Don't look, Mom!

I've wanted a tattoo since about 1993, when I skipped class in college one day to accompany my dorm-mate to the tattoo parlor off of Vine St. in the university district of Cincinnati. However, I've always been averse to needles and blood, so I wrote it off as something I would never have the courage to do. It has become a joke actually. Just going into a tattoo shop with Jason over the years has made me sick to my stomach, and I've had to retreat to the outside world that doesn't smell like rubbing alcohol and has no whirring of tattoo guns.

In 2001 my friend Jen and I went to Jason's hometown for Mardi Gras and told our co-workers we were going to get tattoos while we were gone. It was just so darned unfortunate though that we showed up when they were closed.

Over the past year or so we started selling off the kids' baby items and outgrown clothing and I've been stashing the cash.

(I'm not telling you where because then I'll need to come up with a new location).

I've been telling Jason it's my Tattoo Fund, and then we laugh, because we both know that'll be the day. But we went on vacation, and I always said if I had the opportunity to get a tattoo from Randy's (the place pictured in the photo above) that I'd do it. I always thought I'd want my tattoo on my lower back, but I decided if I was going to go through the trauma I may as well put it where people will see it. And then, on the last available day we had, we were at the store and I said to Jason "today is the day," because I knew I wouldn't do it at home. It was now or never. I decided where I wanted to put it and Jason got his mom to babysit so he could take me to the shop as soon as it opened. I still wasn't sure what it was going to be when I got there, but it came to me in a moment of clarity so we drew it up and got to work before I changed my mind.

I knew it wasn't going to go well, but I wasn't quite expecting to be leaning over the trash can within the first few minutes. A nice break, cold rag, some Sprite and smelling salts got me to the point of continuing, and after awhile I was all good with the outline. At one point I had considered just leaving the outline, but I knew if I got up I'd be upset that I didn't get it filled in. I figured since I was used to it by this point that the rest would be a piece of cake.

WRONG!

The shading was much worse than the outline. Quite frankly, I would have rather had an epidural. I ended up taking a break long enough that my tattoo guy had time to eat dinner. But when all was said and done I LOVED it!

It's my tribute to being Cajun by marriage, but in Ohio State colors. The kids' names are on it, as well as 717 which is our anniversary and also Jason's unit number. I was so excited when we left, I couldn't wait to go to our family cookout and show it off. I was even feeling so much better that I pigged out, especially enjoying a venison/jalapeno appetizer and cousin Shannon's amazing brownies and bread pudding.

I called my mom to share the news, and let's just say she was not pleased. Yeah, we'll just stick with that. But I guess that's how mom's feel sometimes.

After tipping the tattoo guy extra for putting up with my "difficulty," we still had enough money left for Jason to go get a matching tattoo the next day. Instead of Ohio State colors though, he got his shaded yellow and purple in a tiger stripe pattern for LSU. For some reason my mom doesn't seem to be upset about his 4th tattoo. Where's the love?


Typically when we go out of town we try to get a Christmas ornament from the places we visit. But I was thinking we could start a new tradition of getting tattoos instead. We're going out of town this weekend.....ha, ha, I'm so funny.

Cajun cookin'

One of my favorite things about Louisiana is the food. A lot of it is things that you just can't find anywhere else. Or you can find them other places, but they don't taste as good as you know them to be down south.

There were a few things I didn't get pictures of, especially the appetizers Jason's uncle made. Taken apart I don't like any of the ingredients on their own (except for the bacon), but together it was an amazing treat.

And I didn't take any pictures of our breakfast fare from Rob's Donuts. We all know what donuts look like so I didn't think it was necessary, but they are truly the best donuts I've ever had.

Here are some favorites from our trip:

Cajun Potato Kitchen serves huge baked potatoes loaded with a variety of toppings. I can't even remember what mine was, I think it was steak and gravy, and Jason's was stuffed with crawfish etouffee. They're so good.

Dinner at the Half Shell was interesting. It's a local hole-in-the wall type place and all the customers seemed to know other customers. The kids also made a gentleman friend at the table next to us. This is just a crabcake sandwich, which you can get pretty much anywhere, but it's one of the best I've ever had.

We took the kids to lunch at Frostop because it served kid-friendly food. We like it for the amazing root beer served in frosty mugs.

Sarah and I had never had boudin, so a public initiation at the family cookout was set-up. This kind was synthetic so didn't have the gross casings, otherwise I don't know if I'd have tried it or not. But we thought it was tasty.

My second ever crawfish boil. This picture's a little blurry but I like it anyway. Everyone makes boiled crawfish differently with different sauces as well. I usually get pretty good at peeling it by the time I'm full. I just can't look at their beady little eyes, it creeps me out. Jason and his cousin's husband actually caught all of this crawfish for our dinner.

LaBayou is one of my favorite restaurants in the French Quarter, and it just so happens that when you ride the street car it drops you off right at the edge of Bourbon Street where the restaurant is. Jason and his brother ate here twice in three days.

Crawfish cakes with a crawfish remoulade.

Crawfish pasta had sauteed crawfish in the pasta and fried crawfish on top. The sauce was a Cajun alfredo and there was paremsan cheese on top. My sister-in-law and I shared both of these for dinner and ate every last bite.

