I'm 30!!!

Well, I'm 30 now. I was having a pretty hard time dealing with that. I've always enjoyed being the "young" one at work. I'm not that person anymore. But Evan did a wonderful thing this weekend. He surprised me with a trip to New Orleans. I had never been there before...what a wonderful surprise it was. He told me to pack a bag Thursday night and Friday morning we headed to the airport...on the way to Dallas, he let me know where we were headed by giving me a card HE MADE!!! ALL BY HIS OWN SELF!!! I was so impressed!

We walked all up and down the river bank, saw the casino (we went in to use the bathroom....neither one of us are gamblers), we drank...a lot, we had reservations at Emeril's restaurant, and we spent lots of time on Bourbon Street. We had so much fun.

I really enjoyed the architecture and live music was just amazing! I was fascinated with the street performers....and the St. Peter's Church was just beautiful. Here are some of the pictures from our trip.

Here are some of the BEAUTIFUL French architect....

This is us at the Carosel bar....that place was really neat. The center of the bar stayed still, but all of us, sitting at the bar slowly traveled around the bartender.

These next ones are my favorite!!! I love the street performers!!!

...notice that the Cello player for the trombone guy and the tuba guy are the same person!!!

Here are some gypsies....they were stinky!!

This guy wasn't a street performer...but I thought he was sad. I guess he didn't make it to the alley to use the restroom!!

Here are some of the pictures that I took of St. Peter's Church. It was absolutely gorgeous!!! This is a mural from the ceiling...I don't know how people did that?!?!

We got to eat at NOLA...Emeril's Restaraunt. It was delicious!! I even ate oysters there!!! Somehow Evan told someone there that it was my birthday, so they brought me a "Happy Birthday" dessert. What a wonderful experience!!

This was our waiter.

He took our picture in front of the wine cellar. There were bottles in there worth thousands of dollars!!

This is Emeril's kitchen...AMAZING!!

...then we went out that night. We stayed out until 6:30 AM. We went up and down Bourbon Street. In and out of bars. My favorite that night was the Funky Pirate...where this very fat man sang. He was great. While we were there listening...and drinking...one of the tempations showed up....and performed!

This was us on top of one of the balconies...

Evan at 6 am...we finished the night with some Krystal Burgers!!!

Sunday we just walked around town...got a good look of Bourbon Street during the day.

See the beads on the power lines???

I just love this picture....isn't he cute!

...a tug boat on the Mighty Mississippi

We ate at some Bayou Diner..and made a crawfish movie...Hope you enjoy!!!

We saw this band at the Old Opera House on Sunday...this chick was amazing on the washboard. I was lovin' the Zydeco music.

Sunday night we continued our time on Bourbon Street. Here are my pictures from that night... Isn't this shadow very auspicious?

We...I say we...I wanted pictures of us on a Bourbon Street sign...

I insisted that I wasn't leaving New Orleans without eating bread pudding...SO at 1AM on Monday morning, we stopped by some resteraunt so that I could get some bread pudding. We were being silly and took this picture. Evan said not to smile so that we would look like models. We were having a good time!!

This is how I woke up Monday morning. I'm pretty sure that it had something to do with Evan's snoring. I took special care to line the bathtub with the pillows off the bed and left Evan with no covers!

This was our hotel...Hotel St. Louis...it was very nice.

...on the way back home....back to reality....

But first....here is a picture of the Mighty Mississippi from the sky...and one of the swamps...

When we got home Madisyn put on ALL of the beads and goodies that we got walking up and down Bourban Street!!!

..and this is how I ended my night....being away is great, but it sure is nice to come home to this...