[travel] New Orleans

[to read about the first portion of our anniversary trip to Destin, click here]

The second part of our anniversary trip two weeks ago was to spend our actual anniversary in New Orleans. Neither of us had ever been: we have heard mixed reviews about NOLA, both good and meh, so we decided to just stay one night to feel it out and then come back if we felt so led. Here are a few photos from our 18 hours spent there :)

Pulling into downtown and heading towards the French Quarter, where our hotel was located.

The French Quarter has beautiful architecture! 

Very narrow streets... Nate was glad we did NOT take his truck on this trip! 

Our hotel: Hotel LeMarais, I HIGHLY recommend it! The staff was very friendly and accommodating, the atmosphere was beautiful, the rooms/pool side/lobby were well kept and modern, and we even scored two free drink tickets to use that night. Yes please!

Our window had these adorable shutters and overlooked the street. Loved that part!

Our bell man, Bull! He has the same last name as my maiden name, so he joked with Nate that I was his wife and Nate stole me from him! Ha! He was hilarious and very friendly :)

Heading out to explore and to go to dinner to Emeril Lagasse's restaurant, NOLA: he has three restaurants in New Orleans, but we chose "NOLA" for our anniversary dinner. Delicious food!!!

Each street had a beautifully tiled sign that explained the street name. 

The French Quarter was beautiful. We enjoyed walking throughout and taking photos, a favorite pastime of ours!

The front of Emeril's restaurant, where we ate for our anniversary dinner! And next door, they had this adorable cooking school with the cutest Cajun ingredients and treats!

 This happened. Stared at me straight in the face.

There were so many antique shops throughout the French Quarter as well: all adorable, pretty ritzy with their merchandise, and had the cutest signs! 

Our hotel grounds were beautiful: this was the pool area where we enjoyed drinks in the evening, after dinner, once we "escaped" Bourbon Street. We wanted to walk down one block, just to say that we had been there... It was NOT our scene. No offense to you if it is your favorite place in the world, but we did not enjoy the smells, nor the scantily clad ladies in the bar door ways. We have nothing against going to have a drink and/or listening to live music, but this area was too much for us. We probably won't be visiting again anytime soon: we would rather go elsewhere.

The front of our hotel: gorgeous!

So to sum up:

*We would definitely visit the French Quarter again
*We would definitely stay at our hotel again (although between the hours of 3-4am, it gets loud in the hallway... I guess that's when the bars close on Bourbon Street)
*The food is fantastic
*I would like to go back to see some sights outside of the French Quarter
*I would like to go back to visit Cafe Du Monde

*We will not visit Bourbon Street again nor will we walk down that block again, if we can help it

Hope that helps if you are planning to take a trip there soon!

Happy Monday!

"The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17

[make] Calligraphy Canvas Art

Well, I didn't have that many guesses as to what hymn I used for my version of calligraphy art, but here is what I did!

Did anyone internally guess "It Is Well With My Soul"? I just love that hymn. The story behind it, the power with the words. I thought it would be a fabulous reminder to have around the house.

I started with a blank canvas that I had originally painted something else on about three years ago, but I painted over it with gray and then distressed it some with a scrap of burlap fabric. I used a white art marker for the writing: I'm not sure where it's from because I inherited it from my aunt along with a b-u-n-c-h of other craft supplies. I'm sure you can find one at Hobby Lobby or Michael's.

I used a scratch piece of paper to make sure I knew all of the words in the right order, and then I sketched out how I wanted the calligraphy letters to look on each line. Of course, by the time I got to the bottom on the actual canvas, I ran out of room... but that's okay!

I used my white marker on the canvas and wrote slowly in cursive, adding little flairs here and there throughout the wording. 

This is how Emily's calligraphy trick works: the first picture is the original, and the second picture is the calligraphy trick. She adds a thicker line to all of her downward strokes. As in, when I write a "t", my marker starts at the top and goes down. As soon as the marker begins to go up for the letter "h", my thick line stops until my marker starts to go down again. I hope that makes sense, but if not you can always click the link above to see her explanation!

Ta-da! Isn't it gorgeous? I like how it looks like chalkboard since I used gray paint and a white pen. A happy accident since I was not intending to that originally! 

I hung it in our living room below our engagement canvas that people signed at our wedding [our photographer's idea: we took a photo in downtown Dallas, Deep Ellum, in front of a brick wall, and it now looks like graffiti with all of the signatures! Super cute idea!]. 

Who else is a fan of calligraphy? I am thinking about doing a large canvas piece next, but that makes me so nervous! It was fun though, very therapeutic to focus on the strokes and alignment of the words... Does that make me a nerd or what?

[P.S. Who is stuck watching Game 7 with their hubs? #iam #gospurs #onlybecausetheyarefromtexas #reallygomavs #cantstandspursorheat]

[P.P.S. I have 201 followers: you all followed through, yeaaa!!! Thanks!!!

Happy Thursday!

"Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations." Matthew 12:18