Cold Spaghetti

Once you open a loaf of bread in New Orleans, you have approximately 15 minutes to devour it completely before the humidity sucks out all the soft goodness and turns it into a wheat rock.  What a loss of good bread.  Our solution?  Throw it into the freezer at minute 14 — just in the nick of time — and save it for the animals in the park.

Like this guy, who I think just heard us tell Kate not to eat the moldy bread because it was for the squirrels.

Today’s high was 81.  In September, a high of 81 means it was an absolutely perfect fall day.

Way too beautiful to spend the afternoon inside.  So we picked the kids up from school and brought them straight to the park for a picnic.

Is this squirrel sticking is tongue out at us?

If you’ve spent time in Audubon Park, you recognize these three.  They are the park social committee.  We like to think of them as Agnes, Edna, and Beatrice.  They squawk with British accents.

The wood ducks are back (my favorites).  Will referred to the swan that followed him around as “big guy,” as in, “I need more bread to feed the Big Guy.”

Will also played around with the Photovoice camera and asked if I could set it on a timed release “so that we can get some family pictures.”  Okay, Will.  He set the camera on the cooler and got to work.

He was very serious.  So serious that we had to capture the intensity.  For the record, Kate totally and completely listened to every darn word the kid said.

Paul and I are barely holding it together, just seconds away from exploding into hysterics.  The Kid is directing us to put our heads together.

See?  I wasn’t listening.  I was suppose to move closer.  Okay, Will.

What unfortunately isn’t easily seen in this picture is the underside of Will’s cast.  He took a marker and wrote “DAD MOM KATE” in a line on the inside of the cast.  Underneath he wrote WILL, except that he made the W upside-down.  So really, he wrote “MILL”.  When he realized the mistake (“Will, who’s ‘Mill?'”  “What?”  “Mill.  M-I-L-L.  On your arm.”) he laughed like a loon and then simply wrote his name (complete with W) underneath.  DAD MOM KATE MILL WILL.

If that doesn’t sum up the age of 5, I just can’t think of much more that can.  Awesomeness.

I humbly requested a photo of Kate and Will.  This is the only one where one of them isn’t lifting the other, picking a nose, or bent upside.  It also showed that I am the only photographer no one listens to.  Not that this was ever in doubt.

Happy fall day, New Orleans! So good to be home.