Honey, how are the kids?

My little boy turned 2!  No more babies for the Llewellyn Family.  

Elias celebrated 2 with a cupcake and a tantrum!  

He's still as cute as can be; so, we'll keep him :).

 

Our oldest son, Joseph turned 9!  I wish the picture would've turned out better, but here he is blowing out his candles on his "brownie cake".

He asked for it, I swear.

 

  

Elias was determined to help him open his presents...he had just had some practice from his birthday.

Jesse, won a limbo contest.  He is the competitor in the family....if you don't count me, of course.

 Julianne, our oldest and only daughter, graduated 9th grade.  Here she is receiving her certificate.  She is now ready to move to the island full-time!

And....we moved again.  All the way to the tip of the island, with a beautiful view and an amazing breeze!  Isn't life great?  It is.

 

Festival...our Last?

In April, another one of our favorite events happens, Festival Internationale de Louisiana!  

Who can miss this 4 day/night free festival that takes place in our hometown of Lafayette, LA.  There are 5 stages of music from around the world; not to mention, food!  Lots of wonderful, mouth-watering, delicious food!  

There are hundreds of booths with local and international artists selling their handcrafted items from jewelry to beautiful artwork.  It is jam-packed with so much fun!  The music is amazing:  artists from Russia, France, Spain, Canada, you name it.  We enjoyed every minute of it.  There are tons of street artists, some that are local and some that are not, that come to entertain.

 

We look forward to the event every year.  If you have never experienced this festival, I highly recommend that you make it down to Lafayette, LA during the last week of April...absolutely can not be missed!  This is me posing near one of my favorite performers this year.  They were street performers that dressed all in red that had an absolutely wonderful performance with just drums and percussion instruments.  I think we found them 3 times so that we could experience it over and over!

It wouldn't be fair to our area to mention one festival and not another.  Southern Louisiana is famous for celebrating EVERYTHING with a festival.  If it crawls or grows in LA then it has a festival.  From frogs to strawberries, we have a given weekend out of every year to celebrate our favorite things!  Another festival that hits closer to home is the Crawfish Festival in Breaux Bridge, LA.  This occurs the first weekend in May.  So, if you aren't in New Orleans enjoying the very expensive Jazz Fest, then you can scoot over to Cajun Country and enjoy some less expensive crawfish and zydeco music.

This is an example of the amount of food that they have set up at this festival (above).  There is so much to do with crawfish as a culinary delight and you bet you can find it here.  Crawfish Fettuccine, crawfish stuffed balls, boiled crawfish, fried crawfish, crawfish etoufee', crawfish in a poboy, and on and on.  Don't come without an appetite.

As you eat the night away, there is local and famous musicians playing to entertain you.  Chubby Carrier, Horace Trahan, Jamie Bergeron.  Chris and I brushed up on our zydeco skills and our two-step.  Here is a picture of Jamie and his band below.

Of course while in Lafayette we must continue our eating frenzy...so I'll leave you with this one stop.  Oh, it's a good one!  Deano's of Lafayette!  This place puts seafood and other rarities on pizza, not to mention other wonderful dishes.  Our favorite pizza is the Marie Leveaux, which has something like mushrooms, crab meat, and mozzarella cheese.  Chris' favorite is Barbecue Chicken, which has yes you named it...barbecue chicken with red onions and cheddar cheese (I believe).  Deano's Pizzeria on Bertrand...definitely one of our favorites.

Until next time...