We get that all the time

We headed to Louie's Cafe last night to have breakfast for dinner (yum!) with a fun colleague of mine from the LA Dept of Ed's assessment vendor in Minnesota. Bob may be a Yankee, but he possesses a great fondness for all things Southern, and I thought he would enjoy the dive-like ambiance of our favorite 24/7 diner that serves the best Cajun hash browns and seafood omelet in the great state of Louisiana. But, I digress...

We're getting Lucy out of the car and she pukes a little bit. It was nothing more unusual than your ordinary spit up, so into the restaurant we proceed. Lucy is acting fine -- doing her usual flirting with the wait staff/being all cute bit and about 30 min. into our meal, she throws up. We clean it up and keep eating, and then she throws up again. Interesting things to note about this experience are the following: (1) Andrew managed to catch most of it in her bib before it went all over Bob even though it was spewing forth like angry lava out of a volcano; (2) baby throw-up smells exactly like the adult version -- I guess was expecting something different?; and (3) apparently someone at daycare decided it was appropriate to feed jambalaya pasta to my 10-mo-old for lunch yesterday.

So... we all spring into action trying to clean the fowl-smelling train wreck up and when the waitress comes over to help, I begin apologizing profusely (seriously, it was SO nasty). She just shrugs her shoulders and proclaims nonchalantly, "Hey, at least she didn't throw up from being drunk. We get that all the time", and then walks off. Bob got a pretty good kick out of that one. He got an even bigger kick out of the "y'all come back" from the short order cooks on our way out. As for us, I got puked on two more times when we got home, and then got peed on when trying to change Lucy/ take her temperature. Ah, the joys of motherhood! :)

P.S. The picture is from Louie's on a happier dining occasion a few weeks ago. "Baby" decided to come along for that meal.

Update -- Turns out that we probably have a stomach virus, but I still went into protective mama bear mode re: inappropriate food choices for infants. We are chugging Pedialyte and napping a lot to recover.

Quack, quack

And we're off!

It's not quite a scoot and not quite a crawl, but Lucy's finally found a way to get herself mobile! She's taken to some sort of "modified" crawl on her tummy and elbows (while dragging one arm underneath her body) that reminds me of new recruits in basic training writhing underneath barbed wire through the mud in some bad army movie like Private Benjamin. In any case... she's thrilled with her new development and is making pretty fast time across the room, especially when there's a toy she really wants. We're getting so big!

Swingin' Saturday

Even though these pictures are a little blurry (from Daddy's cell phone), I thought they beautifully captured the peaceful afternoon we had yesterday at the park. It's usually crowded with families and disc golf players on Saturdays, but since most of the town is on spring break next week we pretty much had the place to ourselves. We enjoyed a peaceful stroll through the warm breezy winds as the sun began to set, and then topped off the ride home with a snow cone. :)

Hippity Hoppity

Lucy actually enjoyed meeting the Easter Bunny, but we couldn't get a smile out of her (at least she didn't explode into a crying fit like over half of the kids we saw!). She kept looking up at him and trying to touch his bow tie instead of looking at the camera, so we had to resort to calling her name and waving like crazy people to make her look up. Half of the pictures had her arms sticking up in the air -- we have recently picked up the skill of waving bye-bye! File "waiting in a ridiculous line for a photo shoot with a weird-looking bunny" under a long list of things I always saw people doing with their kids that I swore I would never do once I was a parent. :)

HAPPY EASTER!

Voodoo gumbo

The sights and sounds from the 5th Annual Zapp's International Beer Festival at LSU's Rural Life Museum. We got a chance to tour some old sugar cane processing facilities Our favorite beer? A tie between Dixie Brewing Company's "Jazz Amber Light" lager and Saint Arnold's "Fancy Lawnmower Beer" (best enjoyed after engaging in strenuous summer activities like... mowing the lawn, of course!). Our favorite chips? "Cajun Crawtators" are the classic standby, but I have to give a nod to their new sweet potato variety and Katie liked the "Voodoo Gumbo" that taste like you dropped the entire contents of a spice cabinet in the kettle.

The gang has already decided that we will definitely be making an appearance at next year's festivities. Put on your dancing shoes and join us at the fais do do, cher!

Uncle DaDa

Uncle Michael came all the way from California recently to visit us (well, mainly Lucy) and we had a really nice time. The last time Mike got to see Lucy was during her baptism weekend when she was only 10 weeks old, so it was quite a treat for him to see our "big girl" talking, sitting up, eating real food, and trying to crawl! Since Mike looks so much like Andrew and Lucy kept referring to him as "DaDa", he quickly became known as Uncle DaDa for the rest of the weekend. As you can tell by just looking at Lucy, that Powers gene sure is strong! :)

Aunt DaDa (aka Katie) and Boogie & Pop Pop made the trip down as well -- it was a gorgeous spring weekend, and we took full advantage of enjoying all the south Louisiana fare that Mike has been missing out on. We had boiled crawfish and crab at Jimmy's Seafood Shack for lunch, and took Lucy to the neighborhood park to show off her swinging skills.

Then Lucy and Boogie went down for a nap and the rest of us headed over to LSU's Rural Life Museum for the 5th annual Zapp's International Beer Festival (pictures and video to come!). And yes, it was as good as it sounds -- an unlimited supply of cold draft beer and the best potato chips on Earth, all set to the sounds of a zydeco band under centuries-old oak trees and perfect weather. I really could not think of a better way to spend a beautiful Saturday afternoon than being outside drinking, laughing, and dancing with loved ones!

The boys got up early for a fishing trip down to the Barataria/Jean Lafitte area the next morning while the girls slept in and took Lucy shopping for some new toys. Uncle DaDa lives way too far away for our liking and we don't get to see him very often, but we are very proud of him and really enjoyed his visit. In addition to working full time as a sales manager at Jax Bicycle Center in Claremont, CA, Mike is now also racing as part of a competitive mountain bike team called The Gary Fisher 29er Crew; you can check out his biking adventures on their website or on his blog, The Louisiana Cyclist. We hope you come back soon!