From the beginning...

On the Friday before we set sail, we packed up the car, drove to Flint, TX, spent the night at Angie's house (Phil's sister) and then took off for New Orleans later that morning. It was hard to say good-bye to the kids, but we knew they would be in good hands; Gabe had his cousins, Na-Nan, and Pa-Paw, & Ya-Ya to play with for the week...and Sarah would not have to beg for attention either.

Phil walking along the Moonwalk towards the French Quarter.

We were hoping to get some beignets, but Cafe du Monde was packed. We met up with Phillip's brother to spend the day with him and he took us around town so that we could see some of the damage that Hurricane Katrina did to the city. Wow! Phillip plans to finally right a blog entry on his own blog on that one (stay tuned, folks!). We got some really interesting pictures of the devastation. After the tour of the city, we stopped at several places for lunch, beer, coffee; in that order.

This guy is Forest Whitaker. I read in a magazine that he was in town filming a movie called Patriots. We were at a CC's Coffee House on Magazine Street with Phil's brother, Greg, when he walked up and took the table right next to us. I wasn't too sure if it was him; I'm not the movie buff that Phillip is, but I did see that he had scripts with him. I was about to pull a Jennifer (Love you lots, Mrs. Nesrsta!) and ask him if he was indeed, THE Forest Whitaker, when Greg made the comment that the reason why celebrities love New Orleans so much is because the locals don't bother them. Okay....so we decided we'd sneak a photo or two of him instead. Note the coffee cup to the left (Good one, Phillip).

The perfect way to spend part of an afternoon....at Cooter Browns!

Okay, I'll only tell you this. Our lives completely changed after leaving this place a little less than seven years ago...and I wouldn't change a thing about it! Ha ha

Buy me ANYTHING from this jewelry store and I'll be your best friend...at least for a little while. Ha ha ha ha

If you can't tell by the links on this page, I love wikipedia! I'll post more pics of the trip tomorrow or maybe even later on today. Until then, ya'll have a good day!

Oh, and by the way...if anyone wants a great read, I suggest you check out the book 1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose. It's a very interesting and entertaining book on life in New Orleans post-Katrina.