Awards

I'm a little late but special thanks to Lori for the Stiletto Award and Band Groupie for the Happy 101 Award.  It still fascinates me that people actually read this and respond to it without getting completely fed up with ranting, raving, crying, venting and shamelessly posting pics of my girls. 

I know the rules with these rewards include nominating others but, to be honest, I just don't have it in me.  If you want to read through some of the most inspirational, funny and sometimes heart wrenching blogs available in blogland, just click on any one of the amazing blogs listed in the blog list to the right.  All of you who follow me, I try to reciprocate and follow you as well.  This has become so therapeutic for me and it's hard to describe how even though we may never meet in person, I feel like I've already made so many friends through this process...and I'm not even banded yet!  Just amazing.  So...to Lori and Band Groupie...Thanks again.  To everyone else, congratulations!  You've all been nominated for these awards and the "Manda Panda Blogger of the Year" award made especially for those who provide support for even the most mundane events in my life.  Have a great week everybody!

Happy Good Friday/Easter!

Happy Good Friday!  My mom got me thinking yesterday because she was saying how Good Friday is depressing.  I, personally, always liked Good Friday because it always falls on a Friday and who doesn't like Fridays?  It meant the last day of no meat on Friday's, the last weekend of sacrifice, and that Easter was only two days away.  She always preferred Holy Thursday because it was all about the Last Supper and Good Friday is all about the crucifixtion which, if you actually take the time to think about it, is very sad. She's right, of course, so special thanks to my mom for depressing me on this Friday morning.  LOL.  However, it is still a Friday and I am in desperate need of one so I will, at least, be thankful for that.  I have reigned in my eating a good bit this week so feeling better about things on that front.  However, we had Mexican food last night and other than a taco salad (which I didn't have) low fat/low cal just isn't really available.  It was yummy though and my girls ate some most of the fried icecream.  So..for the weekend, I will leave you pics of my girls.  The first few are them enjoying the spoils of our trip to New Orleans.  The last bunch are of Easter Egg Rice Krispy Treats we made last weekend.  I'm proud to say I only ate two.  The girls ate a few and the rest went to work for coworkers to feast on.  If you have kids, I highly recommend this little adventure...they loved it!

After we finished, I let them dip strawberries in the chocolate and chow down.  They were so excited. And yes, I had two chocolate covered strawberries. MMMMMM....

You may have noticed something off about the final product...for instance, one of the treats are a lot darker and a lot BIGGER than the others.  Well, here's what happend. I had enough rice krispy mix left for two eggs but only one mor slot in my handy dandy deviled egg tupperware thing.  So I made one GIANT egg.  So we decided since it was the last one to have some fun with it, so we dipped the entire egg in chocolate and then rolled it in Coco Pebbles cereal.  Oh.My.God.  For a chocoholic, it was absolutely, positively sinful...not to mention delicious!  So there you have it.

Happy Easter Everybody!

Finally - PICS!

First stop, St. Patty's Day at Irish Channel - very cool local block party

Next, Storyville - awesome local t-shirt shop with a lot of local flair and designs we didn't really understand until the owner explained them to us, will definitely be hitting up their online store

Appetizers and the meal in the Irish Channel.  The BEST nachos EVER and my first hurricane of the day.  Then later, a fried seafood platter that I maybe ate 1/3 of.  Red beans and rice that my hubby raved about.

Next up - Bourbon St.  Famous balconies

Beads...

A moving bar...

With drunk guys who give you flowers....

And old guys in kilts that dance with you during the parade

Also went to the Mardis Gras Museum

Me in front a flowery float thingie

St. Peter's...inside and out...

We had cafe au lait and beignets from Cafe Du Monde - So delicious!

Fantastic street entertainers...

Pretty fountains...

Famous Pirate's Blacksmith Shop...oldest structure in the U.S. to be used as a pub...built in 1772?? Sounds right.  Anyhoo...they make VERY strong hurricanes there.

Very nice people we met there from Ft. Worth and got good and shnockered with.

So Shnockered, I felt the need to get my picture taken with a very nice police officer...

Food porn!  Crawfish pasta in a Tasso sauce...

Gumbo from the Gumbo Shop - incidentally met some very nice people from Austin, TX there

Lamb - generally not a fan but was absolutely to.die.for.  I had the lamb, quail (itty bitty tiny bird...who knew?), crawfish beignet and the best white chocolate bread pudding ever.  Only have a picture of the lamb however and only half of of it at that.  I forgot to pull my camera out earlier.

Saturday we had ourselves a little picnic with a world famous muffeletta and old fashioned rootbeer in a glass bottle...

We witnessed a wedding march...literally.

Our view from our hotel...

Okay...so you all know I have thing for panda bears. Duh.  Turns out on Bourbon Street, this is a lingerie store/brothel type place. LMAO!

It rained the last night we were there so we were going to avoid walking around but we did anyway and got absolutely soaked...still looked pretty good though.

So there you have it...our trip to NOLA in pictures.  We had a great time!