Mother and Daughter: Looking At Each Other Through the Camera

This is Hannah's "Mama" series. All of these pictures were taken on the same day in the French Quarter. She expressed to me, every time she took a picture of me, how proud she was of herself for having successfully taken a picture of me.

This Last Picture Was Taken On the Riverboat

Later that same day I took a series of pictures of Hannah as we walked from dinner to the gelato place. All of these pictures were taken over a period of about ten minutes.

New Orleans' French Quarter

I hadn't been to the French Quarter in about fifteen years. The last time Elijah and I were in New Orleans he was presenting at a conference, and I got to spend an entire day wandering around the quarter by myself. I had found a whole section of sleepy antique shops and old perfume stores and such. I had not been to New Orleans with children and also not since Hurricane Katrina, both elements designed to have an impact on how I moved through the quarter, a multiple block section of old New Orleans most likely to attract large amounts of tourists and far too many scams.

We started our adventure by looking for beignets and coffee, but finding po boys and ice tea instead at a cafe on the square.

The crowds outside were intense, and there was at least one tourist for every scam artist or business person trying to milk them of their money. After we ate we decided to treat the quarter like an interesting hike and we went wandering off towards the less crowded residential streets.

Hannah Taking a Picture of Me Taking a Picture of Her

Sad Because Dada Took Away Her Camera For Not Listening

The Boys Dressed Themselves Alike This Morning

A Little Tired of Walking

Overheated Children

Tourist Carriage Traffic Jam

When we got too hot and the kids started wilting we ducked into a coffee shop and bought the kids little mini pseudo-coffee drinks.

The Kids Were Really Hot and Tired By the Time We Rested

Hannah Was Happy To Have a Cold Drink and a Cinnamon Roll

Hannah Was a Really Good Table Companion

She Was So Good She Got Her Camera Back

Elijah Found Out Yesterday He Has Pink Eye

While we were chilling out in the coffee shop Elijah discovered a cool riverboat tour we could take that would let us see the Mississippi, listen to some live music and get a boat ride where we could sit and rest a bit, all at the same time. So we headed out to the river.

Izzy Took This Picture On Our Way to the River

After the riverboat we wandered back into the quarter looking for dinner. We walked a long way looking for a restaurant that turned out to be closed. We ended up at a touristy cafe with loud live jazz and stereo-typical New Orleans food, but we all ate something and that revived us. I never did find the part of the French Quarter I remember liking. Either its been taken over by tourist traps, or its farther into the quarter than we managed to go.

Tired After a Long Day

All the Parents Are Wiped Out

The Kids Are Hot And Tired Too

After dinner we walked to a gelato place not far away. The flavors were really great, Elijah pronounced the honey, sesame, goats milk gelato in the case to be a true hippie flavor. Little did he know that the nice hippie owner was smoking a cigar just outside. When Hannah dropped her ice cream straight off her cone first thing, he went right in and got her another scoop. It started to rain just as we sat down outside and we chilled out under the awning and chatted with the owner until we all finished and the rain stopped. He was from New York and told us we should definitely go to the Bronx Zoo when we get up that way.

Eli and Dada Both Got Dark Chocolate

The Legs Next To Hannah Is Her Ice Cream Hero, He Brought Her A Second Chance Scoop

Hannah Got Milk Chocolate

Izzy Got Mango Sorbet

It was sunset by the time we finished our gelatos, so we walked back towards the river to find our car.

The Boys Were Deep In Their Imagination Game

Hannah Was Too Tired To Walk

Good Bye French Quarter

Somewhere Near Galveston

Our last afternoon in Texas the kids and I headed out to find Galveston Bay. We drove east until we found the water, and then looked for a place to stop. There was a shrimp shack style restaurant right by the water, so we parked the minivan and went in.

We asked to sit on the patio outside even though it was hot and muggy. The waitress brought us hush puppies instead of bread. I made all the kids try at least a bite. Only Izzy ate a whole one.

Eli ordered catfish and Izzy got popcorn shrimp. Then we sat and watched the oil tankers, one after another, float by on their way to Houston. They were massive and timed perfectly so that just as one started to be far away another entered our view.

The whole sky-line of the bay was industrial, with refineries and cranes in the distance in whatever direction we looked. Later when we started driving to Louisiana we passed by the other side of some of the same cranes and could see the point where we had sat far across Galveston Bay the other direction.

While we were eating a cool green lizard with a bright red gullet ran past us. Eli made me take a picture. He kept shouting the type of lizard he thought it was, but I can't remember what he said. He has a really good memory for that sort of thing.

When we returned to our hotel room we learned that tropical storm Issac was headed in past Haiti towards Florida. We wondered if the storm clouds we were seeing all day had anything to do with that storm, or if it was just a coincidence.