Festival Season!

One of the cool things about Louisiana is they have a whole season full of Festivals. This past weekend, to name a few, they had the Jazz Fest, Etouffee Fest, Woodstock Fest and the Festival International de Louisian. I got to go to the last one. It was a lot of fun. Michael was out of town this past weekend so I went with one of my co-workers and her mom. It is a huge festival with lots of different vendors from all over the world. They have tons of international music playing live all over the place. There was lots of good food, and my favorite part was there were snow cone booths on every corner! Coming soon, pictures from the Crawfish Festival...

This cookbook was at the first booth we went to look at...the little boy in the picture is Heather's brother when he was a little boy! Look closely and read his shirt!

Heather's Mom and Heather

It is kind of blurry, but I thought it was cute. I am standing on a curb so I can be as tall as Heather!

A Different Culture

This is just some of the different food they had that night!

Gator Burger....MMMMMM

This is one of the stages where they performed music.

Ultimate Fighting

Last week we all went to Brandon's parents house to eat pizza and watch UFC. All of the fights were really good, even the girls all enjoyed it!

Emily, Jeff, Rachel (she is the one under the blanket) Brandon and Phillip. Nobody really wanted their picture taken, but I did not care. Michael was sitting in a different chair and he refused to go sit with everyone for the picture.

ALL CLAD!!!!

I know a lot of you who read this blog like to cook, so maybe you will understand my fascination with All Clad. I have always wanted All Clad pans, but my wallet will never allow me to have them. I was looking at William Sanoma a couple of months ago and I saw these wonderful All Clad measuring spoons and measuring cups. I begged Michael to buy them for me, but he just did not understand the love I have for All Clad. We went shopping a few weeks ago in Baton Rouge and they had a William Sanoma there. I begged Michael to go with me and sure enough he did go in and he bought me the measuring spoon set. I am so excited...I use them all the time. Soon I will be getting the measuring cup set and then one day, I will get the pans. For now, I will just enjoy my spoons!

Here are the beautiful measuring spoons

I know they are just small, but I am so happy to have them!

Practice Makes Perfect

Brandon has been teaching Michael how to play the guitar. Michael is starting to get a lot better!

Michael plays while Brandon sings!

Weekend Advetures

Since I was off on Saturday Michael and I decided to go site seeing. We went to Avery Island first, that is where they make Tobasco Sauce. We went on a little tour of the factory and then we got to go to the store and do some taste testing. The interesting thing about the island is it is located on a huge salt mine. The way they make the original sauce is very cool. They pick the peppers when they are the perfect color of red. Then they seal the peppers in a big whiskey barrell and cover the top of the barrell in salt. They then store the peppers in the barrell for three years. Once the three years is up, they take the pepper paste out and mix it with venegar. They then stir the mixture for thirty days! We got to taste all of the sauces, Tobasco icecream and even some Tobasco Coca-Cola. They have a really nice park you can drive through, so we took advantage of the nice weather and rolled the windows down. Since it was so nice the alligators were out in full swing. We saw TONS of alligators and most of them were sunbathing. It is one of the most beautiful parks I have been to. If any of you come visit this is a must see. There is tons of spanish moss growing on all the trees, there are some swamps and bayous are everywhere. Once we were finished at Avery Island we went and got some lunch and headed to the Zoo of Acadiana. Now, we knew this zoo would be small, but we really had no idea just how small! We got to the zoo just in time to see a alligator show. It was pretty amusing with two very Cajun guys leading the show. They taught everyone all about alligators. We then went and looked around. The funniest thing to us was just how country this zoo was. Most of the animals were behind a fence that resembled chickenwire. They did had a white tiger and he was of course, behind glass. We are glad we went for the experiece, but I am pretty sure we will never go there again!

Avery Island

Michael next to a large bottle of Tobasco Sauce

They stir the sauce for thirty days with vinegar

No trip to a Cajun joint would be complete without a sampling of boudin...don't even ask what is in it, all I know is it taste really good!

I know, it looks so gross, but trust me, it is good!

We got to sample Tabasco Ice Cream...I did not like it at all...as you can see, Michael did

I thought the sign was cute!

We really liked this fish

ALLIGATORS

This is the first alligator we saw, he was a pretty small one

Michael took this picture...can you see the alligator in the background?

This one looks really mean!

The Cajun Alligator Wrestler

This was a show at the zoo, the guy was pretty good...you see he is putting his hand inside the alligator's mouth.

Wow, look at that!

He is keeping the gator's mouth closed with his chin, that guy is crazy!

Zoo Adventures

We thought this was funny, this is the only way a giraffe can get its head to the ground, it has to do the splits!

There are no words to explain!

As most of you know, I am extreemly afraid of birds, this huge bird is my worst nightmare!

Earmuffs!

Adeline had been putting her hands on her ears lately and I think it is so cute! Every time we say "Earmuffs" to her she puts her hands up to her ears really fast...it is so funny! She is getting so big!

Starbucks Junkies!

Brandon, Emily, Adeline, Phillip, Mrs. Kathy, Michael and I always go to Starbucks after Sunday and Wednesday evening church. The workers all know us, and give us free treats sometimes! I always take lots of pictures wherever I go, but I had to post this one, since Michael has such a huge cheesey smile on his face. He gets so sick of me taking pictures of him, but I will NEVER stop!

Kids Club!

Thank you so much for all of you who are praying for our church. Yesterday we had 32 people on Sunday morning and we had 27 people come back for Sunday evening! We are so excited, the Lord is really using our web site and the sermons that show on the local cable channel! We had 6 kids in clubs last night...we were able to teach them about the Bible, teach them Bible songs and Bible verses! Please continue to pray for us!

These are three of the regulars...Daniel, Brooke and Randy!

CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!!

Can you see how HUGE the strawberries were?

If you look close you can see the chocolate dripping!

Yummy

Jen, Mandi, Carol and Sommer posing in front of the dessert, we had strawberries, angel food cake, mandarine oranges, cherries and pears to dip in the chocolate!