18 Months Old and in NOLA!

We took Parker on his first trip to New Orleans this weekend.  We met my parents on Saturday and brought Parker's babysitter/nanny, Liz, and her boyfriend along for the fun.  We were lucky enough to end up with an extra seat on the flight to New Orleans, so instead of being a "lap infant", he got to be a big boy in his own seat!

We ate lunch out by the lake at our new favorite restaurant, Castnets.  We all had huge fried shrimp poboys and Parker loved his first shrimp poboy too!  I'm sure we have started him on cajun food early, and it won't be his last poboy!

We also had a baby in a bar.  (Name the movie, "Look - you have a baby in a bar!").  His first trip to Pat O'Brien's and his first Shirley Temple.  He had a sugar high after eating about 6 cherries.  Here he is eating celery from the chicken wings that Pops ordered.

I would have never thought that I would be pushing a stroller down Bourbon Street, but we did and Parker had a great first trip down Bourbon Street waving at strangers, pointing at lights, yelling Wow!, and doing other cute things to get attention.  

We stumbled upon a Harrah's Casino parade for all of their elite gamblers.  There were 8-10 Mardi Gras-style floats and everyone was throwing out beads.  Parker was in heaven collecting beads at his first parade and has been wearing them non-stop ever since. They were the first thing he wanted when he woke up in his pack-n-play!

We took a quick sprint through the Aquarium.  This was his first trip to an aquarium.  He was tired and not very patient, but he liked seeing all of the fish and he has perfected making fish lips.  Notice all of the beads he's wearing the next day.  We even had a woman ask if she could take his picture because he looked like a mini frat kid with he madras plaid, new balances, and gob of beads.

My mom came and met us at the Aquarium - it was impossible to keep up with him and the stroller by myself.

Plus, she's learned how to bribe him and always carry snacks for him in her purse.  This day she had graham cracker goldfish.

He also took his first ferry ride to Algiers and back, then to the Gretna Music festival on the other side of the Mississippi River.  Sara Evans and Tracy Lawrence played while we were there, so I guess we can count it as his first music festival and first concert.

We met my dad at Cafe Du Monde yesterday so Parker could try his first beniget.  He was still full from our huge breakfast at Mena's Palace, so he wasn't really excited about powdered sugar.  But Pop's cell phone is always a hit.

Parker has a new obsession with buses, particularly school buses, but any conversion van, metro bus, or trolley will still get his yelling BUS for hours.  New Orleans has a great trolley system with red trolleys and we've never taken advantage of them before.  Yesterday we took Parker on his first trolley ride down the Mississippi River from Cafe Du Monde back to our hotel by the Convention Center.  When we got off, Parker kept saying "more, more", meaning that he wanted to ride it again.

I promise that Benton was on this trip - Liz took lots of pictures with her good camera, so I'll have more NOLA pics later!