New Orleans

A couple of weeks ago Cade had to go to New Orleans for a work conference. I've never had a desire to go there but since his boss was paying for me to fly out there I couldn't resist. I decided to take Conner with us since I wouldn't have anything to do during the day anyway. (Good thing since both grandmas were unavailable to watch him and we didn't have a choice.)

I was pretty worried about the plane ride. Mostly worried about him pooping and having no place to change him and everyone within 20 rows of us gagging to death from the smell. I figured as long as he didn't poop or have an earache from changing altitude then we would be able to manage. I came as prepared as possible bringing lots of snacks, new toys, and holding off on giving him his bottle until we took off. But it turned out we barely needed most of the stuff. We had four flights total, 2 there and 2 back. The first flight was at his naptime and I figured as long as he wasn't too interested in his surroundings he would fall right to sleep. He was a little cranky waiting to board since he was so tired but thankfully he fell asleep before we even got off the ground! (I just love this kid.) Unfortunately, my arms got pretty tired of the position so after about an hour I moved and he woke up and was too into his new surroundings that he couldn't go back to sleep. But he was pretty happy for the rest of the flight playing with the papers in the seat pocket and smiling at the lady sitting with us. During our layover in Dallas there was a fun play area that he just LOVED so we wore him (and us) out pretty good playing peek-a-boo around the bridge over and over again. So on flight number 2 he fell asleep within 10 minutes and didn't wake up until we stood to get our luggage. Flight number 3 on the way home turned out just like flight number 1, he was out before we made it to the clouds, only he slept the whole time on this one. There was only about an hour layover before our final flight so he wasn't quite worn out enough for the last flight and he was a bit cranky but after about a half hour he was out until we landed. So the flights went great and multiple people even commented on how great he was during the flight. And best of all he never pooped on the plane!! (I apologize for the the pictures becauase of course our camera was dead when I went to take the first picture and I didn't think to bring the charger so all of the pictures are from Cade's phone which isn't good.)

Playing with the seatback

The clouds

After we arrived on Saturday we just walked around near our hotel to find something to eat. It was pretty late and we didn't care to spend much time out there with the many drunks and smokers all over with our small child so we just headed back and relaxed. Conner stayed on Arizona time the whole time which was great because then we were able to go out in the evenings after the conference and not have to be back by 8 and he slept in. He never does that at home so it was great to experience that again. On Sunday while Cade was gone Conner and I took our time getting ready and then walked around the riverwalk mall that was underneath our hotel and watched some cruise ships sail away. While we were down there I learned the Louisiana is serious about their football. Every place in the food court had the football game on in the back and were asking who had the ball or whatever. Even the salon in the mall was watching the game! That evening we took some streetcars (a.k.a. trolleys, but don't tell them that) over to the Garden District and looked at very expensive antebellum homes on St. Charles Ave. Rumor has it that Sandra Bullock and Nicholas Cage both have houses in there. I don't know why but I just love riding trolleys so we had a good time doing that. And I LOVE cities that have great public transportation and you don't need to bother renting a car.

If you look closely you can see tons of beads hanging from the trees from Mardi Gras.

One of the homes

Waiting for the streetcar (FYI The streetcar named Desire is now out of commission.)

Enjoying the ride

A cool tree in Audubon Park

On Monday Conner and I sat in the hotel room and waited and waited for him to take a nap. He was pretty cranky and had a hard time going to sleep with me in sight and no rocking chair to lull him to sleep. I thought about walking him around the hallways but I felt pretty gross and couldn't take a shower without someone there to watch him because he can and does get into everything and the room was not baby proof. Thankfully Cade snuck me food from the conference, watched Conner at lunch, and eventually Conner took a nap. That evening we went to the French Quarter and wandered around. We later heard that it is very expensive to rent there and I have no idea why because it is disgusting. Its one of those places that is so old and worn down, everything looks like its falling apart, its hot and humid with lots of bars (and apparently drunks peeing in the street) and it just smelled. But to each his own... We did eat at a nice place that had a jazz band and I enjoyed a Po'boy and jambalaya. Both were good, but not something I would ever crave or want to spend money on again.

The jazz band at the restaurant

One tuckered out kid. It was his naptime Arizona time and made for a relaxing dinner.

Cade thought it would be fun to put Conner in the aligator's mouth, but Conner didn't agree.

