Pretty!

We had a lot of icicles hanging down... they looked so cool when the Christmas lights were on!

 

Lunch with Daddy

While I was quarantining in the guest bedroom, Daddy took the girls out to lunch.

Fluffy

Since Milo's been sick for so long, he hasn't been to the groomers. Now that he's healthy again, he was in dire need of a bath and a nail trim. He had actually been chewing on his own nails (I know - bad!). But, he got all spiffed up today when he visited the ladies and his friends!

He's so pretty!

He did proceed to go outside and roll in the snow again. I wish I had a video! He cracks me up!

Snow dog

Um, have I mentioned how much Milo loves the outdoors and snow?!? (Yes, about a million times!) It's like -5 degrees outside and he's just rolling around in the snow like it's sand! I have to bribe him with treats to come back inside. :)

Covid: the souvenir no one asked for

Woke up Monday morning with a sore throat and a runny nose. So, I signed up for a PCR test at Westmont Immediate Care. (Drive thru PCR tests with results back usually the same day!) This is where we took Avery before when she got tested. But, since then they have moved the testing to a parking lot at the Hilton Hotel to accommodate all the traffic. When I got there, I was probably about 40 cars back. It moved pretty quickly. You have the option of the throat swab or the nose swab. I picked throat swab. The lady scraped my throat like 4 times!

Got the results back later that night... positive for Covid. Here is my diet for the next few days. :)

I'm camped out in the spare bedroom away from everyone else. I'm really hoping I can keep my cooties away from the rest of the fam!

The girls delivered me an "Amazon" package with cute little notes and some goodies. So sweet of them!

Daddy Daughter weekend

While I was away, the girls and Daddy had a fun weekend! They got loaded up on sugar and had sleepovers and movie nights! Avery had her science fair, but other than that they played, sledded and chillaxed!

Girls Trip 2021 (postponed until 2022)

We were supposed to go to New Orleans last September, but then Hurricane Ida hit. Crystal's flight got rerouted to Nashville and everything was shut down, so we decided to postpone until now. Of course, now Omicron is in full swing and I'm still recovering from the concussion and JJ just got over Covid... but, hey sometimes you just need to get away! A girls trip is always good for the soul! :)

This is the first time I've been on a plane since the pandemic all started. The last time I flew was February of 2020 for our girls trip to Nashville.

Landing, yay!

I made it!

Our flights all got into New Orleans around the same time Friday, so that worked out well. We Uber'd to the hotel and got checked in. We had a little time before our food tour, so we stopped at the Royal House Oyster Bar. We had some drinks and split a shrimp po'boy. Yum!

Took this pic for Avery - she loves teasing Matt about his "Dad jokes"

At the Royal House Oyster Bar

Then, we went on a food and cocktail tour around the city.

First stop on the tour - Mambo's. We had alligator bites with remoulade and Bloody Mary's. Yes, I am posing with my drinks in each picture, but sadly I only took a sip and passed them along to JJ and Crystal. The alligator bites tasted a lot like chicken nuggets.

Second stop on the tour - Napoleon House. We had muffaletta to eat and Pimm's Cup to drink. Muffaletta is a sandwich made with Italian meats and cheese topped with an olive salad. It was delicious! Napolean House is famous for the Pimm's Cup, a drink made with Pimm's gin, lemonade, 7-up and a sliver of cucumber. I thought it tasted sort of like grapefruit (?).

Third stop on the tour - Creole Cookery. Here we had gumbo, chargrilled oyster and bread pudding to eat. There were two drink options - Hurricane or Sazerac (a cocktail made with whiskey, sugar cube, bitters and anise liqueur).  The food was delicious! I was not a fan of the Sazerac - way too strong for me!

Fourth Stop on the tour - Tableau (a Brennan's family restaurant). We just had a drink here - a French 75. It's a cocktail that can be made with gin or cognac, mixed with champagne, lemon juice and simple syrup. They used cognac here and it was delicious! I wished I could have had more than just a sip! We also took pictures outside on the balcony.

Fifth (and last) stop on the tour - Manolito. This is a small cute bar that makes their drinks with all fresh fruit and ingredients. We had strawberry daiquiris here. Crystal also got a frozen Amaretto sour that was really good! Here is a picture of our small little tour group. Besides us, there was a recently retired couple from Pittsburgh (I think) and another couple from Wisconsin. Everyone was really friendly and it was a fun time!

Just a little scenery stop on our walk back from the food tour - Jackson Square.

We went to Pat O'Brien's for hurricanes and dueling pianos.

JJ and Crystal with their Hurricanes

So, there was this cute old man that had like little tambourines on his fingers that he played against a metal plate. He was such a riot smiling and looked like he was having a blast.

We ended the night there and came back to the hotel to rest up for the next day!

On Saturday, we went to the famous Cafe Beignet for breakfast. The coffee and beignets were amazing!

Just a little shot of the courtyard in our hotel

We were picked up around 11:20 for a swamp tour. It was freezing cold this day. We managed to go during the two weeks of "winter" in New Orleans. Ha!

I'm not going to say our tour guide was crazy, but... he was very entertaining. He was like straight out of Swamp People (a show I have not watched but feel like I got a good preview of). Not only was the tour about alligators and other animals, it was about how to catch/trap/skin/make jewelry out of/you name it if it had to do with alligators. We learned how much you could get for an alligator ($ per length in feet), how you get the most out of one alligator money-wise. We learned about crawfish, snakes, birds and some old legends. If it wasn't so cold, we probably would have seen more than two alligators. But, that's ok. It was like he had a magic hat or something like Mary Poppins bag. He just kept pulling random stuff out from under the steering wheel.

