(Yeah, I’m 6 months behind. Pretend it’s Thanksgiving 2016.) It started out as a good idea earlier in the year: instead of cooking this year, let’s drive to New Orleans and spend a few days over Thanksgiving. And our lives just erupted. Due to staffing issues at work, my job was chewing up a ton of time. The kids kept getting sick and missing school, so we kept taking time off to hang out with them. We never really managed to set aside time to actually plan our simple vacation. Instead we were going to wing it. FYI – we suck at winging it.
Maya age just-turned-4, Ian age not-quite-2, New Orleans 2016
In true Woods vacation fashion, we started our trip early with Maya vomiting the night before we were to leave. We took Ian to school the next morning (the day before Thanksgiving), but due to a communication mix-up, he wasn’t given his lunch so when Sean picked him up at midday, he was understandably cranky. Plus, we had to take time to feed him once we got home. Because we’d been up late the night before, we wound up packing in the morning, so between that and Ian’s lunch, we got on the road late. Because it was Thanksgiving, what should have been a roughly 7.5-8 hour trip took us closer to 11-12 hours. Because the kids slept in the car, they were kinda ready for action when they got to the apartment. It was a long day.
“Scary Ladies”
We stayed in an AirBNB apartment in the Bywater area of New Orleans. It was convenient for the things we thought we might like to do, and with the bedroom layout, it suited our needs well enough with the kids. It really is nice to be able to wake up in the morning and make everyone a relatively stress-free breakfast before we head out for the day. There was some interesting artwork in the house as well, which I liked. On one wall of the living room area was a large adhesive of a woman and a girl, kind of abstract and ghostly. Maya was scared of it. She didn’t want to be around it at all. But the neat thing was that she kept having theories about why the little one was sad. And she decided that the bigger one was her mom. To this day, she continues to talk about “those scary ladies on the wall in New Orleans.” I kind of love it that it made such an impression. We haven’t braved taking the two of them to any art museums or exhibits yet (not counting the sculpture garden), but maybe we should consider it.
Ian, getting into the spirit
On Thanksgiving day, we wandered around a bit in the French Quarter around Jackson Square and along the Mississippi River. The kids were really needing to run their sillies out and we hadn’t found a great way for them to do that. Because it was a holiday, most of the restaurants were closed, so our figure-it-out-as-we-go approach wasn’t really netting good results. We wound up ducking into a fried chicken joint for some chicken strips and honey-buttered biscuits. It was solid, if not particularly adventurous.
We were fortunate to have been invited to our friends’ parents’ Thanksgiving dinner, so after kid naps, we headed across Lake Pontchartrain. Maya was still out of sorts from being sick and the long day of travel, so she was a little unruly (of course, she’s always a little unruly), but in general we all had a really nice time. The food was amazing, and I can’t say enough nice things about the hospitality. We were made to feel welcome, and it really was nice to spend the holiday with friends.
Ian inexplicably dislikes doughnuts
The next day, we decided to take the kids to District Donuts for a good start. We wound up with a chocolate milk doughnut (by far the best), a brownie doughnut, and something pink of Maya’s choosing whose name i do not remember. The only thing we could get Ian to eat was the chocolate chunks from the brownie doughnut. And the table. Maya had a fine time watching the folks in the back make the doughnuts by hand.
Not 100% sure this was meant to be climbed
After that, we were off to the Insectarium. There were lots of touristy activities we could have done with the kids, but we wanted to shake up the zoo-aquarium-children’s museum rut we felt we had fallen into, so we took them to a bug museum instead. It was really neat, and the kids seemed to have a good time. There were many species of bugs in enclosures that were low enough to the ground that both kids could wander up and easily see what was going on. There were plenty of places for them to climb around (whether they should have or not is debatable) and interact with the exhibits. We popped into the cafe and had some treats made with bugs. Maya took a stab at eating a cricket and Ian tested out a mealworm. Despite my open attitude toward food, I tend to balk at eating bugs. I did eat both the cricket pumpkin pie and the mealworm cornbread, thank you very much. Gotta set a good example for the kids, you know.
Celebration in the Oaks was a big hit
That night, we went to the Celebration in the Oaks. The already incredible New Orleans City Park is rendered ethereal by a thorough coating of holiday lights and decorations. We rode a train around the park, which Maya loved and Ian hated. We snacked on kettle corn, learned about Cajun Santa, saw the most amazing miniature train set-up, and played in Storyland. We even scored photos with Santa! It was probably my favorite thing we did while on this vacation.
The next day, we really did need to give the kids time to just run and play, so we kept it low key. We had beignets at Morning Call (because you kind of have to have beignets somewhere). After that, we just wandered over to the first playground we saw in City Park and let the kids play. They climbed on a giant oak tree and swung and slid until they both looked like they might like a nap.
We had lunch at Cochon Butcher that day. It was easily the best meal of our trip. The kids were again a little finicky about their food, but Sean and I dined on all manner of things I can no longer remember and had a wonderful time doing so.
Maya loved the street car
After a rest at the house and a dinner not really worth mentioning, we took Maya for a ride on the street cars. I don’t know what it is about mass transit, but she loves it. Busses, trains, airplanes – she’s always ready to go. Maya had been watching those street cars during our entire visit, and she loved the ride. Ian, surprise surprise, hated it.
The next day was our very long 12 hour journey home. Like many of our vacations with the kids, this one was hard, maybe one of the harder ones we’ve taken. Apparently we are nostalgic folks though, because looking back on the photos now, we seem to only focus on the fun we managed to have.
