Memorial Day Weekend in Shreveport

We had a wonderful weekend getaway to Shreveport to spend some much-needed time away with our always-fabulous hosts, Uncle David and Aunt Sally!

This time, Grammy got to tag along and, let me just tell you, Mom and Sally hit it off like two peas in a pod, just like I knew they would. It was a blast!


We arrived on Friday evening and let the kids run around and get their energy out from being cooped up in the car before we fed them and put them to bed. Sally prepared a wonderful meal for us that night and we sat around and chatted for hours, enjoying each other's company. In fact, Sally and I stayed up chatting until 1:30 am and were the last to go to bed that night. Good times!

Saturday morning after breakfast, Mom, Sally and I headed to the club for Hilaire's yoga class. Mom and Sally only made it through 20 minutes before they disappeared. It was a great class, I really needed it. All that wonderful stretching and balancing proved to be very relaxing for me. I need to find a class here locally. That would be a great thing to do weekly.

After returning from yoga, we got the kids suited up in their swimsuits and headed out to the backyard for some sand and water adventures, which you saw in the above slideshow. They had an absolute BALL!!! (no pun intended) ;)
The rest of the day was spent just relaxing during the kids' afternoon nap (which turned out to be a long one since they were worn out from playing in the water!), enjoying another fabulous dinner and great conversation all evening until we all retired at midnight.

Sunday, we headed downtown after a late breakfast to take the kids to Sci-Port, Shreveport's science center for kids. They were closed until 1:00, so we walked around by the river, let the kids play in the fountains a bit and then headed across the street to check out the annual crawfish festival that was going on, Mudbug Madness Festival. The kids enjoyed busting out their best dance moves for all to see in front of the main stage. Supposedly, pictures of their dancing should eventually be up at borderline.net. (I've been checking since yesterday and they are not up yet, so they may not post them.)

There really wasn't much else going on at the festival that appealed to anyone, so we headed back to the house for lunch, after which, the kids went down for a nap. When they woke up, we suited them up again for another play session in the backyard and we had an outdoor picnic dinner of crawfish, potatoes and corn. YUMMMM!!!!!! I think my lips might still be burning from the spice, though. It was quite intense, but soooooo good!

After dinner, Brad and I went for a bike ride with Uncle David as the kids got bathed and put to bed. Once the kids were down, we had ice cream and watched Yes Man, starring Jim Carrey. If you've never seen this movie, it's basically the antithesis to Liar Liar.... absolutely hilarious! But it actually has a great, positive message and is a very clean, family-friendly movie. When the movie was over, Sally randomly blurted out, "So, you guys wanna go out?" And, without hesitation, we all replied, "YES!" Mind you, it was already after 10:00pm at this point and this was pure spontaneity, but we had all been inspired by the movie and thought it would be fun to do something totally random!

David offered to stay behind with the sleeping kiddos (what a trooper!) and the rest of us got ready and were out the door by 10:30. So, it was Brad and all the ladies, including Hilaire. We decided he was our bodyguard for the night. We arrived downtown around 11:00 and headed to the Eldorado Hotel & Casino to check out a band at the Celebrity Lounge. Mom hit the slots and Brad tagged along with her while Hilaire, Sally and I hung out at Celebrity and listened to Saving Jane. They were pretty cool and had great style and a great sound.

It was a lot of fun to do something so spontaneous. It reminded me to embrace life and squeeze every last moment out of it. We were home and in bed by 1:30.... party animals!!!

Monday, we packed up and headed home after the kids had a brief morning nap. We got on the road around noon, stopped for a great lunch at IHOP and were home by dinnertime.

We had a GREAT weekend and got some much-needed away time and relaxation. Thanks, David and Sally!!! You're the BEST!!!