Going on 'bee-vacation"

That's what Caroline told everyone at her school on Thursday: "we are going on bee-vacation." We headed down to New Orleans on Thursday afternoon and spent the night. We spent all day Friday there getting to see the Aquarium, which none of us had been to before.

To start the day on Friday, we took the street car down to the French Quarter for beignets at Cafe Du Monde and then took a walk around Jackson Square and into the Quarter for a little bit before heading back to the hotel for Charlotte's nap (and Charlotte was an angel the entire day, she didn't cry once, just sucked her little thumb while I pushed her in the stroller). We walked through St. Louis Cathedral and Caroline was truly in awe. She is always fascinated by seeing depictions of Jesus, and the sight of a crucifix is especially intriguing to her. She has lots of questions, most of which I'm not equipped to answer, but I do my best to explain that the crucifix is just a statue of Jesus and he's not dead like that anymore. I think one of the things about having a child who asks a lot of questions (are there any children who don't?) is that it really makes you figure out what you believe and how to explain those beliefs. It is quite humbling most of the time!













While Charlotte slept and I got us packed up, Caroline and Jeff went to the pool to practice some of her newly acquired swimming skills. Caroline can officially swim freestyle now, head in the water, moving those arms and kicking her legs. We're really proud of the progress she's made over the past two weeks!

After we got all checked out of the hotel we walked back to the Quarter for a quick lunch and then headed over to the Aquarium. It was really amazing to see all of the fish, sharks, sting rays, frogs, alligators, . . . and I'm sure there are plenty of other things I'm neglecting to mention. My favorite part was petting the sting ray and the shark. Caroline was a little freaked out by the sting ray, but the shark was a little more sedentary, so she wasn't afraid to pet it and I think that ranked high on her enjoyment scale for the day.













It was a hot day; I think the high in New Orleans got up to 95, but it felt more like 120. We took a quick walk through the RiverWalk before getting back to our car at the hotel and getting on the road. The girls were both asleep before we got on the interstate. We had a good, tiring, but short bee-vacation.