New Orleans and other happenings

May is racing by in all its busy glory and the combination of end-of-schoolyear madness and really good weather has not left much time for blogging.  Installment  one of the catch-up rewinds all the way back to Ivy's birthday week.  We had a great start to the week, celebrating our eight year old with family. Then we left town.   We had a marvelous weekend away in New Orleans, exploring a fantastic new place with good friends.  Our kiddos got a weekend of "grandma care" in our absence, so it was a win for everyone. It also feels like it was a couple of years ago already, so with no further ado, a photo retrospective of the week of May 8th....

After Ivy's party on Saturday, a trip to Daffodil Hill.  The daffodils filtered in slowly during this cold spring, so we did not have the full profusion we are used to. Still, a picturesque spot...

 Sunday, off to another of our favorite picturesque locations: Stan Hywet.  Glorious there in the spring!  Plus, it was a "Woof Walk" Sunday so our little Winterling got to join us.  It was a little strange not doing the house tour, but we made up for it by walking almost every square inch of the grounds (much to our children's great sadness. Very sensitive to heat, our little ones...)
Birch tree Allee dressed in spring green...

 We tied in a visit to see cousin Diana and her family-- burgers and beer and good company on a warm summery night...

Birthday girl!  Eight years old, for real.  We had a lovely family dinner to celebrate, with Claire in town to make it even more festive. 

And, time to take off!  Flying somewhere!  Alone just the two of us! Strange and lovely.  We had a great flight, smooth and uneventful and full of the most lively and enthusiastic crowd of people, who clapped for both takeoff and landing.  I am pretty sure 90% of the folks on that flight were headed to a weekend of celebration like us....

 Our friends treated us to a gourmand's tour of the city, with all of our meal locations pre-planned and perfect.  Day 1 dinner, in the Business District:  The Butcher.

 And, a walk through downtown to see the French Quarter.  I was surprised and enchanted by the palm trees.

 Drinks at a swanky old fashioned bar...

 ... and a walk down Bourbon street, in fine form even at 10:00 on a Thursday...

 Riverfront by night... We visited this little spot two nights in a row.  It just happened to be next to Cafe du Monde, which was one of my favorite things about the city.  A 24-hour "coffee stand" with chicory coffee and beignets at the ready, crowds of people filling the open-air tables...so much powdered sugar, so much fried dough perfection! Just what you need late on a New Orleans night...

 Day two: Up early for an adventure to the north of the city... by streetcar to the end of the Cemeteries line then a (long, hot, forced-death-march) walk over to Longue Vue house.  Have to do a house tour in every city I visit, after all!  This is the only one we got to, though there were enough of them to have kept us busy for a week, with the rich architectural history of this place...

 The house and gardens were beautiful and (mostly) worth the walk....

 Then a trip back south (by Uber this time) to meet our friends at a lovely seafood restaurant for lunch.

 ... followed by a long amble home down Magazine street.  Gracious New Orleans houses with their fancy facades lining the street, tiny boutiques and restaurants tucked into each one.

 We ducked into stores often to escape the rather oppressive heat, and headed back to our townhouse to recover our melted selves enough for our evening plans.

Then, off to the up-and-coming Bywater neighborhood for drinks and music and amazing cheese plates at Bacchanal.  What a great spot, hidden inside a dilapidated storefront.  You walk into a dark, crowded wine-cave of a room, and buy your bottle of wine and some cheese to go with.  Serve yourself an ice bucket and some glasses on the way out, and emerge into this two story courtyard of magic.

 Ramshackle tables and chairs, haphazard strands of lights, joyful beautiful people everywhere, live music on a stage ten feet away.  Yep.

 We could have stayed there all night-- but the whole rest of the city beckoned.  We traveled a few neighborhoods over and discovered Frenchmen Street.

 One bar after another, walls and doors open to the warm luscious night, live music of all sorts streaming out to the crowded sidewalks.  A fabulous 20 piece brass band played for tips on a street corner, and a lovely little art fair filled a courtyard and it was grand.

Streetcar by night...

