NOLA and the Foleys

Daniel's cousin Colleen got married January 22nd in New Orleans. So we made a quick trip down there to celebrate with the rest of the family. It was cold, cold, cold the morning we left. So we were quite happy to get the heck out of dodge!

Our friend Libby was VERY gracious to keep Sadie. So we only had Molly with us. Of course that meant that there wasn't much Bourbon Street for me after hours, but we still had a good time....and I felt alot better on the plane trip back having not spent much time out past dark! ;) Those Foleys can PAR-TAY!!!

Yum! Cafe Du Monde! Beignets, coffee, and hot chocolate! ...and a nap for Molly.

All work and no play!

The wedding was beautiful, the bride gorgeous, and the reception was fun! We had to cut out a little early because Molly wasn't quite digging the band. It was all held at the Ritz Carlton in the French Quarters, and the dinner was so yummy....a tasty cajun cuisine! The best wedding dinner I've ever had!

Grammi held Molly all during dinner...

John and Suzanne....


Margaret and Katherine....

Christine, Eric, and our oldest niece, Sarah, she was Molly's sole cousin in attendance...isn't she beautiful?

Chicago

We went up to Chicago last weekend for a quick night's stay and met up with our friends the Althoffs. We forgot our camera at home, but Daniel captured the above picture with his phone while we were at the Shedd Aquarium. We thought it was pretty priceless!

Other than the Shedd Aquarium on Saturday afternoon, the real point of the trip was for Daniel and Kyle to run in the Chicago half-marathon on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, Daniel injured his leg and hadn't been running much the last month. So he just ran part of it (I think he said he ran 8 or 9 miles.....which would be enough for me personally to be proud of, but whatever! ;)), including the last 2 miles with Kyle to help him out a bit during the hardest part. We enjoyed getting to see the Althoffs, as always, ate some great Chicago cuisine, and made a (should have been quick) trip out to Ikea. So it was another nice weekend away before the baby comes.

On another note......visiting the Shedd Aquarium had been on our list for years, but we hadn't made it there before. With that visit, we have done almost all the "touristy" things on our list for Chicago over the last several years including the Field Museum, the Science and Industry Museum, a Cubs game, a visit to the Chicago Board of Trade (thanks to Daniel's brother, John), a trip up to the top of the Hancock Building, the beach, the Taste of Chicago, the 4th of July Fireworks show on the lake, a visit to DePaul University to visit Daniel's Uncle Johnny's Library, a musical at the old (and very pretty) Ford Center Oriental theater, and of course shopping on Michigan Avenue and LOTS of great Chicago eats! The thing we've had on our list to do, but have just never gotten around to, are a couple of the tours....the architectural river tour and the "Devil in the White City" tour. (the latter is based on the book by the same name...a recount from the Chicago World's Fair of 1893...another recommendation in my opinion! :)) Anyway, if you're ever in need of suggestions when visiting Chicago, let us know! We highly recommend visiting if you have never been before. It is really a fun city with lots to do, and we are reminded of that every time we are up there. Of course if you are ever up there, call us! It is only about 2.5 hours from our house to downtown Chicago! :)

Memphis - Labor Day 2010

Labor Day weekend my mom asked if we would be interested in meeting up somewhere halfway between here and Texas to spend the weekend together (mostly so she could see Sadie, I accept that! ;)). She was enticing us by offering to bring her old baby bassinet for us to use when the baby comes AND an antique armoire turned t.v. cabinet for us to have. Daniel and I decided to take her up on her offer and so did my grandma, Jean Jean. We decided on Memphis this time since we haven't really spent much time there exploring that area. So off we went on Friday afternoon and just happen to get to the hotel in Memphis only a few minutes before my mom and grandma....perfect timing!

Saturday morning we decided to head to the zoo. In looking up where it was and such, we learned that it is among the top zoos in the U.S. Sweet! And it was! It is such a beautifully designed and maintained zoo. I've accepted the fact recently (with three zoo visits in 1.5 years) that I am just not a zoo person. THIS zoo however made me rethink that. They even had an iPhone app with live maps and schedules of each exhibit telling you when the next feedings were. We were impressed to say the least!

One of our favorite parts of the zoo were the first animals we visited...the monkeys! They had so many different monkeys. Sadie was in awe.

This chimpanzee (I think that's what it was) was putting on quite the show for us, swinging all over the place. We watched this guy forever.


I have a TON of pictures of Sadie just like this.....



She was pretty taken with all the monkeys and just watched every one of them.

Probably because she's a bit of a monkey herself!




They had a ton of other animals too....lots of birds, elk, wolves, brown bears, panda bears, elephants, hippos, dolphins, penguins, giraffes....




and lots of cats. This was an interesting tiger that they had that I had never heard of before:

It's a white tiger. Below is the description:

"White tigers are simply Bengal tigers that have white fur with chocolate colored stripes, blue eyes, and pink noses. They are not albinos but a color mutation. Wild white tigers are very rare. Less than a dozen have been seen in the past 100 years. Captive white tigers in North America can be traced to one white male, known as Mohan. Because all of these tigers come from one male, they are all related. Therefore, breeding tigers to make them white is risky and can result in birth defects or possibly death. The Memphis Zoo has no plans to breed our white tiger."


Interesting, huh?

Of course Sadie loved the carousel, and I was happy Mamaw wanted to ride it with her, because I was getting worn out by this point.

