anyway. here we are, ten years later, and my uncle is 50 now. he decided to throw another bash to commemorate the occasion, albeit not quite as many people (though probably close to the same amount of food). we turned it into a long weekend, heading up to coushatta first to visit jb's dad and ms. joyce for a couple nights before trucking down i-49 to lafayette.
coushatta was a lot of fun - we had never been, and - as with many places in louisiana - it's unlike anywhere else in the world. we left after work and didn't drive on an interstate the entire six hours it took us to get there. when we rolled into "town", it was 10:30 at night and basically the darkest i've ever seen the world. coushatta has a population of about 2,000 - the population of the entirety of red river parish is 10,000. so it was really cool experience.
friday, we spent time touring grandpa browne's farm. they have a 30'x30' garden with tomatoes, pole beans, corn, squash, potatoes, and various other yummy veggies. they've also got several fruit trees - peaches, pears, plums, apples, citrus, figs, etc. - that will ultimately become a big orchard. the kidlets loved picking blackberries off the vine and popping them in their mouths...there weren't too many that were ready yet since we had such a late spring this year, but they found a few.
the kids also loved watching grandpa browne and ms. joyce "work their beehives". they've got two hives going and they were adding a box to one of them - we hung out in the safety of the truck, but bees are fascinating. there was also a farm dog named chloe who followed us around a bit. she almost drowned early in life but made a miraculous recovery and was the sweetest pal of a dog.
after a nice little nap, we took a drove out to dinner for some mexican food and then did a tour of the town. jb's dad grew up there, so we saw his high school and a few of the places he used to hang out when he was young. we also drove over to uncle donald's property - 280-ish acres of lumber land along the red river. it was beautiful. we even ran into uncle donald spending time in his own orchard and got to drive to the river bank at sunset.
friday night ended with homemade cobbler and a nice visit before we called it a night. saturday morning, we got up and the kids got to help grandpa browne dig potatoes! they were super hesitant and i think a little weirded out at first - i think it's kind of jarring to see that potatoes come from under the ground, maybe? but they got into it pretty quickly and were diving into the dirt to help pull all the harvest out. we even got to keep what we dug and have had some super tasty meals with fresh potatoes.
we said our goodbyes around noon on saturday and drove down to lafayette. we tried to snap a few pics before getting on the road, but hollis wasn't too participatory...
shortly after our arrival, we headed out to the other family farm - my grandparents' land outside of abbeville. i hadn't been over there in years and it was so nice to be there. my mom and my grandma's friend ms. barbara made tons of food and my uncle barbecued chicken, pork, sausage, etc. there was rice dressing, 300 kinds of snacks, garlic bread, and various other deliciousness. we never go hungry when we are in louisiana, that's for sure.
my mom had also picked up containers of bubbles and several water guns, which led to an intense water gun battle. i am pretty sure our kids just ran around outside for three straight hours. we had a soccer ball and a whiffle ball and bat, too, which was fun. i did manage to kick the soccer ball directly into ek's chest on accident, but she ultimately forgave me (i'm seriously not athletic, what can i say?).
sunday morning we woke up and hit the zoo after a breakfast. the lafayette zoo is awesome - great animals, not too big, super shaded, a great train ride. the kids loved it. some friends joined and we all loved seeing everything and being outside before the day got too crazy hot.
sunday afternoon after nap we headed to the cajun heartland state fair, which was in town for the weekend. emme freaking loves a fair. we were only there for 30-45 minutes before it started torrentially down pouring, but we managed to cram in a fair amount of rides and action in that time. i did make the silly decision to leave the family under cover and run across the fair and parking lot back to our car to get the three umbrellas i had in there, so i was COMPLETELY soaked, but it was kind of fun and refreshing too. we swung by the house so i could switch into dry clothes, then met one of my cousins and my aunt mary at deano's for pizza and dinner. the kids each ate an entire pepperoni pizza, which was impressive. i think they were ravenous from playing non-stop for three days.
monday morning we woke up and had an awesome diner breakfast at mel's before hitting the road back to austin. it was an uneventful trip until we got about an hour outside of austin and started hitting some of the insane weather we had on memorial day. there were tornado warnings and flooding and the highway we drove in on ended up closing 30 minutes or so after we made it through. it was craziness - super scary. i've lived through hurricanes and this was probably the most up-close and personal i've been with a storm. not an experience i necessarily care to repeat.
we were a lot more fortunate than a lot of people in that both our home and our rental house were fine. our thoughts go out to all the families who were impacted in a much more tragic way.
You got some beautiful photos! I think it's so cool to see kids learning about food and how it's grown.
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