Prelude.

Because we had such an adventurous weekend, I decided that I needed to split the race report into two sections...prelude to the race and the race itself. :)

We had a crazy week that led up to taking off to New Orleans. We had snow days, busy work days, busy school days and a birthday! Lauren turned 5 and the weather turned ugly. We had a snow day that was minus snow. Go figure. :)

We left for New Orleans on Friday morning. Kathy and Stephen (Stephen ran the full marathon as well) and their family had gone down the night before. Lynley and her gang (awesome cheerleaders) were supposed to leave around 11am or so. We dropped the dog off at the vets office and off we went. I got a text from Lynley and it turns out that they were right behind us! We did a few stops and poor Bean just wasn't herself that day. Her eyes kept watering and she wouldn't eat anything or drink anything. By the time we got to the hotel, she looked miserable. We hung out for a few minutes and she seemed to get a little better. We decided to hit up the aquarium with Lynley and her crew. We figured that Friday would be better than Saturday. I think we're a little spoiled. While the Aquarium of the Americas is cool in its own right, but the $60 it cost to get in wasn't quite worth it. We've been spoiled by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Churami Aquarium in Okinawa. The kids had a great time though (the adults did too), so that's all that mattered.

It was still a little early, so we decided to head over to the Riverwalk Mall and eat an early dinner at the food court. We stopped at a sports store and I noticed that Bean just wasn't looking too good. I held her and walked outside. We sat down and she was sitting on my lap. Then I heard it. A burp followed by the chunkage. Yep. She horked. The poor kiddo. Lynley ran inside and told the store clerk what had happened and the clerk managed to call security. In the meantime, she managed to nail pretty much the entire length of Mark's sweatshirt. He took the poor girl outside and the security guard came over and called housekeeping. At least he was able to go home with an amusing tale of a bunch of tourists standing around a pile o' puke.

We debated on what to do next...she said she felt better, so we decided to head upstairs and grab some dinner. Mark grabbed a fried shrimp po-boy and I had some red beans and rice. Gav was the smart one and had a slice of pizza. We decided to hit up the Cafe du Monde in the mall to grab some beignets to go. You can't come to New Orleans and NOT have beignets. That's pretty much sacrilege. We made it back to the hotel and Bean was looking a little better, so we gave her a nectarine. Which in turn, came back up maybe 5 minutes after she consumed it. :(

The next morning, she still wasn't looking too good. She didn't eat much for breakfast and sure enough, she ralphed when we got back to the room. I decided to head to the race expo with the Hunts, while Mark and the kiddos took it easy. I walked down with them and then grabbed my stuff and headed back. I told Kathy to just go ahead and do stuff without us. If Lauren wasn't feeling good, then Mark and I would pull shifts with her. I got back to the hotel and what do you know? That little stinker is 99% herself. She's eating and drinking water and keeping it all in. So, we decided to head down to the French Quarter. We didn't want her overexerting herself, so we drove down there. We ate at Hard Rock Cafe and then meandered around the Quarter for a bit. Then we headed over to the Louisiana Children's Museum for a bit. I started to get a little tired, so we headed back over to the hotel. Mark took the kids swimming and I took it easy.

For dinner, we got take out from a restaurant across the street. Reginelli's Pizzeria is AWESOME. Decently priced and EXCELLENT chow. I had pesto tortellini and Mark had a calzone. Kathy had the same as myself and Stephen had pizza. We also got the garlic spread and the Spinach-Artichoke dip. It was fantastic! Will definitely go back there for noms. Seriously good. We went back up to the room to get ready for the party. The three girls (Payton, Lauren and Raegan) all have February birthdays, so Lynley bought a cake and we had a little birthday celebration for them...complete with presents! :) Chocolate + presents = happy campers.

...and this is where this blog ends....time to race. :)