Sunday we decided to ride the trolley downtown and see some sights.

Waiting on the trolley....

Sadie kept calling the trolley a choo choo train, but she loved it. She didn't take note of the signs posted everywhere that said, "Keep hands and heads inside the trolley"....maybe she just didn't see them.

After our tour of downtown, we found a nice park by the Mississippi River and ran around a bit...

and had a picnic....

Daniel and I even got to eat out, by ourselves, downtown on Sunday night! What a treat! Thanks Mom and Jean Jean! Sadie enjoyed swimming in the hotel pool both afternoons, and we all took naps and spent alot of time visiting and relaxing. It was such a wonderful weekend, better than we expected, not really knowing much about Memphis. We will definitely be going back to do some of the other things we saw around the city while we were there.

Brown County State Park

We had a mini family vacation August 14-15, just to get out of town and take advantage of still only have ONE child! :) We headed down to Brown County State Park near Nashville, Indiana. We had been to the park before when Sadie was a baby and I had a conference down there, but that had been a quick trip with more work than play. So we were excited to get to do more exploring in the park this trip.

This was Sadie's chosen attire when we left home Saturday morning. It's not quite hiking/outdoorsy attire! She's got her own sense of style, that's for sure!

This part of Indiana is very hilly with lots of trees. We've driven around Brown County during the fall, and it is beautiful. Brown County State Park is the largest Indiana state park at over 15,700 acres. Alot of the park was built (roads, shelters, etc.) by the Civilian Conservation Corp who also planted alot of the trees around the park to help with years of stripping of the land that resulted in erosion. Here are a couple of shots we got that kinda show the scenery, but don't really do it justice.

Saturday night we went into nearby Nashville and ate at the Hob Nob Restaurant, which we've been to before and LOVE. I had the best Peppered Steak Soup...yum! I've been craving it since. :) I've tried recreating it at home with this recipe, though changing it up a bit and simmering it longer. It turned out pretty decent, but needs work!

Sunday morning we went for a hike. Here's Sadie pointing to the trail we went on....it's the red trail on the map. I think it was 2 miles, but my pregnant body felt like it was 5 miles with all the up and down. I didn't think I was going to make it! Sadie got a little worn out too and rode her daddy's shoulders most of the hike.

We stayed at the Abe Martin Lodge in the park. They have a neat little waterpark that was perfect for Sadie. We spent alot of time here playing!

It was a nice trip, and a great chance to get to do something with just the three of us!

Lake of the Ozarks

Daniel had a conference at Tan-Tar-A on the Lake of the Ozarks last week, and Sadie and I happily accompanied him. Tan-Tar-A is a fun, family-friendly resort with lots of things to do and lots of hallways to walk and stairs to climb (Sadie LOVED this place!). We played on the playground, swam in the pool, went for a boat ride, drove around and saw some quite fabulous homes and houseboats, and did a lot of relaxing. Daniel came down with whatever I had had the week before (that's what he gets for kissing a sickie! joking!). So we were a little lower key than intended, but it was nice to get away.

These are practically the only two pictures we took, capturing Sadie's first boat ride (I think....my brain is dead, and I can't remember if she's ridden on a boat before...bad mom, I know!).

The boat showed us around PART of the lake and some of the pretty homes and places flanking the lake. The Lake of the Ozarks is really a huge lake (built by a power company in the 30's), measuring 1200 miles of shoreline....that's how far it is from our house in Indiana to my parents house in Texas. So we literally only saw a very small portion of the lake by boat. We later took a little road trip around to another part of the lake and saw some gorgeous properties (with VERY steep driveways...mercy!). Another thing I found somewhat interesting were the sizes of boats on this lake. Every boat we saw was a houseboat. Daniel inquired at work about this, and basically monkey see, monkey do. People probably started getting big boats at some point because they're cool (and they are!) and then the little men (or boats) had to upsize so as not to get overpowered by the waves while on the lake. It was really very interesting and fun to look at all the big boats. A little different from Daniel's days growing up at Possum Kingdom and Lake Texoma and my days close to Lake Belton! ha!


Here's a picture I snapped on the way down. Can you guess what kind of car this license plate was on?

That's right, a hearse! Get it?.....last ride? Too funny!

Fishing with Grampi

Wow – what a trip! A couple of cousins (Tim and Jim) and I had the opportunity to go fishing in North Central Saskatchewan with our granddad, Grampi, and several of his buddies last week. The fishing was great and the scenery was awesome, but it was the company that was the best. Grampi will be turning 90 in September and he isn't slowing down - especially when it comes to fishing (this was his 28th year to go fishing at Sportsman's Lodge along with the many other fishing trips he takes!). I am so thankful that he not only invited us along, but took special care of us during the trip. You see, if it weren't for him, we wouldn't have had any rods and reels, tackle, and we (mostly myself!) definitely didn't have any know-how when it came to fishing.

I had never done anything like this before and can’t wait until I have a chance to do it again. If I can do other fishing trips with Grampi, count me in!

Here is a quick overview:

Our Transportation

Our Cabin


Our Equipment (and the Experience)

The Landscape

The Wildlife

With Jim, Tim and Grampi

This trip was one of those that I don't think that I will ever forget both for the scenery and the fishing, but mostly because it was a neat thing to get to do with Grampi. He is a great man that I have the utmost love and respect for! I'm already looking forward to the next one!

You can see more pictures in our Foley Picture Album.