Showing posts with label Vacations/Events. Show all posts

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Happy New Year!!!!

2011 has been an amazing year and I hate to see it go, but I know that 2012 will have so many wonderful things in store for us and I'm really looking forward to finding out what is to come!
As for resolutions, well, I'm being a realist this year. There are so many things I want to focus on; continuing to make my house a home, focusing on my health, and most of all focusing on my family.
I'll be posting more about how I'm going to be doing all of these things throughout the next week. I'm excited to share all of the things that I have found that work for me.
But as for tonight, I hope you all have a safe and Happy New Year!!!!!!!

Source: google.com via Kathe on Pinterest

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Date Night

Nana and Papa were in town this past week. They were on their way home from Florida, their "winter home."
Nana took some photos of Colin and me before we went on one of our date nights.
It's not often that going out to dinner does not include requesting a booth so we can "trap the kids in," cutting up someone's meal, and bolting right after we are finished eating.
On the contrary we sat at a proper table, I didn't cut up Colin's food for him, and we lingered and enjoyed dessert, drinks, and each other's company.
Colin made this particular date night extra special by taking me to the restaurant where we had our first date, PF Chang's. I think I've told this story already, but it's not that we picked that restaurant for our first date, we just got too hungry to make it all the way into New Orleans from Mandeville on our first date so that was the first place we stopped. Not that PF Chang's isn't a wonderful restaurant, I just planned on having a more "special place" as our first date, but we were ravenous. But now I'm glad that it was the spot we landed because there are plenty of PF Chang's around and so we can relive that night whenever we want. So that's exactly what we chose to do on our date night.
I was walking on clouds the whole night. I was so proud to be on Colin's arm. He was so sweet all night and treated me like a queen.
Then at the end of the night, he asked me to marry him all over again. My heart pitter-pattered just like it did the first time he asked me.
It was a night to remember. I know I'll never forget it.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Give The Muse A Drink!!!!

My muse needs lots of help - especially when it comes to painting!
So, help I gave her.

Last Saturday night Mary, Mama Horton, and I went to Cajun Canvas. This is one of those sip - and - strokes or cork - and - canvas kind of places. So we loaded up our wine and headed off to do some painting.
It was Mardi Gras weekend so we try to do what we can to celebrate from a distance. We painted Louisiana themes with Louisiana people. It was great!
We started the evening with some good Louisiana food: gumbo, red beans and rice, and shrimp mirliton dressing with king cake for dessert.
Yum -mie!!!
Then we loaded up on a little more liquid courage and began our painting.

First we talked about what we would paint. We were given instruction on how to do all sorts of designs. Because it was a special occasion and a special class, we were given lots of freedom to paint what we wished using any combination of techniques she shared with us.
Then we were given pointers, like don't put your wine glass on your dominant hand side. Wine is an awfully bad way to clean your brushes... haha.

Then, it was off to the painting.

I'm afraid they didn't feel that I needed anything more than this child's water color paint brush for my painting. (Just kidding, that was our mixing tool).
We chose to paint a Mardi Gras mask.
We tried to look like this:

But inside, we felt like this:

But we got over ourselves and decided "we ain't sceered" and we painted and dried...

and painted and dried...

until we had this:

We had such a great time. We will definitely be going back to do it again!

Cajun Canvas Album

Friday, March 11, 2011

"Gettin' Our Cirque On"

I'm afraid we may have greatly altered our kids idea of the circus. When the day comes that Drew's class will talk about the circus, the kids and teacher will probably talk about things like tents, elephants, clowns, trapeze artists, and popcorn.
Drew will surely cock his head to the side and ask about the singers, costumes, and storyline. If they are asked to draw a picture of the circus, his blue and yellow tent will stand out amidst all of the red and white ones. Of course I'm kidding, but his idea of the circus for now the French Canadian type.
We took the kids to see Cirque du Soleil's "Totem" on opening night Friday.

Photo courtesy of TBWA\Busted on Flickr

I know what you are thinking... "you did what!?! You took a 2 year old and a 3 year old to Cirque du Soleil!?!"

And my answer is YES. Yes we did. And they LOVED it.
We couldn't have been happier with their behavior.... especially considering show time was 8:00.
I know, I know! We were very - how can put this nicely? - brave, but we are so glad we did it because they were perfect and they loved it.
I had "prepped" Drew by showing him an example of what he'd be seeing because I didn't want him to be disappointed that there weren't going to be clowns and elephants. Colin and I buy the DVD's of the shows that we've seen, so I played one for Drew. I was a bit concerned when we were watching and Drew asked me if we were going to "the scary circus." Apparently the music in one of the scenes scared him a bit. Oops. But all was good and he was still excited. So excited that he danced around on his tippy toes in place when I told him that we were going to go in a tent that was bigger than our house.

Photo courtesy of RiaPereira (uninspired) on Flickr

Here is where I would like to note that Cirque was stupendous about having young children. They accommodated all of our needs. They even had these little booster seats for the kids that I was quite jealous of. They were just big cushions... I would have loved one, but I'm not sure those behind me would have appreciated that too much.
We got there with little time to spare. We figured the less time we hung around waiting for the show to begin, the better. It was great that we basically walked in and then the show started with no down time in between.
The show was beautiful! Of course. We were all in awe the entire time. I absolutely love these performances. We didn't hear a peep out of Emma all night. She just stared on wide-eyed and snuggling in her blanket (since it was bed time and all).
Drew, on the other hand, ooohed and aaaahed the whole time. He was amazed by the things he saw. There were some loud and intense moments, but he just nestled into my side and stayed brave and enjoyed the show.

Photo courtesy of Eva Blue on Flickr

We had some fun family time during intermission. We first went to the shops, but it was way too crowded, so we ended up spending most of intermission outside enjoying the fresh air.

The girls enjoyed spending time together and smiling for Daddy's camera

And the boys were silly as usual

A good time was had by all. The kids were out before we even got out of the parking lot (which by the way was only 5 minutes after we got in our car thanks to a not-so-well-known back exit). Drew still talks about his favorite "scary" circus and the parts that he loves.
We will definitely plan it again the next time Cirque comes to town.

(Cirque Album)