Luke on the way to the airport - so excited!
Luckily, the flight down was really empty so we kicked Steve out of our seats and had the three seater to ourselves. Luke fussed for a bit and then fell asleep after I walked him down the aisle for a few minutes:
Luke was very excited to ride the shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel:
There is a famous place in New Orleans called Cafe Du Monde. It is open 24 hours a day and only sells cafe au lait (half coffee/half milk) and beignets. If you've never had a beignet before, you don't know what you are missing. They are these delicious "doughnuts" piled high with powdered sugar. Needless to say, we went every single night we were there. Here we are on the first night:
Look at the action shot with the sugar flying (and don't you just love my dad's expression?!?):
Even Luke got in on the action
The hotel was also fantastic - the buttons for the elevator were the perfect height for Luke and he thoroughly enjoyed pressing them each time.
On the second day we went to the Audobon zoo. First off, the zoo is not near town. We didn't want to take a cab and decided to try the street car b/c this seemed like a cool way to travel. The concierge at the hotel told us to get off at Audobon Park and gave us a generic map. So we found the car stop and hopped on. It was a pretty cool ride (maybe 10 minutes) and we got off at what we thought was the stop before the Park b/c we didn't want to overshoot it. Lets just say that Nana is fired from her navigating job. We had to walk about 3/4 mile to the Park and then we walked another mile through the park to get to the zoo. It was long....and hot...so by the time we got to the zoo, we were beat!
We did have an interesting encounter with some ducks in the Park:
It was a nice zoo though and they did have a tram ride throughout it.
They had a dinosaur exhibit going on and Luke did not dig the dinosaur...this was the closest he would get to it.
He did like the elephant show although in this pic, you can't tell...
The elephants were doing a taste test to see if they really do like peanuts. In case you were wondering, they don't like them any more than any other food like fruit and veggies.
Nana finally got the other people out of the way so Luke could touch the elephant.
Luke loved the tram ride and was mesmerized by the animals.
The second night we were there, the three of us went on a "horse" and carriage ride through the French Quarter. Our driver, Jose, told us it was really a mule...oh well, it was still fun. Luke seemed to enjoy it although he threw his binky overboard somewhere so New Orleans will always have a piece of him.
Towards the end it was just too exciting for him.
On the last full day we were there, we signed up for a swamp tour...we had wanted to do an airboat ride but Luke was too young. We had this awesome guy, Claude as our Captain and he took a liking to Luke.
Luke is ready for his closeup...
Luke enjoying some gator bait (aka marshmallows...we thought this was great - apparently since they are white and float, the gators can see them better).
My first shot of them....little did I know the closeups I would get
Enjoying his snack...
Luke in the bayou.
Capt Claude was so awesome and even let Luke drive the boat:
On the bus ride back from the swamp tour, we stopped at a NASA site where they kept the booster from one of the Apollo shuttles that went to the moon. Cool, huh?
After lunch, we went to the aquarium - being the bad parent that I am, this was the first time that Luke has gone to the aquarium and he LOVED it.
This is possible my most favorite picture from the whole trip. Both boys are amazed at the fish...
Luke thought the fish were so cool
Luke really liked seeing the penguins swim around
Luke and the frog prince
The aquarium had a cute children's section which we all took advantage of:
Dan and Jess
Mom and Dad
Stevo and me (don't mind my crazy eyes!)
Luke "underwater"...he was more interested in his fingers than looking outside
All in all, a fantastic trip - I highly recommend visiting if you never have...
