Longest 3 Day Weekend Ever!
We decided that we were going to take the family on a 3 day cruise out of New Orleans, to celebrate the girls turning 18 next week.
The cruise was going to leave on Thursday out of New Orleans but of course the hurricane blew in. The port was closed so then Carnival told us they were going to now leave on Friday and just go out to sea with no port. We had to drive to New Orleans, park and then get on a charter bus to Mobile, AL to catch the ship and then return to New Orleans. Then Thursday night we got an email that the New Orleans port was now open and we were going to leave Friday night at 10pm.
Hubby rented a Suburban so we could have a comfortable ride.
When we got right outside of New Orleans I-10 just completely SHUT DOWN! There was flooding and people were getting out of their cars to take a walk! Ugggh, so we call Carnival "we are on our way, we have already been in the car 8 hours, we will be there, etc.." There are police, ambulance and army hummers everywhere! We finally inch our way to an exit and then take all these little back roads to get to another major freeway. We got to the dock at 10:20pm to see the ship pull off and honk the horn!!!!!!!
We then thought well lets make the best of a bad situation and find a hotel in the French Quarter .... NOTHING! so we finally eat at the scariest IHOP on earth and continue to try and find a hotel. Every hotel is FULL of electrical/utility workers from all over the country, here to help put New Orleans back together!!! We drove until 3:45am until we found something.
Next morning hubby is feeling horrible about all this and luckily all the kids were being nice. We call every vacation spot we can think of in Texas but of course they are full considering it is Labor Day weekend. We finally find a B&B in Gruene, TX and we decided to go there and float down the river. By the time we finally get there we have been in the car a total of 21 hours since noon on Friday!
We have a fun weekend, everyone is getting along and laughing.
We float the Gruene River in tubes ....
The kids room had a tub so everyone had to take turns using our shower ...
Did some shopping ...
We then head back to Houston Monday and the girls want to get a 2nd piercing on their ears so we go to this fun eclectic area of Houston.
They won't pierce them because they are under 18 and we don't have their Birth Certificates to prove that we are their parent so we remember we have all the passports in the suburban because of the cruise. Bryan walks back to the Suburban to find that it has been towed! He told me, just take the kids shopping while I go get the car. We went to a cool store "Buffalo Exchange". $250 for towing, $240 for shopping (plus taxi ride to get to towing yard) an hour later we are headed home.
I told B that if lightening was striking ...
I did NOT want to be anywhere near him!!!!
We pull up to our driveway and our garage door opener does not work.
Of course we all die laughing that we have had such bad luck.
Neither one of us had keys so I go next door to get our key from the neighbor who checks on our house "hmmm, she has electricity, why don't we?". We walk into our master bedroom to realize that we have been robbed! They had torn off the electrical box and cut all the cables to our house. They opened and emptied every single dresser, drawer and closet in the ENTIRE house, even all the files in my office!
They took laptops, camera's (luckily I had my good camera), jewelry (even my costume stuff .. boo hoo), purses, clothing, x-box, games, kids jewelry boxes, trashed the kids rooms bad! The electricity had been turned off for almost 3 days so all the freezers had defrosted meat/blood running out of them.
I have learned a few things this past weekend:
*It could have been worse
*Everyone kept a good attitude and made the best of the situation
*Don't post on Facebook that you are traveling (my kids gave blow-by-blow)
*Don't pack your car up in the driveway for the world to see you are leaving
*Thankful it did not happen while we were home!
*You have to have a sense of humor ....
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