Throw me something mister

Bryan and I can officially say we survived Mardi Gras 2012. What an experience we had too. Before I get into that I wanted to share a little of our past week. Valentine's day was wonderful considering we did not have to celebrate via skype, Halleluiah! He sent me flowers at work, we had dinner at Bravo, and then went to see The Vow. Not only did we go see a sappy chick flick, we went on a weekday and got home past Bryan's 10:00 bed time. It must be love.

My pretty flowers that didn't come in a box this year!!!

Nothing to exciting happened the rest of the week until Saturday morning. We were planning on going to New Orleans for Mardi Gras but heard most parades were being moved to Sunday due to rain. Well, the forecast was accurate. Bryan and I woke up right before my dad called and said there were tornadoes in Lafayette coming our way. We jumped out of bed just as the storm was rolling in with a tornado warning on TV. All that was running through my head was that "warning" is the bad one and I need to put shoes on. Two seconds later we hear metal flying around outside and Bryan says "we are going to the bath tub!" At that point I was terrified because Bryan would never hide from a storm/tornado, he loves them, and because we were on the third floor! I still don't understand why the sirens didn't go off while the news was telling everyone to take cover. Thankfully we got a warning from my dad!

I just had to get a picture. Some of the aftermath of the storm. Those are metal sheets from the ceiling of the hallways of our apartment. I guess Louisiana doesn't just have hurricanes. Yay.

So with that scare we decided to delay Mardi Gras a day. We left yesterday after church and headed to NO.  I had never seen so many people and beads in my life. It was worse than NYC at rush hour. I took pictures but honestly they don't come close to doing it justice. We saw two parades: Krewe of Thoth and Krewe of Bacchus.

I took this on Bourbon street trying to get the balcony. I didn't realize until I got home that this man was in it! He probably thought I was taking a picture of hime! Ha. Oh well!

I look scared to death! 

A trailer full of just beads.

See the ladder on the far left? There were tons of these with little seats on top. I was pretty jealous of the little girl on top.

Example of the mess and ladders

Can you tell who this is?? Will Ferrell!

Once we had watched the first parade we thought we should just start walking the parade route back to our car. It was starting to get dark but we still wanted to see the parade. At this point I had to go to the bathroom and wasn't about to pay $1 to use a porta potty!  Night parades are beautiful though. Again, these pictures don't do it justice!!!  We ended up walking 6 miles back to our car through crowds of people. I wouldn't recommend Mardi Gras to everyone. I am glad I got to experience it in NO but I think from now on I will stick to the parades outside of the city. :)