I’m in New Orleans!  After a whirlwind day of traveling, we’ve arrived!  We’re getting ready to meet my family, and then on Monday, we board a cruise boat!  I’m so excited!  Needless to say, I’m not doing much cooking, crafting, or organizing right now, and I plan to give a whole rundown of the vacation next weekend when we return home.  Sooo…I’m going to show you some of my favorite parts of our last trip to NOLA–our Honeymoon!  (No…not those parts, get your mind out of the gutter.)  Here are a few of them:

1. The French Quarter Architecture. I just love the architecture here!  New Orleans is such a cool town.  We spent so much time just walking around and taking in the city.  I just LOVE it!

2. The food and drinks. As everyone knows, New Orleans is famous for their delicious food (gumbo, shrimp and grits, beignets, yummmmmmy!) and equally delicious drinks (Hurricane, anyone?).  I plan to take in plenty of both while I’m here!

3. The Aquarium of the Americas. Our Honeymooon was in September and it was still pretty darn hot during the day.  So we looked for a lot of cool, air-conditioned places to visit during the afternoons.  One of my favorite was the aquarium.  It was a pretty neat place, focusing on the bayou life.  This guy is an white “leucistic” alligator (meaning he has white pigment and blue eyes).  Very cool.

4. Cafe du Monde. Okay, I know I already did food…but I really liked Cafe du Monde.  It felt like such a local institution! And who would’t love taking in the city while sipping coffee and eating doughnuts?!? I hope to visit again on Monday morning.

5. The Music. We didn’t formally listen to a lot of jazz while we were there last time. But music is everywhere!  There are musicians on street corners, playing in bars and restaurants, and sometimes just walking down the street!

Wish you were here!!!

First of all, I’d like to say THANK YOU to my dear sister, Caroline for filling in for me while I was away!  And where was I, you may ask…well, I was fancy camping!  For my dear hubby’s birthday, I booked a weekend for us at El Capitan Canyon in Santa Barbara.  My husband loves to camp, and unfortunately, we haven’t done much of that lately.  Well that may be a bit of an understatement.  When we got married two and half years ago we got a bunch of camping gear as a wedding present, and well, we’ve never used it!  That is…until this weekend!  El Capitan is a “nature resort” that’s made up of little cabins and safari tents with beds in them!  Because it can be a big chilly this time of year in SoCal, we opted for the cabin, which had a bed, bathroom, wet bar, heater, and electricity!  It had two big glass doors that opened out onto a creek behind the cabin and a fire pit outside where we roasted hot dogs and made s’mores! While it wasn’t exactly “roughing it”, we experienced all the perks of camping without the sore back and lack of a shower (thus the term “Fancy Camping”).

It was an extremely relaxing weekend, and if you’re ever in the Santa Barbara area, I highly recommend a stay at El Capitan Canyon!