New Orleans? In July? With young children?

Last month we spent five days in New Orleans.  Why? 

Yes.  Why indeed. I will not comment further on that now.

But we did.  It was awful.  A lot of it was because our first hotel was not very family-friendly, and both Jonathan and I got sick and ended up at an urgent care clinic, me with a sinus infection and Jonathan with something respiratory-ish.  But also because the body fluids everywhere were just too much.  The usual types of fluids associated with excessive drinking (which is pretty much the only reason people come), but also the blood squishing out of the bottom of a  store employees’ pants with every step he took.

We switched hotels mid-visit, which helped.  We visited the aquarium where we got to feed parakeets:

And see sharks and lots of big rays:

I took Benjamin and Jonah to the Insectarium, which was overrun by groups of kids who were either too old or young to get much out of it.  (But what else is there to do there with kids??  Not much.)  We saw baby alligators:

And I had to explain why someone would kill a bunch of insects and display them on the wall (“are those real insects that are stuffed??”):

But it was interesting and the last part is an open butterfly exhibit where a butterfly immediately landed upon Benjamin!  A Benjamin’s-eye view:

Jonathan took the boys to the zoo while I was lying comatose with antibiotics and every possible OTC drug creeping their way through my sinuses.

The view from our second hotel room included this mural down the street…  I liked it, but it’s not the sort of thing I would include in a blog post… it’s just that I have so few photos of NO that I am including it as eye-candy-filler:

One afternoon during Silas’ nap I took the older boys to the Children’s Museum, which is fantastic.  We spent 2 ½ hours there and only saw 2/3 of it. 

So.

New Orleans.

Been there, done that.

Don’t ever want to go back.