LSU vs BYU game

We decided to go to Houston to see the BYU/LSU opening game of college football.  Then Harvey hit and Houston was flooded.  Last minute, the game was moved to New Orleans, which worked well for us since we were already planning on staying the first night there anyway.

 

DAY ONE:

We drove down on Friday and were talking about maybe taking a swamp tour.  Then we found one on the way and decided to do that before even going to our hotel.  It was hot and muggy, even though temp in New Orleans was really nice.

 

 

 

We saw SO many alligators!

 

 

 

 

DAY TWO:

We made reservations for brunch at the famous Brennan's.  Everything was SO yummy!! This was some baked apple thing that was delicious!

 

I didn't get a picture of my eggs benedict but it was delicious and then for dessert, we had the famous Bananas Foster.  They make it table side and it was created by this restaurant for a well loved patron with the last name Foster.  Who knew?  It was DELICIOUS!!!!

 

 

Then we did some shopping and got some beignets at Café Du Monde.  We were able to walk almost everywhere we went that weekend and it was really nice.  Once it was time for the game, we grabbed some dinner on the way and headed over to the superdome.

 

We sat in the BYU section.  Rob & Emily rooted for BYU and Rusty and I rooted for LSU.  The game was great, mostly because LSU won. 

Being the former band nerd, I appreciated the LSU band forming the state of Louisiana and spelling out LSU. 

 

DAY THREE:

We drove home and got the girls.  They had a blast at Ben and Stephanie's.  Thanks guys for keeping our girls and loving on them!

Finally made it

She finally made it to the top of the rope!  

 

Solar Eclipse

My goal for viewing the solar eclipse was to avoid crowds and traffic jams so we stayed at our pool and had our own viewing party.  Caitlin invited a few friends and we just chilled.

 

Getting closer to totality.  You can see it getting darker. 

Almost totality, the pool lights came on.

It was such a neat experience to get to share together! 

Cross Country - first meet

When school started Caitlin kept saying she wanted to try out for cross country.  I think she might have even asked about it at the end of last year.  I just blew her off because she doesn't run.  She had jogged a little at girls camp with a group of girls and had enjoyed that but I thought cross country was long distances.

 

Caitlin kept asking, so I did some research and ran it by Rusty.  Turns out middle school cross country is only 2 miles.  Rusty said why not let her try out? So we rushed to get her paperwork filled out and a physical done so she could try out on Monday.  Coach said she had to run 2 miles without stopping to make the team.  She had ZERO conditioning. But she did it and was SO excited!  Immediately, practices every day after school started.  She came home exhausted each day but loving it.  Then we find out her first meet will be Saturday (5 days after she tried out initially)!  And she has to be in Macon County (1.5 hour away) at 6:45am.  UGH!!

 

But we made it and the weather was nice at that time!

Warming up with her team.  They didn't even have time to all have uniforms yet.

 

This is the finish line.  I'm not sure you can tell, but this course started and ended on a steep hill.  It was brutal!

 

Before the race - Caitlin's goal was just to finish.

 

 The starting lineup -

 

And they are off -

 

Finish line -

She threw up on the course but she finished.  She was so proud of herself for the week of hard work.  She has no grand aspirations of winning a race or even being in the top of the pack.  She just wants to set a baseline and improve throughout the season. 

Learning Routines

Starting to learn her floor routine -

 

And getting better on the rope -

First Day of School

2nd grade

 

8th grade

Lara's Visit - Sunday

Ready for church on Sunday!

 

After church, we were hanging out in the bonus room and noticed this guy riding down the sidewalk! So we went out for pictures.

 

More play!