 And back to Cafe Du Monde and the river and another walk through the French Quarter.  Bourbon Street at midnight on a Friday turned out to be... not our cup of tea.  The mounted police patrolling the crowds, while picturesque, did nothing for the olfactory effect of the place, and we veered off after a block and found a new route to our streetcar stop home.

 We did enjoy this group of proselytizing Christians and the counter- protester standing nearby..

 Morning view:  back patio at our condo. The crazy wonderful magic they work in this city with strings of lights!  Note to self:  We can do this at home! Minus the palm trees...

 A morning walk through the Lafayette Cemetery Number One...

 Grave cat!  We also saw a grave gecko.

 Then, north by streetcar again.  We set off to explore City Park.  We expected a... park.  Instead we got the New Orleans Art Museum and Botanical Gardens and several chances to take advantage of all of our reciprocal memberships.

Lunch at the museum cafe.  The second it opened.  We aren't so great at eating breakfast before taking off on cross-city odysseys.

 Also inside City Park:  A small amusement park, a mini-golf course to end all mini-golf courses, and this most fantastic live oak trees....

The Botanical Gardens were lovely, with a cute little greenhouse and extensive outdoor gardens--        You can do that sort of thing in the New Orleans climate.                                                                                                                               

 We enjoyed the art museum too, even if it made us appreciate our marvelous collection at CMA all the more.  These happy, conversing cardinals were really, excellent, though.

 Then back south again, to meet up with our friends for a walk through the Louis Armstrong Jazz Park...

 ....and back through the Quarter, with its riot of colors...

 ... to enjoy an afternoon snack-- quite probably the best meal of the trip-- an alligator po' boy and a Pimm's Cup at one of the oldest pubs in the city.

Back to Jackson square where we saw a wedding finishing up at the Cathedral and tourists galore shopping the street art and fortune tellers...

Not pictured:  Deluxe and lovely dinner on Magazine street with our friends, and then we joined throngs of well-dressed hipsters for the "Champagne Stroll:" all those sweet little boutiques, open late and serving wine.  Thank you, open container laws, for one of the most collectively festive shopping experiences of my life. 

Don't worry though, we did get a photo of the Street crawfish that we found.   A great way to make new friends, catching and releasing (into a fountain) this little guy who escaped the boil.                                                                                                                  

 We made it home and rested our sore feet with good intentions of heading back to the Quarter one more time-- to make it three for three on Cafe Du Monde and the river-- but three days of New Orleans will really take it out of you..  We only mustered the energy to walk three blocks to St. Charles where we discovered The Avenue Pub (which is open 24-7, it turns out) and I was able to achieve my goal of drinks up on a balcony...

And- home again!  A lot of the same travelers were on our flight home, looking as weary as we felt.... :)

We had a nice mother's day dinner with Lulu and Gram before Claire headed home on Monday morning.  We are so grateful that she could come and stay with the kids while we ran away for some silly, grown-up fun.

An "Animal Crafting" party for our 8 year old!

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Well, not quite eight, not just yet-- three more days of seven for this beautiful little party planner.  But Saturday was the much anticipated "friend party" portion of her birthday celebration, and it went off without a hitch.  We were blessed with ideal weather (75 and partly cloudy) and had a lovely group of 7 sweet second graders in attendance.  Quite possibly the smoothest party we've ever had, and I have to give a lot of credit to Ivy, who planned out every detail of the day and was actually very helpful with preparations these past few days.  I miss my snuggly baby girl sometimes... but I am pretty fond of the competent young woman she's growing into!

The party set up:

 A green-and-brown color theme to provide a backdrop for animal fun.

 Per Ivy's instructions, we had a guided crafting table (canvas painting)...

 ...and a "free crafting" table for coloring.  The girls each colored their own paintbrush for this year's version of "Pin the tail..."

 ... or rather, "Pin the paintbrush on the bird beak."  The name has a nice, simple ring to it, no?  While our dinosaur did not make an appearance, we did keep with our tradition of re-using large-scale-art-on-a-board, with last year's robin fitting right in to our theme after the addition of a paint pallette.

