3:56. We love her!

Sunset over the Big Easy

Birthday cotton candy and awesome wall art

Restaurant Rebirth

Persistence of Pizza. This was a photograph in a gallery dedicated to one artist and a bunch of modern food photography. I was surprised to find out what an art city New Orleans is. I also read that it is the farthest north Carribean city, and the farthest west European city. It's also definitely Southern. We saw the confluence of all those cultures. We got to tell a couple of Haitians that our son speaks Haitian. That was fun too.

Compared to that it was just our normal wonderful and terrible.

Here are the good parts:

-Talking to my kids.

-Talking to M'Li.

-Getting a bunch of plants planted even on a very low energy day. I just took a ton of breaks.

-Book club on my screened porch. I love those ladies.

-Podcast club on my phone. I love those ladies SO much!

-Taking the missionaries to dinner at Panera.

-Also Maria taught me how to make some amazing enchiladas and I made some.

Eve dug herself into a hole at Wyatt Haughton's graduation party at Meadowbrook.