Skip to main content

NOLA, VBX, and More

I had a good trip down to New Orleans (which I quickly realized they now call NOLA = New Orleans, LA) a couple of weeks ago for work. Of course it was ridiculously hot and humid...and it just never cools down! After our trade show work was done during the day, we would walk around near Fremont Street and catch a bite to eat.




We were invited to a private party by one of our customers where they had rented out the House of Blues for the evening. They had some fun appetizers to try. I did get in on some good seafood while I was down there.

My boss took me here (Cafe Du Monde) twice for beignets. So yummy!

I was with my boss, a coworker and one of our former interns who came to the trade show with us one night and we still had a long walk yet back to our hotel when my co-worker blew out her flip flop. It was the best thing to happen to us as we had just come upon this bicycle rickshaw thing. It was so fun.




Our last night there we ate at Cochon Butcher which was basically just a bunch of meat, as you can see. It was very delicious though.


It was pretty hot back home when I returned, so we decided to check out Davies pool for the first time this year. It was pretty crowded there, so we didn't last too long
.

It was also pretty windy.


The girls had VBX (Hope calls it Vacation Bible Xperience) this past week. The theme this year was "The Chosen." I didn't really get the gist of it fully, but most of the pastors and people helping were dressed as jungle animals....and this unicorn below. Ha.





They both had a great experience again this year. They offered a morning session as well as the evening, so Clara ended up going twice in one day the first two days as her preschool class did the morning session together. She was getting pretty tuckered out, so she just came home for the last two evening sessions.

My boss also attends Hope and was able to get a neat video of one of their songs...of course, our fave right now, which I shared on here a couple of months ago. It is so moving to see how excited the kids get during the songs. In church this morning, they said between both campuses, they had over 900 kids attend. Love it!


I was so super bummed that I missed the confetti bomb at the end this year. :-( I was trying to make a roll/bun recipe at home for work and it was going seriously awry and I didn't leave home in time to make it. But, I copped this pic off of Hope's Facebook page.

Next year Brynn will be too old to participate, so she plans on volunteering somehow.


 One morning last week after I dropped off Clara, I was met by this Mallard while I was coming out of the building. He was so cute and pretty friendly. I told Clara I thought maybe he heard how fun VBX was and wanted in on the action. ;-)




Brynn had her follow-up orthodontist appointment this past week. I thought we would be waiting a while yet until we tackled braces, but due to some crowding that she has, they want to start now. :-/ Her dentist said she is a candidate for Invisalign so she is excited to try those rather than traditional braces.

She still has quite a few baby teeth to lose yet.

We made it down to the orchard one night on our bikes. It's been so nice out lately.


Comments

theweckerlys said…
I'm so jealous you got beignets from Cafe du Monde! I've always wanted to have one of those! I love love Brynn's swimsuit. Where is it from? And wow, that is a lot of VBX-ers.

Popular posts from this blog

Happy 10th Birthday, Clara!

Clara made a countdown chain to her 10th birthday. We baked a red velvet cake for her family party and chocolate cupcakes for her friend party. She looks so tall in some of these pics! Izabell's boyfriend, Neil, and Clara share the same birthday, so they all went out for lunch on their actual birthday on the 2nd. And then Neil had to get a tour of the Clara Express. Dana was in charge of getting balloons for the party and I sent him to Dollar Tree which apparently doesn't fill latex balloons, only Mylar. Dana "just knew" he had gotten the 'wrong' ones, and called me in a fit of rage over it and then followed up with this photo. haha. It all worked out just fine for Clara's ninja themed parties and I was able to pick up a few more black latex balloons from Cash Wise on my way home from work. Clara had already started partying at Prairie Joy's birthday party the night before, so I think she was short on sleep. I couldn't find her when I got home on F...

Mom + Brynn Take Chicago 2024

Brynn and I were very excited to embark on our mother-daughter trip to Chicago this week. We had gifted Brynn part of the trip as her sweet 16 birthday gift. We flew direct out of Fargo on Wednesday. We stayed at the Grand Plaza apartments on State Street in a VRBO rental. We loved it there! The building had an outdoor rooftop pool, library, gaming/movie room and gym on the 9th floor. This was us looking down from our 50th floor balcony. I refused to go to the edge of the balcony. Blech. (Photo credit: Brynn on this one!) Here are a few pics of inside the apartment that I hawked off of the VRBO listing. We got our things settled and ran next door to a Jewel Osco grocery for a few things and then got ready for dinner at River Roast along the Chicago River. It was very good and beautiful weather. I think Brynn said this was her favorite place that we ate at. Our waiter Jorge brought Brynn a carrot cake when we said we were celebrating Brynn's birthday on the trip. We came back to the...

May Happenings + More Birthday Celebration + Northern Lights + Mother's Day

 S'mores on the deck... We got Brynn's team tennis pics back. They turned out great! I had to get a couple of pins and magnets. I should have taken a pic of Hubert and me spectating at one of her games last week as Hubert was sporting his pin. :-) We three girls played last week during a nice evening. Clara's class is doing an alphabet countdown to the last day of school. J was joke day. And Clara loves to share jokes with her teacher. She made her own joke book to bring. Cindy took Dad and me out to lunch for our birthdays last Thursday. It was such a fun time and Dad and I each got a cookie skillet for being the birthday kids! So delish. We went to Granite City. Always good! Dana and I went to Sartell, MN on Thursday night and arrived late. We stopped over at the after party of the groom's dinner for our friends getting married on Friday. I snagged their kitty for a snuggle. Roger and I were the photographers for the wedding which was beautiful. We had such a good tim...