The Big Easy

Rosoce took his first trip to New Orleans 2 weekends ago. We headed down for an amazing celebration of life honoring our friend Gregory Slay who left us earlier this year. As he would have liked it, we all immersed ourselves in New Orleans culture - Cafe du Monde for beignets, Napoleon House for red beans, walk along the river, street music, the aquarium (Roscoe loved the jellyfish!), heat & humidity (!!), and lots of time with friends... we need more weekends like this.

Share beignets?! Hmmph!

Sweet Noah and Roscoe.

A walk along the river brought us to this wonderful trumpeteer.

He likes fish. Daddy's boy.  :)

Long day in the New Orleans humidity.

Quick stop at Aunt Caroline's!

New friend from the Velasco clan... Henry!

A chance meeting (finally)... Tio Diego was in town! Yay!

Our first big bounty!

Jerel had a great idea... how about a family garden at his grandparents' house in the country? He's been working on it with our dads for the last couple of months. This weekend was my first visit, and all I can say is WOW. I had no idea we had tomatoes, eggplants, melons, 3 or 4 types of sqaush, beans, peppers... it's going to be a summer filled with yumminess!!! Yay!!!!

My mom inspecting the squash.

Roscoe watching Dad and grandparents weeding and harvesting.

Oh, the bounty! How exciting!!!

Baby panda in our backyard

Sleeping Booty

An afternoon snooze at the great-grandparents' house.

What's up, Doc?

Our little Easter bunny.

Azaleas in full bloom...

... daddies and Roscoes, too!

19.5 lbs.

 9 month check-up... still growing! :)

Morning pose

First ZOO trip

G for Giraffe

Checking out the flamingos

Enjoying the ride

Uncles and Aunts and Cousins, oh my!

Uncle Ced and the pups - Miles ChooChoo & Chloe Car

Noah Kai!

Stealing Cousin Marianne's glasses.

Skooching on the table in front of Uncle Philip.

Morning with Aunt Caroline.

Fun necklaces.

SECOND snow!

Unheard of... 2 snow days in one winter! February 12.

Baby snow angel.

Snow makes everyday life look like a postcard.

First Snow

December 5. There was much awe and wonder.

Wrasslin' in JXN

Uncle Mark finally took a break from wrasslin' to meet the little dude. They were fast friends. Of course.

Sunshine

Fun-filled Saturday back in early December 2009.

For Lent

I give up not posting on this blog. For the next 40 days, I will strive to post something every other day, at the very least. Wish me luck.

Alas, our new home....

I'm a bit slow at this posting pics things. Sorry to anyone that was promised pictures "this weekend". I can't promise to be any better about it in the future, but I will TRY. We've been in the house since June 14 and are enjoying every square foot of it - inside and out. We're (mainly Jerel) are slowly, but surely, doing all the 1st phase renovations (painting - nearly done!, renovating closets, master bath re-do, finishing the man cave, building a deck). 2nd phase: we'll be building a new bathroom and hopefully renovating the kitchen, and lots of landscaping. After that, we should be able to relax. Ahhhhhhhh.

So, here's what we started with. Watch as we progress over the years....

Living/dining areas

Kitchen

Man cave

Hall

Roscoe's room

Master

Master bath

Family room looking into kitchen

A few of our paint colors!