The Cajun Experience

Well we all had a great weekend this Memorial Weekend, but first things first...I FINALLY GOT A PICTURE OF BENNETT SMILING!!! I have been trying and trying to get this picture, but every time I pulled the camera out he would get so distracted with the blinking red light he would just go into a trance and sit there. My favorite part of his smile is his eyes, which crunch up just like Matt's. :)

Mary (Matt's mom) was born Cajun in Louisiana, and this weekend we got to hang out with her family, who are the funnest people I have ever met! They are all about relaxing, eating seafood and having a good time. The reason we were all there was because Mary's cousin's daughter, Courtney, was getting married in Palacious, Texas, right on the Gulf of Mexico, so we got to go! It was fantastic!

This sign pretty much sums up what is available in Palacios, Texas.

This is The Luthor Hotel, where we shared a suit with Mary, Wayne, Bekah, Nathan, and Sarah. (It was a pretty big suit, with two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room.) This hotel is SUPER old...and somewhat haunted. In it's heyday though, it was like, the place to stay, and there were pictures and letters from movie stars like Shirley Temple up on the walls. You should look it up on the Internet...it's pretty cool.

This is a shrimp boat, just like on Forest Gump! There were A LOT of these here! One of Mary's family members owns a pretty decent shrimping company, so we got to go on his boat (this picture isn't of his boat, but it looked pretty much just like this.) We had a big lunch out on the dock, and guess what we ate? SHRIMP!!

And me and Bennett got to sit in the Captain's chair!

Bennett and Matt getting their sea legs. "Ahoy, me Mattie!" :)

After the lunch on the dock we took Bennett to the beach to have his first swim in the ocean! The water in the Gulf is pretty warm, so we decided it would be ok to strap him up and let him go!




He didn't really appreciate it at first, but once he got used to it he was a natural. But of course, the binki had to come along for the ride.

Just chillin'.

Drying off

All bundled up. What an easy-going guy we got!

After our swim we played on the beach a little.

And I made a sad little sand castle, but I was still pretty proud.

The actual wedding was beautiful. It was the first wedding I have been to that was of a different faith (it was in the Catholic church) and it was pretty cool. This bride's dress was AMAZING!! It took a year to make, and she worked with the designer to ensure it was perfect. Wow.

The flower girl's dress was an exact replica of the wedding dress, only miniature. It was so cute, and the little girl was pretty cute too.

This was in no way a "low budget wedding." This is the limo that took the couple from the church to the reception hall...four blocks away.

I wish we would have gotten more pictures of the actual reception hall, because it was like out of a movie. There were ice sculptures everywhere, two huge wedding cakes, a live band, and an entire room full of endless food! It was all catered, and I am talking about a full course meal of chicken, beef, green beans, rice, mashed potatoes, pastries...and of course, shrimp!

This is the stage where the band played. Dancing was a ton of fun!

Even with all this fuss though, Bennett was none too impressed. He spent the majority of this weekend sleeping and looking cute. But even with this totally non-social attitude he made more friends than I have ever had, and completely stole the show. :)