Tuesday was another fun day wandering around the hotel looking for things to entertain us until Cade arrived. In the mall underneath us was Cafe de Mondes that sells beignets. They are square doughnuts sprinkled with powdered sugar. I love doughnuts and these were delicious! Later that night we went back to the French Quarter for a walking haunted history tour. It wasn't supposed to be scary, more informational about the places that are haunted around there. Our tour guide wasn't the most personable and was very serious. We walked past another group that was laughing and I wondered what their guide was telling them because ours didn't tell us anything funny. It also didn't help that we would stop on a corner while he talked for about 15 minutes at a time and Conner only likes walks where we are actually walking. So Cade and I took turns wandering off with him and only caught parts of stories. Needless to say, that wasn't our favorite activity.

Waiting for the Haunted History Tour

A view of the city from the river

Wednesday was our whole day to tour. We took a bus tour of the city (and Conner slept the whole way). It was really interesting. There are specific Katrina tours you can take to see the devastation and what not. We didn't go on one but every tour mentioned things related to the hurricane and this one talked a lot about it and the changes they've made since then. For example, the people in charge of turning the water pumps on and off had to evacuate during the hurricane, but now they have a special tower that can withstand 240 mph winds so they will be staying put for any future hurricanes. They also are building much higher walls and have gates that will close to stop water from rushing into certain neighborhoods. The tour guide pointed out plots of land in between houses where houses were destroyed and never rebuilt. Something like 130,000 people have left and not returned since the hurricane. (Our next tour showed us where a Walmart shopping center was destroyed and is completely gone now.) We also saw cemetaries with above ground tombs because they are below sea level and the longest bridge over water in the U.S. (24 miles). Later that day we went on a swamp tour to see some aligators. We had lots of gators come right up to our boat and held a little baby one. It started out pretty warm but then a storm started rolling in and the weather felt great and it didn't start raining until our bus was pulling away. It was a fun tour.

Some of the above ground tombs

These tombs stacked on top of each other were rentals. For various reasons people would rent them out and then the body would be moved a few years later, like when someone died of yellow fever during the outbreak and they were waiting to be sure the disease was no longer contagious. (I might be missing something, it made more sense when the tour guide explained it :)

On the swamp

An aligator about 6 years old hanging out on a log. (The number of inches from the eyes to their mouth is the number of feet long they are and their age.)

Bruno getting up close and personal, he is about 12

This boat washed up after Hurricane Katrina, after finding the owner they figured it had come about 250 miles.

Holding the baby aligator. That lady is from Argentina and she didn't speak much English so she didn't listen much during the tour and kept playing with Conner and took a photo shoot of him. Another girl on the tour was from Hong Kong, I had no idea New Orleans was so internationally known.

The tour guide said there have been about 5 weddings back in that area of the swamp. Why didn't I think to get married there?!

I hope a gator doesn't come up and take my son's toes!

This is a swamp house destroyed by the hurricane. We forgot to take a picture but there was a whole "block" of houses with people living in them and waving at us as we floated by. I truely cannot imagine what life is like for them, I just keep thinking of the Disney movie The Rescuers. One of the houses that used the cheap way to secure it floated to another part of the swamp in the hurricane and is still in tact.

All in all, it was a fun trip. We enjoyed trying out some new foods and getting away for a little bit, but we feel like we saw everything we would care about and won't need to return. Something I will miss though are saying "Praw-lines" and "Naw Leans" and being around black people, seriously. They just crack me up and a few times I saw people just brake out singing to their friends. I don't ever see that around here.

And on a side note- Conner started walking just before the trip. He still hasn't mastered it but he can take about 6 steps before he falls down. I guess I'm a terrible mom because I just realized I've never taken a picture of the momentus occasion.

Labor Day Weekend

Every Labor Day we go camping with the Johnson family. Some years we get a cabin, but unfortunately that didn't happen this year so we were roughin it. We went up to Marshall Lake in Flagstaff. For some reason Cade and I took forever getting ready and had to make a few stops on the drive up there so we didn't arrive until about 8:30 on Friday night. About bedtime Cade realized he left the cool chest with our food sitting in our kitchen. This was not good. We were supposed to provide Saturday night's dinner and now we didn't have our food and would come home to a lot of ruined food. After a long debate we decided it would be best to drive back home in the Robles' Prius and get our food rather than to go to the store and buy more food for everyone. (Thanks for letting us borrow it!) So we drove the hour and a half back home and arrived about 12:30, but we enjoyed another wonderful night in our bed so I was glad about that. (In case you're wondering, it was cheaper to drive home because it was only about 2.5 gallons of gas, or $10.)

