1st Crawfish Boil-- or not

Today was our once-a-year opportunity to indulge in 1 thing we truly miss from Louisiana-- CRAWFISH! The DC LSU and other LA college alumni associations get together every spring for a big all-you-can eat fest with a band, beer truck, tons of crawfish, jambalaya, and 1500 people in a nice park near the Mt. Vernon estate along the Potomac. We've been before, but because of bedrest and new babies, have missed the past 2 years. We were back in action and looking forward to it, even if it meant a 1 hour drive to get there. We packed everything for the babies and even brought our big overhead shade contraption at the last minute. We were only 1 hour late to meet friends, but lucked out by getting a very close parking spot. Our friends had a nice spot under the trees all laid out. That's where our good luck ended.

We had seen the weather reports forecasting the possibility of storms later in the day, but that never scares us since the weather is often incorrect here. We were there about 15 minutes with our first batch of crawfish and then the black clouds swept over us. We had the babies in the double jogger and decided our 10x10 cover wasn't enough for 4 adults and 3 kids. So we ran to the van and loaded the babies and me back in. Darrell ran to put everything under the cover. But wait-- we forgot the stroller, which was all the way open still, by the back bumper. It was toast-- SOAKED since it poured down like crazy for several minutes.

Now, in LA where we're from, thunderstorms don't scare us since they literally happen daily in the summertime. Usually they pass within a few minutes and life goes back to normal. Not this time. What we thought was "passing" was a big mistake. We had unpacked again and set up the Pack-N-Play under the cover. Darrell digs into the very very very spicy batch of crawfish, I take 1 sip of my beer. The babies are munching on cheerios and puffs. Darrell goes to get another beer at the truck and brings the umbrella just in case. Then it starts getting extremely windy and starts POURING, I mean, POURING again. By the time Darrell gets the 100 or so yards back to us, hail is coming down all over. We are huddled under the cover and I start praying that no tornado or lightning strike takes us. Meanwhile, our blanket was soaked (oh yeah, we were downhill and on dirt rather than grass) in muddy slop. Everything was soaking wet-- us, the babies, the chairs, blankets, diaper backpack, EVERYTHING.

We had to wait it out again, but after 1 stranger joining us undercover (a father of 36-year-old identical twins-- yes, we got to know one another quickly since he helped hold the umbrella over the babies for us) and 30 minutes or so, we go back to the van and load up everything. Problem is, instead of removing all of my school stuff (and students' gifts for the end of the year) from the back of the van, we now piled up all of the soaking wet equipment and took off.

Of course, it was sunny in our neighborhood when we got home. Libby refused to sleep and was grouchy the whole way. Then it hit me-- neither Drew or Libby has had a diaper change since we left home 4.5 hours ago. Parent of the year here. She was soaked all the way through, so no wonder she was grouchy. It was awful. Both had a nice dinner (since they had cheerios and puffs for lunch--- parent of the year again) and went straight to bed. They are pooped. Darrell and I took our very cold crawfish we got and ate on the deck together. This was the spiciest batch I have ever eaten. I mean, they were so hot that our mouths and lips were on fire for hours. So, after a very long day, the $74 we spent for 2 tickets got us 2 batches of cold but overly spicy crawfish, 1/2 beer from each of us, 2 cranky and wet babies, a completely trashed van, wet EVERYTHING, and cost us about $30 in gas and 5 boxes of 64-crayons. Hopefully next year will be better!