3rd Annual Mardi Gras Trip

So, here it is on actual Fat Tuesday, and I'm finally getting around to posting this. I've had the blogged all typed up, I just haven't had the time to put the pictures together. I finally had the time to sit down and throw some pictures into a slide show. So....here ya go....

We made our trek to Shreveport for our annual trip to watch the Mardi Gras parade and to participate in some debauchery prior to the parade starting. No worries (Mom), everything was kid friendly. People hear Mardi Gras and they think tatas or something like that. No, this is a kid-friendly parade. Granted prior to the parade starting, the adults enjoy a few adult beverages and we have some fun!

Our trip started out Friday afternoon leaving our casa. Jason wasn't supposed to get off until 7pm on Friday, but ended up leaving work early. Tristen doesn't get out of school until 4 so by the time we left the house, it was 5pm. Not really the best idea, leaving on a Friday with rush hour traffic. Whatever though, we bite the bullet and head out. Mind you, I make a dash for the car b/c I did NOT want to drive. I won! We are truckin' along down 35 South living it up in the HOV lane. BAM....we get to 635, conveniently where the HOV lane ends, and it is bumper to freakin' bumper traffic. I look up the route on my nifty little iphone and sure enough the traffic is 'red' from where we are all the way down town. So long story short...................................traffic was a beating and we finally get out of town. We are finally up to normal highway speed and are going for about 20 minutes. The all too familiar annoying question comes flying out of the back seat, 'Are we there yet??????' Jason fielded that question, 'NO, and don't ask again!' LOL! Harsh much? LOL...no b/c with a 11 and 12 year old you've got to be stern. We are on 20 heading east and of course someone has to pee, you'd think it would've been one of the boys, but no...it was Jason. So finally, we get back on the road and we are good to go. We finally arrive in Shreveport in 4 hours instead of the 3 it normally takes. After saying our hellos and chit chatting a bit with Jason's extended family (aunt, uncle, mamaw, etc.) we decide to call it a night and head to our hotel.

This whole trip is about the parade (and of course seeing J's family). One might ask, what is the big deal about the parade. Well, it is all about location. Location, location, location for your parade/bead catching spot. The baracades for the parade route usually open around 7am. Well, Bonnie (J's aunt) always rents a porta-potty for our area since we are out there for 6-7 hours. The porta-potty is just dropped and marked private. This, however, does not prevent anyone from taking your 'spot'. You cannot mark your 'spot' until the parade route is opened. So....at 3:30am, Aunt Bonnie and the crew (Marty, Dennis, & Shane) all headed down to mark off our route. Marty was staying in our room at our hotel and so the alarm went off at 2:50am for her to get up and go to Bonnie's. She leaves, whatever, no big deal, right. Well about 45 minutes later, Jason and I awake to this screeching beeping noise. We both fight with the alarm clock (in the dark no less) to try and get it turned off. Finally, we turn on the bedside lamp and I'm starting to unplug the stupid alarm clock and we both realized at the same time it was the freaking fire alarm. Nice, eh? So, kids are still asleep and I decided to go open the door to see what was going on before I woke 3 kids (Colby, Tristen and Abby). Of course, I don't smell anything except for something that resembled the smell of burnt bacon. We were waved back to our rooms (luckily we were staying on the 1st floor) by the front desk staff. I'm assuming that Night Auditor got hungry and went and made himself some bacon and forgot about it or something b/c the next morning there was not any bacon on the Continental Breakfast. LOL! Of course it wasn't complete, without the fire trucks and all the noise arriving within 30 seconds of me laying back down to try to go back to sleep.

So anyways, fast forward to about noon. We head out to our parade site that was safely secured by our 'crew'. They took shifts sitting out at our parade site from 5am - noon when we got there. I have apparently been nominated to participate in the early rising for this next year. My remarks, 'Well, I might not be able to do it if I'm pregnant!' Nope, I still didn't get out of my nomination. Crap!

The afternoon always starts off slow. We all sit around the fire pit, realtively calm. The gumbo and taco soup arrived that are prepared by the fabulous Mary. The kids are always rambunctious. Me being the OCD mom, always thinks the boys need to 'look nice', so I pack them 'good jeans' (this means fairly new jeans w/no holes in the knee). Dumb mistake and lesson learned. Who cares what their jeans look like...as long as they aren't highwaters! Not sure how many times I said, 'Tristen/Colby - stay off of your knees!" (I was fighting grass stains like no other when I did laundry when we returned.) This year, we were treated to Jello shots! Woohoo. Actually, the jello shots were to try to entice the bead throwers to throw us adults some big beads (in trade for the jello shots). I myself decided to take it 'easy' and drink mimosas. Yum yum! Anyways, shortly before the parade started we had a little dancefest that I've yet to decide whether or not I'm going to post the video. I'm torn on whether to forego my embarassment and post it or save my face and not post it. LOL! It is all 'clean' material, just quite hilarious and not sure that I want it on the intraweb for everyone to see.

The parade was fun. We collected lots of beads and cups. The parade seemed a lot longer this year than previous years. The boys pick out beads they want to keep and then put the other beads in a huge bucket that Aunt Bonnie takes and to an "Old Folks Home".

We headed home Sunday morning and made it back with plenty of time to relax before the week started. Fortunately, I had Monday off due to President's Day! (I love having Banker's Hours/Holidays!)