Yes, there's a part 4!! After the beach, we loaded up the car and headed to NOLA. My brother started med school in August and we wanted to visit before he disappeared into the dark hole of the anatomy lab.
When we were checking into our hotel, we were trying to get connecting rooms for us and the kids, and none were available. The bellman who was trying to help us thought that connecting room was for my parents so that they could babysit for us while we went out. We tried to explain that, at this point in our lives, we are not interested in the bar that will keep us out all night, but in the sleeping arrangements that will ensure that we are able to sleep all night. This concept was totally lost on him. No matter how many times or how many different ways we explained it, he kept reassuring us that my parents could just stay in the room with the kids while we were out partying. My conversation with him sure made me feel like I needed a drink!
This was a very quick trip and we were only in town for a couple of days. We spent the first day at the zoo. Mary Laine has a signing video called "Zoo Train". She had so much fun teaching us all of the signs for the animals that she saw.
"This is the sign for rhinoceros"
At one point, I asked Mary Laine what she was most excited about having seen so far. She quickly responded, "The giraffes!" - But we hadn't seen the giraffes yet. Although very hot and tired by the time we made it to the giraffes, she was so excited to finally be able to see her favorite animal.
Any trip that ends like this is counted as a success in my book! She was worn out! (And her Langdon was just happy to be!) We even went in the gift shop to buy her a stuffed giraffe and tried to wake her up to ask her what she wanted... she didn't budge. At one point I started to worry that something was wrong with her. No worries - she was going at full speed a few hours later.
We celebrated my birthday at Delmonico. Langdon was a little squirmy/fussy and Mary Laine had to go to the bathroom about 3 times and insisted that I be the one to take her. When I was actually able to sit down and get a bite, it was so good (and worth the work)! Birthdays aren't quite what they used to be. This is definitely an improvement over my birthday last year:
The next day was Walker's white coat ceremony. I had dreams that Langdon would fall asleep on my shoulder and rest peacefully through the entire ceremony while Mary Laine watched all of the doctors in awe, dreaming about her future career in medicine ;-). From what I'm told, Mary Laine actually behaved very well. Langdon, however, had different plans. He was actually very happy, but wide awake and ready for a conversation. He "talked" the entire time, so I took him out in the hall and paced. I was told that he got a mention in one of the speeches, though, as someone who needed soothing. Go Langdon!
All happy and quiet before things got started
Walker's speech was a little slicey
While it was a great trip, and we're definitely glad that we went, I do have to point out some of the things that happened on our last day there (which was also my birthday): Mary Laine fell asleep in the car on the way to church, so we decided to just drive around since we wanted her to be on her best behavior for the ceremony that afternoon, we discovered that the valet at the hotel had wrecked our car, the "1 hour" ceremony was closer to 3 (no big deal, unless you have 2 small children who have a hard time sitting still for that long), we got stuck in terrible traffic on the way out of town, and a few weeks later, we received a lovely note from the City of New Orleans thanking us for visiting the city (while also charging us a nice fee for going 11 miles an hour over the speed limit when we were on our way to the zoo) - we're so glad that we can help keep New Orlean's fantastic camera-ticket system in operation.
All joking aside, we are so proud of Walker and are happy to have him back down south. We can't wait to go back for another visit - but will someone else drive?
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Dressing up:
