Oak Alley Plantation

On Saturday, in celebration of my birthday, we had a family outing.

We picked up some sandwiches and drove an hour to Oak Alley Plantation.

It was our first time at a plantation.  This one was a sugar cane plantation that is on the Mississippi river.

We started with a picnic.

Then started touring the grounds.

The slave quarters.

This plantation is famous for its beautiful alley of oak trees.  We saw a picture of it and that is why we chose this plantation.

But when we got to the alley of oak trees it didn't look the same as the pictures and was pretty but not amazing like the picture had made it look.

We were kinda disappointed but took our posed pictures in front of it.

But then we realized we were at the back of the house, and that the real oak alley was at the front of the house.

And it was amazing.  Lined with 300 year old oak trees.

So we redid our pictures.

Aren't they amazing!

Here is a picture that will help give you some perspective on how big these trees are.

Exploring with Daddy.

The house.

 We did a tour of the house which was interesting but not nearly as grand as I expected.

Alice being silly on the balcony.

After the tour we walked down the alley of oaks.

Here comes Alice!

This girl loves running around and the outdoors.

Oak Alley as seen from across the street.  Isn't it amazing how much the oaks sprawl out!

Across the street from the plantation is the levy and the Mississippi river.

So we climbing up it to see the view.

"I made it!"

The Mighty Mississippi.

Then it was back home for dinner and my choice in movie which was the documentary Babies.

Stephen took it like a trooper with minimum complains :o)

The end.

Bluebonnet Swamp

The weekend before finals started for Stephen we decided we had better do something together since he was going to be locked in his office for the next week or two.

So we decided to go to Bluebonnet swamp and get our first real taste of the "bayou".

In the parking lot there's a pond full of turtles which Alice loved, especially because she can say "turtle".

And it's really cute to hear her say it because she kinda over articulates it.

 We went into the nature center and she got to see a snake up close.

She was interested in all the reptiles, not so sure of them, but not really scared either.

Then we went on the walking path that goes through the swamp.

It was really beautiful and a really nice day.

We saw a bunny, which had a swarm of mosquitoes attacking its nose.

It was really gross, and I felt really bad for it.

There were lots of crazy looking caterpillars.

Which meant that Stephen and I spent the whole day with the "Caterpillar, caterpillar, tickle tickle on my arm" song stuck in our head.

So pretty, right?!

We had to keep a close eye on Alice for fear of her falling into the swamp, especially since we saw a couple snakes in the water.

It was a really fun outing and we will definitely go again.

Papa and Grandma Visit

Papa Wolfe and Grandma Patti came to visit us during Spring break.

We met up with them in New Orleans.

The weather had been really nice but it suddenly turned cold that week.

We walked around the French Quarter.

And went to the Children's Museum, which Alice loved and had lots of fun playing with Grandma.

Afterward she was very ready for a nap.

The next day we drove to Baton Rouge and showed them around.

At LSU campus showing them the football mascot, Mike the tiger.

He was pretty boring since he was just laying in the dirt but Alice still liked it.

We also took them to the capitol building where Alice discovered the fun of an echo.

It was a fun visit and Alice really enjoyed some Papa and Grandma time.

18 Months

Alice is 18 months old!

I can't believe it.

She seems more grown up everyday.

She keeps getting taller, talking more, and figuring things out more.

She LOVES playing outside.

Not sure what she is doing here, probably screaming, she does a ton of that now too.

Don't believe me, here is a little taste of life at my house:

She has learned how to throw the ball for Lilo, so now they are best friends.

Her hair is getting longer and developing into some adorable curls.

She loves our neighbor's dog.

She loves to pick leaves and grass and feed it to the dog through the fence.

I miss my baby, but my toddler sure is a ton of fun. :o)

Built-in Bookcases

So we have a ton of books, no surprise there.

Most of them are Stephen's and are theology or philosophy related.

We have keep them on our set of dark brown ikea bookcases.

We have learned though that ikea furniture was not intended to be moved, and certainly not 4 times.

Each move they have fallen apart more and more.

So because of that, and because we had more books than bookcases,

We decided to built some new bookcases.

We had no idea what we were getting into.

The cost and time was more than we had planned.

I spent about 4 days priming and painting all the pieces in our living room.

I listened to Tale of Two Cities while doing it so it wasn't so bad.

Alice of course was very helpful in the whole process.

The bookcases up with some touch ups left.  

Guess you can call them faux built-ins because we made them so they could be taken apart and be used individually and can come with us when we move.

Organizing the books.

Ok so here is the final before and after.

Before:

After!

Looks amazing right?!

Sadly we still have 6 boxes of books left over.

Mostly my psychology books and Stephen's civil war books and misc.

We left one of the bottom shelves for some of Alice's books.

I think I am going to regret doing that, we probably should have waited till she has learned to put them back.