Mardi Gras!

Thursday morning....way too early for this chick.....I loaded up my munchkins and drove through four states to my best friends' house.  Spent the night and got up at a slightly more acceptably early hour to driving through two and a half more states to kick off the first weekend of Mardi Gras in Louisiana. 

No one's boobs were exposed for this bounty of beads. 

I have had the good fortune to have experienced Mardi Gras once before....prior to marriage, kids, and most of the other adult responsibility stuff....but my husband and children have not.  One of my surrogate mothers lives in southern Louisiana, not far from New Orleans, and we've been wanting to get down there for some time, but things just never worked out.  This year, it mostly did.  We had a few hurdles thrown at us in the form of my husband's dickhead boss taking all his scheduled leave from him at the last minute, but we overcame. 

And we are so glad that we did.

We enjoyed ourselves immensely.  The boys got more beads then we know what to do with and got to spend a weekend with children other than just each other.  Me and the hubs got to interact with adults other than each other....and most of those adults were fucking hilarious to boot.  As we drove home last night, we discussed our weekend and how much we miss just having friends to hang out with.  Having that socialization and connection with other people who we've known forever and have history and shared interests with is something that we really miss out on with our military-issued lifestyle. 

Unfortunately, that seems to be out of reach for us.  Definitely for the time being, and possibly forever.  So, we'll happily snatch whatever time like that we can get, whenever we can get it. 

Even if it means going back down South and subjecting ourselves to ridiculous heat, and sometimes infuriating culture, and a ridiculous sunburn in the middle of fucking February.  I mean really.  I should have been safe from second degree burns from the mean, cruel sun for AT LEAST three more months.  It's not even an even sunburn!!  I look like a drunk Apache warrior.

Before I get any hate mail, let me assure you, I have nothing but the utmost respect for Apache warriors.....even the drunk ones. 

 Damn my extremely Caucasian-ness.