I haven't blogged in a while and have done a lot since then! After our week off from the gym, I had to get back into the swing of things with our new summer schedule. Its nice because we work Monday night and Tuesday - Friday mornings. Typically I'm done a little after lunch but sometimes I stick around and do administrative/team work until mid-afternoon. Either way, its a nice change for me to get home before 5pm 4 days a week. Last Wednesday, David and I drove to Raleigh and spent the night with Billy & Meredith so we could catch an early flight to New Orleans on Thursday. We got to Nola early on Thursday and walked around the French Quarter waiting on our hotel room to be ready. We had a great time in New Orleans and came home Monday night. We went to watch my brother graduate from his residency at Tulane University. My parents rode in Winford Williams' RV and got to NO Thursday night. We stayed at the same hotel we took the gymnasts to last year. Its one block from Jackson Square and two blocks from Bourbon Street. Its a cool place and the prices are VERY reasonable. The majority of the long weekend revolved around food which was awesome.....eating is a hobby of mine. Thursday lunch, we went to the Gumbo Shop and had red beans and rice, shrimp creole, jambalaya and crawfish ettouffe. So good! For dinner we went to a great mexican restaurant on Magazine St. that Matt & Carly go to. Friday, Matt & Carly both had to work, so the rest of us walked around (again!) and went to the WWII museum, ate lunch at Margaritaville, relaxed and Mom, Dad and I went to see Harry & Nell Leveque who live in the French Quarter and have done so for YEARS. They are Linda Gralton's parents and I coached Linda's 2 girls, Katie & Sarah. They are such nice people and their house is really neat. Later, we met Matt, Carly, Carly's sister Jackie and their parents at Dante's Kitchen. Dante's is on River Rd. on the levee and is SOOOO good....most likely the #1 place Matt & Carly will miss when they leave Nola. Saturday, Winford, Mom, Dad, David and I took the Natchez River boat tour and enjoyed our time on the water. This was after eating breakfast at Johnny's Po Boys and walking around shopping (again). After the tour everyone went to their respective sleeping places and got ready for the big night (graduation). Graduation was held at the rooftop of the Windsor Court hotel and it was a nice dinner and cocktail hour ALL for Matt! It was really neat to listen to a couple hours of speakers all talk about Matt and his accomplishments as resident and chief resident of the Tulane Urology Dept. One of his fellow residents made the comment that Matt has probably done more surgeries than any other urology resident in the country this past year. He will be missed by all he worked with and that is no surprise to me however, we will be glad to get he, Carly & Lil' Raynor closer to us. It was also special to recognize him as the last graduate of the Katrina residents. Matt was in his first year of residency when Hurricane Katrina hit and since he was on call, he spent the better part of 4 days trying to get the patients out of both Tulane and Charity hospitals. When the helicopter picked up the doctors on that particular Thursday, he had none of his belongings and was dropped off in Lafayette, LA. Another resident that WASN'T on call and had evacuated to Houston actually drove to Lafayette and picked them up. They drove to St. Louis and matt caught a plane to NC. He truly had NOTHING from his house and was displaced for 19 months. He worked at UNC, still as a Tulane resident and when Tulane got back up and running, his boss in New Orleans asked him to return. After hearing the speeches Saturday night and the opportunities being at Tulane has given him in terms of experience, I'm glad he went back for his final two years. Saturday night David and I went to Bourbon Street and stood on the balcony of Bourbon St. Blues (The Gralton's uncle own that). It was packed but certainly not Mardi Gras packed and we saw some characters as always! We ended our night with some jazz at Maison Bourbon. Sunday was spent hanging out with everyone....David and I had some beignets and we eventually met up with Carly & Matt at Chartres House Cafe for lunch (see, lots of eating)! Everyone decided to go back to Matt & Carly's house and relax after that but David and I were quite antsy to do an activity. We decided that an airboat ride through the bayou would suit us just fine. After haggling with the owner, she gave us a deal and we spent and hour and a half on the muddy waters of Louisiana. I got to ride on the top seat of the boat and only scared myself twice on the whole trip. We got to hold a baby gator (well, 9 months old) and a Gator egg. The guys that were with us were funny....I swear they haven't seen a woman in years. The captain would get off the boat to take pictures and one of the guys said "Make sure you get the hot girl in the picture." Like I wasn't there. Dude. But he was funny nonetheless. The captain of the boat (interestingly enough) was on ABC's Wife Swap. He swapped wives with a family in California who are ballerinas (?) or something like that. He's mighty funny as well. After getting off the airboat, we picked up Winford from his RV (he needed a rest day) and we went to dinner at Zea Brewery near Matt's house. We got up early to catch our flight Monday morning and made our way back to the beach Monday night. It was really nice to be with everyone for Matt's graduation and it was certainly a special ceremony. Their plans are to move to Chapel Hill and work for UNC Hospitals....Matt in the Urology Dept and Carly as a CRNA. She will be on maternity leave until November as she is due to have that baby 7/17!!! Click on the title of the blog to see ALL my pictures......
