With Mardi Gras and Valentines Day falling on the same weekend, it was a great weekend for celebrating and socializing and ending in fine form on Fat Tuesday.
To start off our Mardi Gras festivities, the ER nurses had a "Superbowl" party at work, complete with gumbo,yummy appetizers, King Cake, and the Superbowl game on a tv in the nurses station!It is hard to remember who was rooting for which team or why, as I am not a fan of football myself.I did enjoy the football rivalry between friends at work and on Facebook. But I will say this , I did find a little joy in knowing that the Cowboys ( or Cowgirls) rather, did not play in the Superbowl.But I really did not care who was playing or who won- I just wanted to have a party at work!. Although with the New Orleans Saints winning,it was quite fitting, with Mardi Gras coming up and all.I received quite a few text messages all throughout the day from friends and family in Mandeville and Houma Louisianna.... and I am sure with all the hoopla from that day, you know what those text messages said!Exchanging Mardi Gras beads and another King Cake later on in the work week, we were ready to be off for Mardi Gras weekend!
Our first Mardi Gras outing was on Friday night when I headed out to Port Arthur with John and Kristen to watch the parade- always a good time. Comparing the parade there to the parades I have attended in Galveston, Port Arthur is quite tame and more family oriented.The Friday night parade was only about 25 minutes long, which was fine with us.Although we bundled up,it was quite cold and finished up our first night of partying INSIDE at a friends house on the parade route and decided to brave the carnival the next night.
On Saturday, we braved the 35' temperature and headed out early to the parade to meet Kristens parents who were ready with us , fire pit and all! We set up our "camp" close to the carnival entrance with good food to cook on our fire pit- veggie kabobs,grilled chicken, sausage and boudain. Although I had plenty of Stella Artois and Peroni to drink, I saved room for a large cup of hot chocolate, which hit the spot during the parade.When the parade started and beads were flying, we had a great time and saw a few of our friends on the passing floats. After the parade ended, we drove to a hidden parking lot and entered the carnival from the rear entrance and caught the end of the parade and snagged a few more choice beads and other fun Mardi Gras paraphanalia! As if we did not already have enough to eat earlier, we found our way to the food and I found a tasty veggie kabob ,took a bite of an shrimp on a stick, split a funnel cake 3 ways, split a box of ribbon fries 2 ways with lots of ketchup, and tried my first cheesecake on a stick. It was great, but a little too big to finish myself which John gladly took over.We danced to great Zydeco music on the Pavillion and stayed to watch most of the Randy Rogers Band concert. We had a great time,and looking forward to next year.
Waking up on Sunday, I found myself to be quite tired, but I did make it to 9:30 mass at St. Judes and felt a little bit better about life for doing so. After a quick trip to the gym- to work off that funnel cake, and even quicker shower , I was ready to join a few of the girls, and a few guys for lunch at Pei Wei where I enjoyed Pei Wei Spicy with veggies and brown rice, my favorite!Kim and I ended the day with a 4:00 movie outing to see "Valentines Day", which was an excellent movie, I recommend it to go see with the girls, or your favorite guy!!!
Touchy subject for some, but not me..... not this year! Being single on Valentines Day. Being single to me means no dating, period!!! No dating, no phone calls, no texting, Facebooking,Myspacing,ect., and I am okay with that.I have a few friends that posted whiny status updates of "Oh, I'm alone on Valentines Day.. blah ,blah, blah...get over it. Eat a piece of chocolate and get on with it. If you want flowers and chocolate, go buy some for yourself, I did!I found a beautiful bouquet of wildflowers with a few hidden roses in between the sunflowers and daisies and a small box of PLAIN chocolate with nuts and a bag of Hershey Kisses. I am not ashamed to say I ate all 10 pieces in that box of candy Sunday night, but took the bag of Kisses to work on Monday to share with the dayshift.Indulging is one thing, but I was not going to be a glutton and eat the whole bag, which I surely could do!I could not have been happier with my gifts to me from me than if Mr. Right showed up at my door with a huge bouquet of multi-colored roses, an even bigger box of candy and an awesome dinner date planned at a place like Brians 747 or Sugas and then a movie.......... Ok, we all know thats not true,but I had a great day anyway!Anyway, we all know the best part of V-day is the chocolate !
Fat Tuesday ended the Mardi Gras festivities and I started the night off at Tokyos , one of my favorite restaurants. Although I stuck to my you-can -never-go -wrong with Crunch Roll, I also tried the Diablo Maki- delicious!I was quite full of sushi by the time my Hibachi vegetables and fried rice arrived, so I had that packaged up to take home. My next stop was Taste of The Triangle held at Ford Pavillion . I was quite impressed with the variety of vendors present and the food they had out for us to sample. Cheddars,Hooters,Seaport Coffee,Del Papa and Giglio ,Courvilles,Zydeco Cafe,Madisons,Goodfellas, and even Casa Ole, just to name a few!I tried a tasty vegetarian burrito,seafood gumbo and the best bread pudding ever.
Before I could get home, I received a text message from a friend letting me know that the party was continuing at Madisons and to hurry up and get there!Just in time too, my cell phone died (battery), and I for some reason did not have my charger in my SUV.When I arrived at Madisons, I found that most of the party had been there for quite a while partying it up and decided to go ahead to indulge in a Pomegranate Martini, quite tasty, but not as good as the one at Carabbas!
It was a great weekend plus 2 days and hoping all enjoyed their Mardi Gras and Valentines Day too!