Don't worry though, the fun doesn't stop there. Cade, Conner, and I all came down with colds before we left so we weren't feeling great and Cade never even went fishing, hunting, or wakeboarding because he didn't feel good or was too wiped out. So most of the time we just sat around camp, which is fine for me but Cade doesn't love it.

Caryn and Conner sitting by the fire

Katie and Jeter



Tina, Tanner, Kameron, Jacob, Baby Logan, Natalie, Sam, Baby Conner, Caryn

On Saturday night Cade's parents got a couple of hotel rooms so we could take showers and go to church on Sunday. There was some mix up about that and when Katie and I decided our boys were ready to go to bed we had some difficulty getting there. Cade's parents were on the boat with no cell service so we couldn't get a hold of them to find out which hotel it was. We knew the name but there are multiples in Flagstaff so we didn't know which one. We called one of them and found out that the person who made the reservation had to be with us to check in. So we decided to drive down to the lake to try and find Tina or hopefully get better cell service. Unfortunately, every time a call went through it got disconnected before we could explain. After about 30 minutes we finally saw Russ coming up the dock and he told us that Tina had just driven back to camp with Jacob. So we drove back up there to get her. Then we ended up going to the wrong hotel and had to keep driving. It wouldn't have been so bad except that now both our boys ended up getting over an hour long nap in the car when they were supposed to be going to bed for the night. Once we finally got situated in the hotel the boys weren't tired at all and stayed up until 10:30. I'm really glad we got the hotel rooms because I barely slept at all due to my cold and felt awful and I can only imagine how much worse it would have been on the ground in a tent, without my pillow that I forgot to bring back up on the second trip up.

Conner and Jeter playing in the big "playpen". Conner loved waving at everybody from in there.

Grandpa Johnson with Jeter, Conner, and Logan



On Sunday we went to church and then hung out around camp some more. After solving the social problems of the country from around the fire we went to bed. It started lightly raining in the morning so Cade was moving our suitcases that were sitting outside into the truck and Conner decided he was ready to get up for the day (at 5 am). We hung out for awhile longer but by 11:00 Conner was ready for his second nap and Cade and I weren't feeling great so we decided to pack it up and go home when the rest of the family went down to the lake.

Our little family



Conner (9 months), Logan (6 months), Jeter (10 months)

Don't worry the fun still isn't over. While we drove down Lake Mary Road Cade was speeding. (He claims that is the only road he ever speeds on because he feels like the limit should be higher, I'm so sure.) Well it starts at 50 MPH and then drops to 45 MPH. Soon after it dropped Cade got caught going 66 MPH, which as the officer informed us is criminal. Its really annoying that Cade also claims he had the thought to slow down but just ignored it. While the officer was writing the ticket Cade was telling me he thought he knew who it was. When the cop came back he said that Cade looked familiar and we figured out how they sort of know each other. (The cop's mother in law works for Cade and she frequently has his kids at their office while they wait for their parents to pick them up.) It was obvious once the cop realized who Cade was that he felt really bad giving him the ticket but he had already put it in the computer and printed it out and said he had to give it to him then. But at least on the ticket he said Cade was only going 65 MPH so that it was no longer criminal and cost $202. Then the I-17 was way backed up and barely moving so 20 minutes out of Flagstaff we turned around, went back and went home the long way around. It rained alot on the drive home so our stuff was soaked, (at least it was at the end of the trip. You know me, always looking for the positive :) Finally about 2 and a half hours later we made it home.

It was great that it rained most of the day on Monday and it was really easy to pull a lot of weeds we've been neglecting. But the best part of the weekend was that Cade put together the patio swing I've been wanting for 3 months that was half off for Labor Day. Conner and I love it! Overall it wasn't the best Labor Day weekend, but it was good to have the whole family together one last time before half of them move to Hurricane next month.



Phewww!!!!

Since Conner was about 6 months old he started developing what I thought were warts. When the first one came I was pretty disappointed. Since warts run in my family I figured we were in for some outrageous ones if he was going to start getting them this early. Look what my niece Emma had to go through to get a few warts on her hand removed.

