Life in the Swamp

Week 8: It has been a week of learning to live in the bayou! While we were talking about this past week, Ed had some insight into our lives..."when life hands you Louisiana, make etouffee." Well, I didn't quite get to the etouffee, but I made a delicious gumbo! I cannot wait to share it with you guys! I am still tweaking and working on things, but I am going to brag on myself and say it was really good! What can I say; we are making the best of our situation. We were hoping to work on the etouffee, but I am still a little scared of crawfish tails...I am working up to it!


I hate to say "I wish it would stop raining," but, "I wish it would stop raining!" We have had to plan our week around when we thought the rain might hit! Not an easy task, especially with 2 kids in tow! Thank goodness for the little girls in the neighborhood. I may have talked about them before, but we have twin girls across the street from us and this week they decided to take us on as their project! The girls have been over 3 days this week during the day to play with the kids. What a relief from the rain! We have done lots of crafts and played restaurant, princesses, Wii, and anytime the rain stops we play outside on the swing set! The girls have truly been a life saver this week!


Once it stopped raining for a few hours, we tried to venture out. Of all places to go, we had to go to the DMV! (Who knew you needed a Louisiana driver's license to register a child for school.) It's a little bit backwards down here, and of course we had to make two trips - I didn't have the right information that they wanted me to have to get my license (even though I had what I was originally told to have). Anyway, two trips later and two long drives to Livingston in the pouring rain, I have my license. As a treat for the kids for going to the DMV, we tried out another new playground. This one was more Mary Virginia's speed or so she told me! Once John Bay finally climbed to the top, he told me that he was "weally, weally high and I no like." He got over it and was climbing and sliding on all of the equipment!

weally high!

Mary Virginia found her favorite toy at the playground - it is kind of a bowl that you sit in and then spin. I think she spent the whole morning spinning!

I caught a quick moment of the kids relaxing before I had to run and catch up with them again!

Mary Virginia had another riding lesson this week! She is really thriving here. Miss Abby is an amazing instructor and doesn't put up with much from MV (as you may know, she gets a little chatty!) I am so proud of her. The instructor had her working on her balance and using her leg muscles this week...she road without hands! I think she was a little nervous at first, but after about a minute, she got the hang of it. She was posing on the horse showing us how good she was at keeping her balance! She even trotted without her hands (not holding the reins) and no one on the lead line! Her favorite part of lessons is when she gets to practice her 2 point stance and walk/trot/jump over the poles. Bailey did an excellent job with the lesson and Mary Virginia was able to jump over two poles! (The picture is not great, but hopefully you can get the idea - I was trying to keep up with John Bay as he was helping to let horses in and out of the pasture.)

We spent our Saturday night with another displaced Brasfield and Gorrie family! B&G has so many jobs going on in the Baton Rouge area that we are able to spend time with people from home that we may not have otherwise met! We had dinner with the Davis family. John Bay was in heaven - they have 2 boys around his age! These are the first boys his age that we have met. We ate at one of our new favorite restaurants, Papi's Fajita Factory, and then treated the kids to ice cream at the cupcake store down the street. Just a note, stay away from Superman ice cream...very yummy, but very messy! We can't wait to get together with them again! The wives are trying to plan our first girl's night out adventure...

Our final adventure of the week was a trip to the Swamp! Well, kind of. In between rain storms, we went to another Baton Rouge park - Bluebonnet Swamp and Nature Center. Mary Virginia had seen Ed watching an episode of Swamp People and she wanted to go find her very own alligator in the swamp. This park is in the middle of Baton Rouge, but surrounds the Bluebonnet Swamp. They have built a great boardwalk through the swamp and you can hike all through the paths. This was not quite the swamp that Mary Virginia had hoped for...she kept asking "where is the swamp" and "why isn't there more water". We had a great time hiking/walking around the swamp and looking for animals - all we found were some grasshoppers (they were HUGE) and a few spiders!

The stopped by the Nature Center after our walk and checked out all of the cool animals and the touch tables that they had inside. We loved seeing the turtles and the baby alligators. The kids are learning to recognize snakes (I am not too happy about looking at snakes) - YUCK, but glad they are learning! We also played with snake skins and pelts. We learned about some creatures that we had never seen before like the huge grasshoppers from our hike (also known as Devil's Horsemen - grasshoppers without wings) and a huge red ant that I had seen at the barn on Thursday (Red Velvet ant or "Cow Killer - actually a type of wasp). On a side note...if you see one of those - DO NOT TOUCH - not that I did...I was just warned! John Bay and I took a quick peek at the bee hive they had and listened to the millions of bees making honey - he was not too impressed!

It has been another fun filled week - next week is going to be a hard one, I have to register Mary Virginia for school! Wish me luck!

Check out the artwork section. I have a few new things and I am working on a few more...hope to have them up by Wednesday!