Day 21- 1/2 Way There

We are 1/2 way through out trip!   I'm not sure if this a good thing or a bad thing right now :-)

Last night wasn't great.  The kids were waking up all night and this morning was worse.  Wylie wanted to get up at around 4:45 and she and Cade took turns from then on being awake and bothering us.  My lovely, caring, wonderful, thoughtful husband finally got up with the kids and let me sleep in.  I got up at 7:30 and took over kid duties.  We got all 3 kids ready, got ourselves ready and loaded up.  Our first stop was Winn Dixie to get milk, Gold Bond & hydrocortizone and to take a picture of Wylie in front of the store.  Her favorite movie right now is Because of Winn Dixie, so she was really excited to see the grocery store where it all started.  We then headed to the aquarium with great reservations about how the kids would hold up.  They did great!  We did some bribing with Twizzlers during both the ride and walk and that seemed to do the trick.  I had a little malfunction getting a replacement card for Jaimie, but got 'er done.  All 3 of them loved the aquarium and Cade didn't even want to be held much.  He was much to excited to climb on all of the rocks and try to jump into the tanks. Wylie and Alli's favorite part were the "huge, huge, huge" (with arms spreading increasingly further apart with each "huge") sea turtles!  There was marine life of all kinds and even a couple smaller sea turtles that were recently saved from the oil spill.  After we made the full rounds in the aquarium, we made our way .3 of a mile (Garmin said so) to Mother's for lunch.  It's been featured on many TV shows and Jeremy swears by their Po Boys.  We were a little worse for wear, but we made it and the kids did great our our trek.  Jon had the Ferdi's Special Po Boy (lots of meat with a sauce), I had a grilled shrimp Po Boy and the kids scarfed down lemonade and red beans & rice.  It was a great experience and great food all around.  The walk back to the car went well except Cade wanted to be held the whole time.  I couldn't really blame his 2 year old legs for being hot and tired by that time.  We went back home for....what else....nap!

After nap we had a treat of ice cream because it was National Ice Cream Day!  Jeremy came home just in time to join us. Jon and I then got ready for our date night and left the crew with Jaimie and Jeremy at 5:00ish.  We chose a restaurant int he Garden District because it seemed a little off beat and we weren't disappointed.  The Garden District is where the English settled and the look and feel is much different than the French Quarter.  The houses are large, Victorian estates. Even the small houses looked grand.  Dinner was at Upperline.  The art work was eclectic and placed haphazardly all over the restaurant.  There was a pink floral painting in a large gold frame, next to a jazz  poster from 1973, next to a water color painting of a wizard with a dog, next  to a large metal sculpture of a fly painted in orange, purple and yellow.  The owner greeted us at the door and then stopped by our table to chit chat as well.  She was just an I had imagined.  If you can picture the seamstress from the Incredibles, that's her.  Perfectly circular glasses, hair in a loose bun, a 3 inch gold  Fleur d lis pin on her shoulder, and buzzing all around.  She was very friendly and enjoyed talking about her art.  We ordered off of the Garlic Festival Menu, so there is no fear of vampires coming close to us tonight.  We stared with a whole head of roasted garlic with bread and butter, ended with bread pudding for Jon and garlic infused honey ice cream for me and each had a whole lot of garlic dishes in between.  It was all wonderful!  Jon's only complaint was his drink of choice, an Old Fashion.  It seemed to be straight bourbon cut only with other alcohol, ice and a slice of tomato.

After dinner we drove back to the French Quarter to buy a few souvenirs for ourselves and others then walked Bourbon Street while enjoying a Hurricane.  I could easily drink all day down here.  We got back to the house to find that Wylie went down by herself, but Cade did not.  I walked into the room to relieve Jeremy of his duties, but he was so sound asleep that I couldn't get him up!  The upside was Jon and I slept in the same bed without kids for the second night.  The downside was we gained an extra body in our room :_)

Interesting Sights:
-A really pig being pushed in a grocery cart.
-A scrawny old woman dressed in mardi gras/stripper attire
-Many men with shirts rolled up above big bellies.

Shout Out:
-Jeremy for printing out all of the restaurant choices for us to choose from...you're batting 1000. 
-Jaimie and Jeremy for deciding to do all of our fun nights out. We hope your date night is as enjoyable.
-Jaimie for letting us use her aquarium pass.


Lesson Learned:
-Don't use your own credit card to pay for something when you are pretending to be your sister and using her drivers license :-)