Although the warts were big they weren't like this. This picture is after she had to have chemo medicine injected into them when all else failed.

And this shows some of the reaction her body had to that procedure.

Can you see why I was worried? Then when another one started popping up each week I was really getting concerned. Finally now his back looks like this and he has a few on his arms and hand.

I know you can't really see them but it was hard to get a picture. He has probably 20-30 on his body.

Every now again something pops up on his face that looks like one too but so far those have all disappeared quickly. So I was anxious for his 9 month check up to find out what we were going to do about this. Thankfully, right off the doctor says, "Those aren't warts, thats Molluscum Contagiosum". He gave me a quick run down and off course I googled it to make sure he wasn't leaving anything important out. Thankfully it is just some virus that is common in kids and completely harmless. I don't know how he got it, it had to be direct contact with someone with it or an object that someone with it used. But the good news is they should go away in 6-12 months. Now my sister, who I won't name but I'm sure everyone can guess by her cruelty, can stop calling him WB (aka wart boy!)

P.S. I apologize to my sister in laws whose babies were around him this weekend. I didn't know until today that he has something contagious (although at this point he may not be contagiours anymore) or I would have been more careful about letting him touch your children and their stuff. It sounds like there has to be direct contact with a papule (most of which were always covered by his clothing), not just him and not his saliva. Don't worry though, it shouldn't be too contagious since his babysitter's daughter hasn't caught it in the last 3 months and she gets all over him!

He's Growing Too Fast!

Our little baby just keeps growing and growing right before our very eyes. He recently mastered the art of crawling, which is both good and bad. Its really nice when I leave the family room and go to the kitchen and instead of just crying for me to come back he can just follow right behind me. Its not so good when I'm in the middle of a crucial point of making dinner and he comes into the kitchen and tries to climb onto chairs (which he cannot do without falling onto the tile) and I have to remove him from the kitchen 3 times in 5 minutes.



His memory is also getting good lately. He has found a pile of post-it notes on our desk that he loves to eat (near the floor where he can climb onto the desk and eat them all) so I started hiding the post-it notes underneath a calendar where they didn't show at all. But the very next time he was near the desk he crawled right over there, pushed the calendar aside, and went wild. I tried to distract him with the hole puncher, but that just made a mess and then he went right back to the post-its.

He also has learned to stand up using furniture. Yesterday when I walked into his room to get him out of bed I found this.



He was just standing there so proud of himself. And make sure you notice those cute little teeth that have popped up. Now his last development I'm a little embarrassed to share, he was rather slow in this area. For some reason he was never able to suck on a pacifier. When we were cutting back on his night time feedings and he would wake up and need something to suck on we would just hold the pacifier in his mouth until he fell back asleep. Then eventually he was able to hold it in his hand and he was very content to just play with it or suck on the side of the pacifier. Occasionally he would put it in his mouth the right way by accident but within about 2 seconds it would fly right out of there. But then overnight things just clicked and he figured out how to properly suck on a pacifier. And now he just loves that thing. He absolutely must have it in order to go to sleep and whenever he sees it he crawls for it. But since he lived 7 months without it we do not allow him to use it unless he is going to sleep.

A few random pictures.



Happy Independence Day!

This Fourth of July was not too exciting, we had made tentative plans to go to Telluride and then camping but both plans fell through. We did get a flag up this year to show our patriotism though. There are a surprising number of people who put out flags in this city, a lot of them even have actual flagpoles to raise and lower a flag on, but we just attached ours to the house. Most of the day we just hung out at home being lazy until it was time for a 4-ward activity. Our church building has a grassy area connected to it with a ramada, bbq, horseshoe pits, and sand volleyball. So everyone came and enjoyed dinner, visiting, and some activities. It was perfect weather thanks to the rain clouds that kept it cool and it even sprinkled for a few minutes. Conner was ready for bed long before the fireworks started but we just couldn't miss out on his first fireworks. He had a nice progression of being terrified, to being mystified, to enjoying them, and then his fatigue took over.

Hanging out before the fireworks.

 See the terrified look coming out.

Hanging onto mom for dear life by both her shirt and her hair.

"Oh wait, this is kind of cool."

"Yeah, I like these fireworks."

"Ok, enough of these fireworks, I'm off to dreamland."