Our final morning in New Orleans. I woke up early and took my dad and the girls back to the courtyard where we saw the music for beignets and coffee (it was much closer than Cafe Du Monde and is featured on Food Network, so why not) While at breakfast I was finally able to connect with Renisha, so we could see the girls cousins from their dad's side. I am so glad I was able to connect. I was feeling sad that we would leave NOLA without visiting with them. She was so awesome and got the kiddos up and dressed the second she learned we were here. The girls were thrilled to see and meet more cousins! We cleaned ourselves up and headed over to the French Market area to find them. Renisha has four kids (5g, 7g, 8b and 9g) It was an instant bond for the kiddos and they all were holding hands and playing together. So fun! It was hot, but we walked around and ended up back at Cafe Du Monde so we could at least have that experience. Renisha is such a sweetheart and a fun tour guide and had lots of great ideas for us. If only we would have connected sooner. We bought beignets for all the kids and they ended up covered in powdered sugar, which is totally why Mila likes them, she didn't even take a bite, just licked the sugar off and was done (gross!). It was way too short of a visit, but we were able to get pictures of them all together and we hope to see them all again sometime when we are in the bay area. The girls have a lot of family in Louisiana and there is a family reunion there almost every year. I hope we can get them down there for one of those sometime soon. Family is so important and these girls are so blessed to have good family all around them. We piled into Renisha's van and she drove us back to our hotel. Another tough goodbye and we were off to pack and get out of town.
We said goodbye to the Royal Sonesta and New Orleans, which was a hard place for me to leave. We had a great time there. We were off to Galveston Texas and some beach fun. Yahoo! The drive was long, well not really for our current perspective, so about 5 hours and with great scenery. Louisiana is such an interesting state. Driving into Texas it was clear we were in Texas. The scenery changed a lot and became much more industrial. Even the coast, didn't look like any coastline I am used to with all of the oil drilling and the huge towers. It is pretty sad. It becomes physically evident that environment is not very protected in texas and Texas has a lot of great landscapes that need protection. The signage and bumper stickers were fascinating and a little scary. We finally arrived in Galveston and checked into our hotel. This is the first hotel that I booked that was not accurately described (bummer) we were all in a tiny little room. Oh well we could handle it. It is just a funny situation because my dad has to get up a bit in the night and so he needs the bathroom light on so he can see. Jeremy needs complete darkness to sleep, so a little uncomfortable, but manageable. There was a big storm brewing so I got the girls in the pool to get a little splash time in before the lightening came. They are really loving the daily pool time. I hope we can continue some regular pool time when we get home. Kaiya has become such a great swimmer on this trip and Mila is finally willing to take some risks and try things in the pool. People might think Mila would be the wild one in the pool, but only on her terms. She doesn't like to be wild in places that she can't entirely control (like water). Jeremy and I headed out to see if we could find my dad some scotch (these things are important). We found Galveston to be a really strange town. I was struggling to understand why it was such a tourist draw because there was nothing there. We couldn't even find a grocery store. We finally did and it was such a different experience than grocery stores I am used to. The produce section was a tiny corner and the rest of the store was meat and then highly processed food. Oh Texas, let's change this, okay? We gathered together some snacks and headed back to the room. No scotch for pops, but he would survive. Goodnight Galveston.
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