New Orleans

The first week of January we decided to go and check out New Orleans since we weren't that far away. It was about a 5.5 hour drive but an hour into it we realized that we had forgotten our camera. So all these pictures are from Christian's phone. Luckily they aren't too bad.

First we stopped at a plantation, the Houmas House. We stopped on our drive down since it was about an hour outside of New Orleans.

It was a pretty cool house and the tour was really great.

 Right past the trees and the levee is the Mississippi River.

One of the few inside pictures that turned out since it was pretty dark in there. And it was still decorated for Christmas which was nice.

With our tour guide. We were the only ones on the tour.

 Christian was just trying to take a picture of the fountain and Lilly hopped right on in front of the camera. She knew what to do!

Outside in the gardens.

Giant oak trees that are really old. They said this one is 500-600 years old!

After the plantation we drove the rest of the way to New Orleans. The next day we checked out the St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Sqaure.

 Got some beignets (french donuts basically) at Cafe Du Monde.

 Waiting for our food.

One morning we passed the steamboat as it was playing music. It was really loud, we heard it from pretty far away, and you could even see the lady on top of the boat playing the music.

 Making our way back to the hotel for Lilly to nap. She was pretty tired so she was resting her head on top of Christian.

We also went to the Aquarium while we were there.

Lilly loved watching the penguins. She is pretty much obsessed with the Happy Feet movies.

She also really like the sea horses.

They even had an area where you could go and feed a bunch of parakeets. We thought Lilly would like it but before we could explain anything to Lilly, a bird landed on her hand and she freaked out. She didn't want to feed them after that.

This is her penguin she picked out at the Aquarium. She named him "Happy Feet" (I told you she loves the movies). Sadly we think he is now lost. Oh well.

Taking over our bed to play her fishing game that she got for Christmas.

We also visited a sculpture garden at the Museum of Art.

Our last day we went on a swamp tour.

Sadly during the winter most big alligator are hibernating or something like that.

 

 But it was still cool to go around and see the swamp. We saw a couple little alligators in the water and some birds too. The most exciting part was the baby alligator that the tour guide brought along.

Lilly wasn't scared in the least. She really liked holding it. Though she sometimes calls it a "Crocogator".

Riding the big daddy.

After the tour we headed back to Houston for a couple days and then back to Lubbock.

And look where we stopped on our drive back to Lubbock. In-N-Out! Thank you Dallas!