We came back from the tour and tried to warm up! We grabbed a bite to eat at Curio, a little restaurant near our hotel. They had the best donuts!

Randomly, a parade went down the street by our window. The guy on stilts saw us and came over to wave hi!

That night, we had dinner at Revolution, which was across the street from out hotel. It was really fancy and delicious! We had blue crab beignets and a cheese plate to start off with. I think the blue crab beignets may have been my favorite thing I ate all weekend! JJ and I had a lobster pasta dish and Crystal had a mushroom and black truffle pasta dish. Afterwards we went to the bar at our hotel to watch some football and have a last drink before bed. We were exhausted!

I should mention that we had to show our vaccine cards for most places we went. These were the signs on all the restaurants and bars.

On Sunday, we had breakfast at Curio, did some souvenir shopping and headed back to the airport. JJ and I had flights that left about the same time, but Crystal had to hang out a little longer after us. 

As always, it's so nice to hang out with friends you've known forever. It's just easy and relaxed and a good break from reality for a couple of days! Already looking forward to our next trip!

Science Fair

Avery and her friend Addie participated in the Science Fair this year. It's optional for the kids and we hadn't done it the past few years. They decided to see how different ingredients affected how fast ice melted. It was a fun project for them and they did great! They got a first place ribbon for their efforts!

Turns out the vitamin water melted the fastest and the carbonated water took the longest. Surprisingly, the salt water was one of the longer to melt as well. After researching this, it makes sense, but did not predict that at the beginning. Even the adults learned something new! Ha!

Don't let the sun fool you... it's cold!

But, this dog does NOT care! He's just out there chillaxing like's 75 degrees. Come inside, man!

 

Delayed Christmas

We celebrated Christmas with my whole family now that everyone was Covid free! Sandi and Brett hosted. We were finally able to exchange gifts with them and the kids all had fun playing together.

Aunt Sandi makes some really cute gifts... the girls love their sweatshirts!

Eat, sleep, dance, repeat!

Don't let the ponytail fool you!

Sick dog

I mentioned Milo was sick before Christmas and was put on antibiotics. Well, we finished the antibiotics and he was still not better! The poor thing was hacking and sneezing and doing some sort of nose blowing thing that was really gross. So, Matt took him back to the vet. They sent off some bloodwork to check for other illnesses, but started him on another round of the same antibiotic as before.

A few days later, they called and said one of the blood tests had come back positive for some kind of mycoplasma (?) and he needed a different antibiotic. So, Matt went to pick that up and we crossed our fingers our pup would be feeling better soon!

Here he is at the vet... his front arms look gigantic!

He started feeling better with those antibiotics... thank goodness! Here he is just chillaxing in his favorite position - ha!

Concussed

At the Good Sam ER waiting room

Yep, that's me... you're probably wondering how I got into this situation. Well, it all started last Sunday when I decided to get some fresh air and take Milo for a walk... right after a terrible ice storm. The girls and I headed out for a walk and Matt drove off to the grocery store. A half block from our house, the dog pulls one way and my feet slipped totally out from under me on the slippery-as-snot ice! My head broke my fall. I didn't even have time to catch myself with my hands or anything! I think my head bounced because I remember hitting twice, but who knows. I was so dizzy and nauseous that I couldn't stand up. Everything was blurry. So, I called Matt and told him to turn around and help me. I most definitely did not want to pass out on the corner of the street with just me and the girls there. I had a huge bump forming on the back of my head, which in my confused state made me think the rest of my head had been flattened, which freaked me out. Anyway, Matt called 911 and within a few minutes an ambulance, fire truck and police car were there. It was kind of difficult to get me to the ambulance because of the ice. (I'm not kidding when I say this ice was ridiculous!) They finally got me in the ambulance and gave me an IV with some Zofran to stop the nauseousness. Then, I spent the next five hours at the ER in the waiting room by myself (well, with about 20 other patients also without any of their family members - thanks, Covid). Because of the pandemic and the ice storm, the ER was packed. The sick people got put in rooms or the hallways next to rooms, while the injured people stayed in the waiting room. I saw three broken wrists and a guy with a dislocated shoulder that looked painful - all ice related injuries. Another guy had fallen on his head like me, but he seemed to be faring better than me. He could at least walk around without the world spinning. I got a CT scan of my head and neck and waited for the doctor to read the results. Turns out it was a concussion. They sent me on my way and said to follow up with my doctor within a week. Aunt Erin came over to watch the girls so Matt could come pick me up.

The first night home I did not want to fall asleep. I was scared I would not wake up. You hear all those suggestions that someone is supposed to wake you up every hour, but the ER doctor said that was not what they recommended anymore. I finally was able to fall asleep, but then I woke up almost every hour for some reason.

I spent the week recovering. I got headaches and really tired if I tried to do too much. I felt really weak in my legs, too. It was weird. I took quite a few screen breaks and just rested. I had the follow-up with my doctor on Friday. She said everything looked good and that the recovery can take anywhere from 4-6 weeks. Well, I was not expecting that! She did say it would be ok to fly (I have a girls trip planned for next week to New Orleans!) But, she said I can't drink alcohol. At the most, I could have a glass of wine. I said, well, we have a food/drink tour where we get to try all sorts of cocktails. She said that I could have a "sip" of each one, but that was it. Bummer!

Oh, while I was at the ER, the girls were so upset and scared for me. Daddy helped them make me cards that they sent me pictures of. It made me smile to get them! I'm pretty sure they were super traumatized by the whole thing. I got lots of hugs the next day!