Jazzfest 2007

Today we went to Jazzfest, here in New Orleans. We spent the day eating wonderful food like Crawfish Bread, Crawfish Beignets, and Crawfish Puffs, while relaxing in the sun, people watching, and listening to good music. Don't you just love my new giant bug sunglasses? I used to make fun of mom relentlessly for wearing these kind of glasses! Who would have thought they'd be back in style, and that I'd actually wear them!

We met up with our friends Chuck and Erin for the Norah Jones concert which was great!

There is nothing like kicking back in the sun and listening to some great music with friends.

Fuddpuckers 2007-- A Weekend of Volleyball Fun!

Last weekend, I went to Florida with a group of people who play in our volleyball leagues here in New Orleans to participate in the largest beach volleyball tournament in the US. We played women's 4's (that's our team above) in the BB division. We played BB because we didn't really have any big hitters or blockers (I hit most of the day, which should give you an idea why we played BB since I'm a setter/defensive player.) We did pretty well in pool play on the first day, taking second in our pool of six, which placed us 11 out of 35 teams. On the second day, which was single elimination, we made it to the semi-finals, and then lost, which placed us third in our division... not bad for my first fuddpuckers trip (Fuddpuckers is the bar that organizes the tournament).

We left New Orleans on Thursday afternoon, and spent the night at a friends house in Navarre Beach. Then on Friday, before even going to our hotel, we hit the beach at Fort Walton for some pickup volleyball. We met Terry and Chris (from Kentucky) shown below, and played some coed 4's with them, and some coed doubles with some other friends we made.

After our day of pickup volleyball, we finally headed to our hotel room, and then out we went to the opening night party for the tournament! Here's a picture of some of the girls from New Orleans.

Saturday brought our first tournament games, and was followed by another night out with the girls for dinner, and another party sponsored by the tournament.

Some of the gang from New Orleans chose to be true to our city and dress in costume. As you can see below, Doug is quite the character in his wonderwoman costume which he actually played in despite the wind blowing the cape in his face! Another one of our New Orleans teams dressed up as nerds, with the very creative team name "To Kill a Blocking Nerd".

Probably the funniest moment of the trip, and undoubtedly the most embarassing, was when my bikini top broke during warmups and I flashed the entire beach before I realized what had happened! After a quick recovery with a sport bra which I luckily put in my bag at the last minute in the morning, we were back on the court and ready to play. At least it was during warmups and not during a game! And I didn't even get any beads for my effort!

Our brief welcome home

After 5 days in doggie day-care and boarding, I was greeted by an enormous amount of barking as I tried to pay for Sake and Baxter's bill. I then received several doggie kisses and home we went. After maybe 5 minutes of racing around the house to check that everything was still where they left it, I was quickly forgotten.... only to be replaced by bones and a nice long nap. I think they missed their rawhide chews more than us!

Easter get away... snow included

For Easter, we flew up to Wisconsin to visit my parents. A big part of our decision to spend Easter in Wisconsin was based on the planned arrival of Jeremy and Jamie's first child, Sydney. However, Sydney wasn't having any of that. She decided that even though her scheduled due date was the last week in March, she was perfectly happy in her current location ... despite "mom-to-be's" discomfort and anticipation!

So, with a trip down to Illinois, instead of spending a quiet evening at home with a newborn, the four of us headed out for some dinner at Portillo's followed by some Cold Stone ice cream for dessert.

Even though it was only a 4 day trip, we also had a quick visit with Sandy and Chad, and were amazed to see how quickly their little ones are growing up!

Of course a trip to Wisconsin in April wouldn't be complete without snow ... which we woke up to find on Saturday, just in time for our Easter family get together. In my disgruntled state brought on by snow in April, I forgot to take a picture. Oh well. Since most of you reading this are in Wisconsin, I'm sure you didn't miss it.

Two down, One to Go!

So phase two of our "no more carpet" plan is done. We spent two weekends in March working on the second bedroom, tearing out carpeting and installing new floors.

I have to say that this round went both better, and worse than the last room. Though the process itself was faster, thanks to both a new sawzall and the experience from the first room, there were more arguements and periods of angry silence than in the last room.

Having said that, we have completed yet another home improvement project without moving to separate bedrooms or the need for divorce papers (my boss claims that home improvement projects are a sure way to end up doing just that-- especially when either hanging or removing wallpaper is involved)!

We probably could have finished in one weekend, but we took some time out to go biking since the weather was too nice to be inside working all day.

So here's a look at the finished product! It's our guest room ... just in case anyone feels like they are up for a trip to New Orleans!