Mississippi

I am NOT a cold weather person. Never have been and never will be. This year my wonderful mother bought us train tickets to see my aunt and uncle in Mississippi before Jesse had to start back at school. Not only was I excited to see my family but I was excited to get away from the cold for a week. We drove to Urbana, Illinois and took a 15 hour train ride to Hammond, Louisiana.

I was trying to take a picture of them sleeping but I guess I woke Rosalee up.

Rosalee had a lot of fun looking out the window and pointing at the cars driving past.
From there my uncle drove us to their house in Pass Christian, Mississippi. The first day it was rainy so we were afraid we brought the nasty weather with us. Thankfully it only lasted one day and the rest of the time was sunny and fabulous!

On our first morning my uncle cooked us breakfast. I think my aunt and uncle were shocked to see how much food Rosalee can put away. She ate 3 scrambled eggs, a large handful of bacon, and some buttered toast.

After breakfast we went to the Gulf Shores National Wildlife Refuge for a walk. It was nice to be able to be outside, wearing t-shirts, in January! We saw a lot of birds in the marshes and even one alligator by the side of the road.

Rosalee wasn't too sure about my uncle at first. We think it's his mustache that she was afraid of because, once she got familiar with him, she kept poking it. But his plan to win her over was to share his Popsicles after dinner. It didn't take long for the plan to work!

I can't get over the fact that she was in only a diaper, getting Popsicles, with the windows open, and it was the beginning of January!

After a busy day Rosalee just passed out on the bed.
One of Rosalee's favorite things about this vacation was getting to play in the sand at the beach! My aunt and uncle live about a 5 minute drive away from the Gulf so we were able to go a few times. At first Rosalee just ran her fingers through the sand but by the end she was piling it on top of herself!


She kept showing the sand to us and saying "ooooh!!"

I had to hold her hands because she kept wanting to fold in half and play in the sand!

Jesse wanted me to post this for my aunt. The entire parking lot was empty and she parked us right next to the dead seagull. Nice.

Sandy baby toes after a fun afternoon at the beach!
Most nights my uncle cooked us dinner but one night we decided to eat out. We were planning on going to this AMAZING crawfish place but we found out that crawfish aren't in season. At that point I wanted to cry because I had been looking forward to eating them, but my aunt promised me we'd find something equally as good. We decided to go to a Chinese food restaurant in Bay St. Louis and it was GREAT! They gave us soup, eggrolls, fried rice, and then four family style plates of entrees.

Here's Rosalee with her 1st plate of Chinese food. She enjoyed fried rice and chicken lo mein. I'm not sure if the staff enjoyed the HUGE mess she left on the floor though...
Near the Louisiana border is the Stennis Space Center. It is the country's largest rocket engine test site and it's right off the interstate! In fact to get to the space center you have to park at the rest stop and take a shuttle on the campus. We drove around the campus and saw the test sites and then went to the museum.

I'm sorry the picture is bad but it was very sunny that day. I guess it helps blurr out the sign under Rosalee that says something like "please no sitting or climbing on the rocket".

A family of astronauts!

My aunt Billie and Rosalee walking around Mars

While we were waiting for the shuttle to take us back to the car we went to the shuttle playground. My aunt and I had fun taking goofy tourist pictures as you can tell. :)
Since Rosalee had so much fun at the beach the first time we decided to take her again. This time we were able to stay longer and she was willing to go into the water. The water was fairly warm so it was nice to walk barefoot in.




On our last day we went to a fish market and bought some food to take home with us. I thought we were just going to buy some salt water fish but Jesse had other food in mind. We came home with 'gator steaks, frog legs, crawfish tail meat, and some red snapper. So if anyone has some good 'gator or frog leg recipes PLEASE let me know! After that we went to the plant nursery where my aunt works. My desire to live in the south grew when I saw the large variety of fruit trees that can grow down there. After that we went to the train station and headed north. We barely got off in time because the train employee was asleep and we couldn't open the door without him. But we made it and got home in a timely manner. We left 72 degree weather and arrived at 27 degrees. It didn't take much time before we went out and bought a second space heater.

Rosalee ended the trip the way she started it, by eating them out of house and home! At least the cereal kept her busy while we packed our bags.