New Orleans

Jimmy recently presented a couple papers at a conference in New Orleans. We really enjoyed tagging along for a mini-vacation!

Here is Jewel in front of a building Jimmy liked in the French Quarter. (It is kind of hard to see the character of it in the picture.)
The girls really enjoyed our room at the Riverside Hilton where the conference was held. The view of the Mississippi River was great. The girls sat at this window quite a bit just watching the boats go back and forth. In the picture below I think they were watching Dora on the laptop! :)

One day we walked to Saint Louis Cathedral.

While Jimmy was at the conference one day, I took the girls to the mall and also on a FREE ferry ride across the river. It was all in short walking distance from the hotel.

From my research of New Orleans, I knew that one thing to do while there was to get a beignet at the Cafe du Monde. The orders come in groups of three so one order was all we needed! :) They were pretty much like a doughnut with powdered sugar, but they had a heavier consistency...probably due the amount of eggs made to make them. They were pretty yummy!

I did quite a bit of planning and prep work before we took this trip. One thing I did was to print some Restaurant.com coupons to use at some of the restaurants within walking distance from our hotel and one near where we went to church Sunday.

Jeneva really enjoyed the New Orleans sampler platter with jambalaya, gumbo, and one other dish that I can't remember the name of. Overall, Jeneva was horrible during every meal. She was squirmy and fussy....but that is probably to be expected when she is hungry and sleepy from sightseeing.

This was probably our favorite restaurant. The service was great, the food was good, and there were horse and carts that passed by the window every few minutes. (That street must have been on a touring route.)

Back in the hotel we had a fun time. I packed plenty of food along, so here we were all enjoying some trailmix before bedtime. Jenevea was enjoying mine instead of hers since she figured out that MINE had a few dark chocolate chips mixed in! :)

Like I stated before, the girls really loved sitting at this window watching the riverboats and drawing pictures.

Behind the girls you will notice our hotel on the right (the tall building). The shorter building is a mall that is actually sort of adjacent to our hotel. The river is to the far left, and the

fountain is surrounded by a big plaza area with the Audubon Aquarium (pictures coming soon) just beyond the plaza opposite our hotel. With the French Quarter just beyond that. So as you can see, there was plenty to do within walking distance of our hotel.