You can't go to New Orleans without stopping at Cafe du Monde. We took the kids here for dessert. I must admit that the beignets were not the best I've ever had. They were decent, but I think they didn't hit the powdered sugar soon enough after coming out of the fryer. I was really surprised though at how much I enjoyed the frozen coffee. I really love their coffee and chicory au lait, but it was so hot that night I opted for the frozen and I'm so glad I did.

Watch Man v. Food on the Travel Channel? We saw the New Orleans episode and decided we had to eat at Mother's. This is the file gumbo. I ate the whole bowl. After a very long day in the French Quarter we got off the street car at VooDoo BBQ & Grill, a restaurant we passed every day on St. Charles Street. It was SO good. I got a platter of pulled pork and Caribbean jerk chicken with macaroni and cheese and corn pudding. The chicken was so good I gave my pulled pork to Jason before trying it. It looked good though, and they had sauces on the table for you to choose from. I think they need to get a franchise up here.

Sarah and I spent one day shopping and eating in the French Quarter and we'd been wanting to try some fried alligator, so we ate lunch at Cafe Pontalba. The beauty of the French Quarter is that all the restaurants post the menu outside, so you can find what you want before you decide where to eat. This place is right in Jackson Square across from St. Louis Cathedral and is open on two sides, so we had a great view and a fun time. The alligator was pretty tasty, too. I don't know that I'd order it again just because there's other things I'd like to try, but now that I've tasted it I wouldn't shy away from it in the future.

We also shared this crawfish fettuccine. It wasn't as good as the crawfish pasta at LaBayou, but we still liked it.
On the way back to our hotel I had to stop at NOLA and get these bourbon mashed sweet potatoes. Sarah couldn't believe I spent almost $7 for them, but it is an Emeril restaurant afterall, and you only live once, so I got them. They weren't as fantastic as I had hoped, but still good. The green onions added a nice flavor. We also stopped at The Gumbo Shop. She got some gumbo to take back to the hotel and I got bread pudding. It was really hard to find bread pudding that didn't have white chocolate in it, so I was elated when someone at the Tabasco store told me I could find it here.
Another crawfish boil, different side of the family. Also some amazing desserts this day. I think I have recreated cousin Shannon's frosting for brownies, so I'm pretty excited about that.
Thus ends the food journey (insert sad face here). I can't wait to go back and do it all again.

We're back. Sigh.

We've been home from our trip for five days now, and going down there just made us realize how much we don't like being up here. But I suppose there's really not much we can do about it as much as we'd love to live there.

We took about 600 pictures which I've downloaded and have been trying to organize. Obviously I can't show them all here, nor would everyone want to see them all, but I thought that my first post would be some of the non-typical vacation pictures.

Sometimes my favorite pictures are the candid or in-the-moment shots, where you can't really tell where people are or what they're doing, but how they're feeling at the moment. Where the kids are concerned we tend to get better pictures of them that way as opposed to when we ask them to pose.

So that's what we'll start with today.

You'd think he was the one that had driven all day.

Love the little belly and her fascination with the weed.

Jordis always has sweet eyes for her daddy

So excited to be here!

Xander thought no one was watching him trying to take some cake.

Jason's godfather/uncle and his little girl.

Jordis shaking her groove thing with Jason

Xander takes his dancing very seriously

Nothing gets in the way of this girl and her dessert

Father and son

Hopefully the only picture I ever see of my daughter leaning up against a pole on Bourbon St.

Watching for street cars

Fish fascination

Had to put pillows between them so no one was touching the other one and Jordis' baby had to have proper accommodations as well.

Would love to know what she was looking at

Love the sunlight streaming in on my sweet boy

So curious

Jason's cousin Shawn, still crazy, ha-ha. The entrance/exit to the bounce house was way too small. Maybe because it was meant for children. Of course I have no pictures of us in there because we would never partake in such childlike behavior. Nope, not us. Or Shawn's wife. Or Jason's aunt and uncle. Nah. We didn't all get in there after every one else went home. Not us.

Jason's cousin Morgan. Our flower girl. She's in high school now. Sigh.

See, too many pictures already. Next I'll be posting my adventures with food. Yep, I take pictures of food. I'm sure you can't wait.

Our resort

Yes, I'm the crazy lady that takes pictures of the place when she stays somewhere on vacation that's bigger than one or two rooms.

This is your chance to exit if you don't care to see.

We stayed at my dad and step-mom's time share (Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort) which is right in Lake Buena Vista, so it was no more than a 5 minute drive to any of the theme parks and right down the street from Downtown Disney, maybe 7 minutes to Kissimmee. Great location. And as big as each tower was we never had to wait for an elevator, which was nice. Only complaint I had was that there were no phone books in the room, which led to a few inconveniences. But otherwise I would stay here again, especially for the kiddie pool and the lazy river. We really love having the convenience of a washer/dryer and fully-equipped kitchen when we go places.

Living/Dining/Kitchen





The kids loved having their own big soft beds, a TV and a giant bathroom.



I loved our room, too. It had a big cushy king-sized bed, a nice big tub, and shower and two sink areas so we could each keep our stuff in separate cabinets.



We had a nice sized balcony as well. There was a parking garage below it, but we could see the Epcot ball and would sit out there at night to watch the fireworks they put off. It was a great view.



The best part is that we didn't have to clean.