Cajun Weekend with the Parents

I cannot thank you guys enough for your patience! Last weekend I had my parents visiting, so I decided to wait on the blog post until afterward so I could really enjoy my time with them. I can't wait to share my awesome weekend that I had!

As always, the first obstacle for having people come stay with you is making sure you have enough food in the house for everyone. With my household consisting of my husband and I we normally do not carry enough food to feed four people. So I started scouring Pinterest for recipes that (hopefully) everyone would enjoy finally deciding on a stuffed pork tenderloin for the first-night dinner. And anxiously went to go get all the ingredients and make sure I had enough snack items as well.  Then finally the magic moment, my guests arrived!

My mom has her priorities in order

Our first order of business? Having an amazing swamp tour by Cajun Country Swamp Tours.  I was PUMPED. I have lived in Louisiana for almost two years now, and have yet to experience a swamp tour. I was really hoping that it would be an airboat tour, (thanks to watching Water Boy) but apparently, airboats are not great for swamp tours because the noise scares away the alligators which are (apparently) very shy animals.

I had a great time, it was so beautiful out on the swamp for two hours. Got to see tons of herons (which can be big enough that they will kill alligators!) and alligators.  In fact, we even got to see a nesting mother alligator tearing up a dead alligator carcass (the smell was...pretty bad) but it was really neat to see something that I normally only saw take place on TV.

Yep, that green stuff is water

These trees have booties on them.

Duck eggs (I didn't know they had so many!!!)

Real, bona fide ragin' Cajun gator 

Beautiful tour. And the bugs were not near as bad as I thought they would be, though everyone was wearing as high a DEET insect spray as they could purchase...so...may have been because of that.  Beware though that there are HUGE ASS SPIDERS in areas of the swamp, where they are suspended over your heads. It's very scary, so if you go, do NOT pull tree branches or the Spanish moss from the trees because you may get quite an unpleasant surprise.

For dinner, we did have the stuffed pork tenderloin with some baked vegetables. It was very good, but by the time it was ready, I had been snacking on fancy cheese, watermelon, and bell pepper that I wasn't hungry. So I decided to pay attention to my body and chose to not eat dinner at exactly the same time as everyone else. I did end up have a small slice to test the meal. So that was one small intuitive eating victory for me so far.

The next morning we had a wonderful Hawai'in themed breakfast made by my wonderful Mother. It was scrambled eggs, with Portuguese sausage and a special rice.  Very filling, and very delicious. We then stopped at Pouparts Bakery to pick up a chocolate croissant for my dad, a beignet for my mom, and I had a cheese filled biscuit.

For lunch, we went to Newk's eatery, which if you have one near you I highly recommend it. They have great, wholesome food choices that fill you up and are bursting with flavor. Plus their 12-layer cakes are too legit to quit.  I personally love the strawberry cake, but I haven't tried the red velvet yet, so I'm holding out on crowing a winner just yet.

This is their farmers market sandwich.

That evening we did an Escape room, which is just as much fun as the television shows made it look. We got to do it with my parents, and my husbands' mother, step-dad, and brother. Every location has different themes, but we did one based in the 1960's and largely based around presidents from that era (sort of a secret service theme), we got out with 8 minutes to go, and everyone had a great time.  I highly recommend trying them out if you want a fun way to hang out with people without cell phones. 

Afterwards, because we were all super genius's, went to Indulge, a dessert place in Lafayette's bougie River Ranch district. They specialize in a cake shake, that is fucking fantastic because they take an actual slice of cake and put it in a blender with ice cream and milk, and they blend that shit up.  It makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE. I can taste the cake in my shake. That's all I need to make my day complete. 

Red Velvet Cake Shake 

Then finally, the last morning of my parent's trip we went and had breakfast at Mel's Diner in Broussard.  I have eaten there before, and it has never been disappointing. My dad loves the crawfish etouffee omelet (it isn't on the menu anymore, but they will typically make it if you ask), and I love their eggs benedict.  If you follow my Instagram, you probably saw the video of me cutting open my eggs benedict (my favorite part!) 

Needless to say, I obviously had an AMAZING weekend with my family, and I cannot wait to do it again.  Though this was a much longer post than normal, I hope you enjoyed it! I really enjoyed getting to share part of my life with you guys.  None of the links are affiliate links, they are all just amazing places, with amazing service, and if you ever come to Lafayette (or if you already live here) I highly recommend them! 

All photos in this post are mine, please feel free to use them just give me my credit and link it back to this blog.