7 Quick Takes Friday - New Orleans Edition

I've wanted to do a New Orleans edition (I typed 'addition' twice) since we moved here, and finally I'm remembering before Saturday. Woohoo! Here goes:

1. First things, first, here is a map of the city.  We live in the Lower Garden District, which is at the bottom right of the crescent (circled, a little hard to see).  Brian works right now up in the Jefferson Parish (northwest of the crescent) while they prepare to start work on the levee, but the levee is actually in St. Tammany Parish (East of the crescent).  Click on the map to view it full size.

2. Neighborhoods in Brief  Here's a brief summary of each of the major neighborhoods.  A little bit of history and the boundaries.  I found it interesting.

3.  How Ta Tawk Rite  The street names here are a whole mix of languages, and this guide cracked me up.  I was so proud of myself when I was able to pronounce the names of the muses... but who knew, New Orleanians pronounce their names phonetically (for instance, Calliope.  Pronounced Cuh-lie-oh-pee, right?  Nope. Here it's cal-ee-ope.  It feels so wrong!)  Oh, and my favorite street name, we live a couple blocks from Tchoupitoulas.  That's Chop-it-too-las.

4. As soon as we moved here, we made a beeline for the Louisiana Children's Museum.  It's wonderful, but has the most horrendous parking.  Trying to park at this place has almost broken me a couple times!

5.  The place we're spending the most time exploring right now is The Audubon Zoo.  This is absolutely the most beautiful zoo I've seen, and we really loved the Columbia, SC zoo!  Today, when Isaac wakes up we're going to visit the Insectarium.  Nathan is SO excited!

The fountain in the zoo entrance

A huge grove of oaks in the center of the zoo

A little fairy descending from Monkey Hill

6. We're attending Calvary Baptist Church while we're here, and we really like it.  They have a great children's program, and this week I went to a women's Bible study that will be a lot of fun, I think.

7.  Tomorrow, we're going to spend the day at Shady Pond Tree Farm hanging out and picking out a Christmas tree.  The kids are very excited about the tree, and Brian and I are very excited about a (very cold) day spent outside exploring what looks like a beautiful farm!  I plan to take my camera and make the kids wear clothes that don't clash wildly in an effort to get some great Christmas pictures of them.  We'll see how that goes!