When you have children, it’s hard to get away. When all of your money goes to bills and food and you have lots of small children, it’s painfully hard to escape. This weekend thanks to awesome family and friends The Hubs and I got to take a little trip to New Orleans. Two days one night. Before having kids I would have scoffed at the idea of a one night trip being enough to recharge my batteries. Ha! I had less stress and more time but thought I needed more to survive. It’s all relative though right?
Anyway, we got to go down to NOLA to celebrate my brother’s birthday with the Ya-Ya’s. I mentioned them before in my post The Moms Who Made Me. My Mom and my Bonus Dad found us a great suite at The Quarter House. It was clean, comfortable, and each couple had their own bedroom. Having our own bedroom meant we could flip channels as much as we wanted to. I never thought I’d miss channel surfing when we got rid of cable and switched to streaming only but I do. We also had our own bedroom which was awesome because I got all dolled up. It’s not something that I do often anymore. I’d had the skirt I was wearing for almost a year and still had the tag on it because I felt too self-conscious to wear it.
We ate awesome food while we were in New Orleans too. I’m convinced that part of the reason that it tasted so good was because I was able to eat it without having to cook or get interrupted by a child. We walked around and looked in shops. Since it was my brother’s first time on Bourbon Street we had to take him to the piano bar at Pat O’ Briens. In honor of his birthday and Navy service we requested In the Navy and Anchors Away. We embarrassed the hell out of him and it was 100% worth it.
We even tapped into our spiritual side during the day. My brother had a really rough go of it recently and it’s been hard on all of us. This was the first time all of the Ya-Yas were together with him and so, as good Southern Catholic women do, we made time to pray. We left our daiquiris with our husbands (heathens all of them) and walked inside of St. Joseph’s Cathedral to pray with my brother. As we all knelt and held hands there were tears shed. With no words spoken I can tell you for certain that all of our prayers were of Thanksgiving as we all moved one step closer to healing. It was only fitting that as we left the Church the rain started pouring down. A cleansing rain, if you will.
At night when we got tired of the bars we stopped and had our tarot cards read by a very nice and startlingly accurate psychic. She accurately gave time frames on life events that we never mentioned or even alluded to in our conversation with her. Even if you don’t believe in those sorts of things she did a great job of reading people. I’d love to have her on a sales team. She’d close the sale every time. The Hubs and I both enjoyed getting our cards read and it helped us to talk about some of the things that have been worrying us. Overall it was worth every penny.
A special shout out goes to our family friends who watched The Twins for us. The girls clearly enjoyed themselves and are like Queens the whole time. I love my tiny humans soooo much but man it’s nice to talk to people who won’t burst into tears or scream at you when you walk out of the room. It was so great to spend time with the adults that I love, especially my Husband. 
Mom Van Confessions 