The bedecked pergola, containing our "adopt an animal" station, a playmobil zoo set, and the present table.  Not as much time was spent playing there as I'd expected, as the girls were much more interested in the treehouse and the chickens...

One benefit of the late spring we've had this year:  daffodils in full bloom for Ivy's party!

 Ivy and I had so much fun crafting those tiny hats.  And Ivy did all the placement of animals and toppers.  As my little ones grow up, I learn more and more about how to relinquish control...

Can't really see the food labels in this shot but they were really cute and thematically appropriate.  My favorite was "Lions eat everything!" to go with the animal crackers.

And now, for some action shots!

The girls were sweet as pie at the crafting tables, and really seemed to enjoy themselves.  How terribly easy it is to work with a small group of typical children!  I am used to the Herculean task of working with my 8-10 very NONtypical students at school, and doing this craft project would have been exhausting.  But with these delightful girls- it was nothing!  They listened, followed instructions, waited patiently, took feedback, didn't attempt to throw, eat or grab a thing, and were kind and pleasant to each other the whole time.  I didn't know that could happen.  It was amazing.

 I had some pretty great help, too, which was certainly part of it.

 We moved from crafting over to "pin the paintbrush" which went smoothly.  Eight year olds are pretty smart, though, and I had to work hard to keep them from cheating and feeling their way to the bird beak...

 Not pictured:  Animal freeze dance.  Hard to get good shots of children dancing like animals, at close range, while controlling the music for said dancing....

Then, off to Animal Hunt.  Naomi dominated the field with something like 15 finds...

... but with Jack (newly returned from soccer) helping, we made sure everyone found some success.

Of course, the unplanned fun always seems to be the most memorable!

 Winter's first birthday party and she was a dream.  She was a big fan of cleaning up under the picnic table.  And a big fan of Ophelia.

The hit of the whole day had to be the chickens, who produced no less than FOUR eggs during the duration of the party, much to the delight of our little guests.  They carefully monitored the nest box, learned to recognize tell-tale squawks, found and rescued an egg in the run, and took turns excitedly carrying eggs in and washing them-- usually a group affair..

Another surprise hit: our toddler size rocking horse, which we were just talking about sending on to a younger family...  you can't even see the horse here, because the poor thing is being forcefully rocked under the weight of two second graders.  It didn't bat an eye.  That thing is tough.

Snack time! 

 And... cake!

 The "adopt an animal" activity was such fun.   We let the "winners" of each game have first pick from the stuffies, then a "free for all" with the rest.  Once more this group of kiddos were a delight.  No complaining or arguing whatsoever.   These girls seem to genuinely care about one another-- a few trades took place, initiated by girls who saw that their friend wanted the animal they themselves had chosen.  What treasures these children are!  Everyone was absolutely thrilled with their new little friend and much naming and snuggling commenced....

 Present time!  As the kids get older, I love to be an onlooker at the group dynamics.  Who has to help with gathering and opening packages?  Who is right up in there, checking out and exclaiming over everything?  Who could care less, and goes off to play?  Their sweet smiles of pride and gratification when Ivy opens their gift!  I know our children don't need any more stuff, and we really out to move away from all this rampant consumerism, towards a "no-gift-make-a-donation-instead" philosophy at our parties.  And yet.  I think present time is a little bit magical, not to mention a great chance for children to directly experience generosity from both sides...  And I also seem to believe in spoiling my children rotten. :)

Happy Almost-Eight, sweet Ivy girl!  I'm glad you are finding such sweet friends, and I am gratified that you are learning to plan a sweet party, too!  You are my heart!

Hanging out with some chicks

We've been having fun with our new crop off fuzzies.  They are growing fast!  

And, exploring the world of children' toys!

 It's nice to see someone in the house using all of these toys.

 The chicks have developed a following on facebook.  And the photo posts may be working as marketing, since more than one family has started asking us for details on this whole "chickeneering" thing.

I'm glad the fluffies aren't quite ready to leave us just yet.

 We've got SO many more playsets left to pose them on.