Catching up Again!!

Things have been hectic since the end of June. In short:

We had our annual 4th of July bash! It was great fun with lots of great friends. The fireworks were really spectacular this year. Nowhere else can you go and get 2 hours of cool explosions and loud bangs!! :-)

The week after that, both of the boys and I got ear infections. Strangely, they were all in our left ears. How weird is that? Unfortunately, mine was perforated and very painful. All in fun at our house eh?

On a side note, and for another blog post, we changed our doctors. Now all four of us are seeing Randy's doctor as our family physician. It is nice that the office is only up the street from the house and the boys seem to like her.

The week following the ear infections, we all went on vacation! We drove from our house to New Orleans where the boys stayed with Mimi for a week. They had a blast!! When I get some time I will expound more upon their adventures and even put up some of Nathan's pictures that he took with his new digital camera.

While the boys were on their vacation, Randy and I took a cruise!! We had to fly out of New Orleans at 6 AM to catch our flight to Miami. From there were caught the boat! We took Carnival this time rather than Royal Carribean. It was a 7 day cruise with one day at sea, then to Grand Caymans, on to Isla Roatan, next to Belize, and finally on to Cozumel with one last day at sea. It was a fantastic trip!!! We met some very good people that we hope we are friends with for a long time. The trip back was exhausting! We spent 7 hours in the Miami airport while it opened and closed three times due to bad weather; a plane and gate change due to malfunction of some sort. We got in way too late for dinner, but we survived. The next day we drove home from New Orleans. Phew!

The day after we got back, both Randy and I went to get biopsies on some "freckles" we had. It has only been a week and mine is still driving me crazy. Unfortunately mine is right at the waistline and gets irritated by everything. Yuck! Both of ours came back benign. Hooray!! No skin cancer this time. :-)

I had my first week back at work this week. I feel as though I got hit by a mack truck. Unfortunately, I am still having the low-grade fever and the headaches daily. Though they seem to be starting earlier in the day. I have had three blood tests (all of which came back "normal") and we still have no idea what is going on. My new doctor has recommended that I see a neurologist. So I am seeing him on Tuesday afternoon. Lovely. Already I have to leave work to go to the doctor. They had an opening for Monday, but I can't leave on the first day of school!!! Sheesh. I hope we figure this out soon. It has now been three months of the daily headaches. Someone else asked me if maybe I had something wrong with my vertebrae in my neck. What an interesting thought. Well if the neurologist doesn't find something, maybe I will go back to the spine doctor and have it checked out. Couldn't hurt right?

Bourbon Street: French Quarters

After the gathering, Randy and his brothers, Mel, and I were sitting outside and I suggested that we get out. Perhaps Michelle will watch the boys so we can de-stress. I made Randy ask her and she said yes! Our trip started with using the new GPS that Corey had. I have never used one before. While it was convenient, it was also a huge pain! I couldn't help but make jokes the whole way because the voice was a woman. They were able to make her so she had an English accent, but I would have preferred a male voice. I piped up that she nagged and I did not like that! I also decided that I should design one for some company that would change accents based on your location...just for fun...so when you are in New Orleans it would be Cajun. If you were in the hood it would have a rough accent like "Yo homegirl, lean left! And hey while you're going through this part of town, you might want to have your gun ready!" I thought it would be hilarious!

We got there and parked in the deck and walked to the intersection of Bourbon and Iberville. It was so very, very hot! I cannot get over just how humid it gets down there...usually at 100 percent humidity it rains where we live, not in New Orleans! It was weird to be able to walk down the street with a beverage, everywhere I have been there were open container laws. Mel got all dressed up and looked really great; where I looked like a granny in my capris and long shirt. She had people slinging beads at her all night, it was jarring the first few times we got hit in the head with them. Mel is a fabulous girl and she and I hit it off famously...which is a great thing if we become sister-in-laws one day. We went to Pat O's for a beverage; a hurricane to be exact. It was pretty good. I have been told that you can't go to New Orleans and not have a hurricane at Pat O's. We went to a country bar where Corey rode the bull. It was so much fun seeing him get thrown off!



It was a good night for most of us. By the end of the night Kyle was pretty sick of the rest of us. We were loud and obnoxious, okay it was really just Mel and I being loud and obnoxious. But we let off some steam and some stress. Randy got a shirt out of the evening, long story...perhaps for another time. Mel and Corey got a shot glass for Mel's grandmother. We all got some beads and beverage. The night did what it was meant to do, and created some good memories for us. I enjoyed the French Quarter much more so than I would have at other times of the year since I am not much for large crowds. Lots and lots of walking and heat, but I enjoyed myself!

Beignets!!

Grayson

Nathan

We went to Morning Call for the famous beignets. Both of the boys really enjoyed them. Nathan had at least 4 of them. I still haven't figured out which leg of his is hollow! New Orleans is definitely an interesting place! We went yesterday for Po Boys...french bread is all the rage here. Randy is in hog heaven. The area we are in has been mostly rebuilt, but there were still so many boarded up areas on the way in on I-10 that it is just unbelievable. When we get home I will upload some pictures I took at the levy (which is just a few blocks from where we are staying. It really is amazing to the hear the stories and to understand just how long it has been to get to where they are now. The memorial is tomorrow for Ronald. I have a link to the AJC obituary if you would like to see it and perhaps sign the guestbook.