The rest of the Mississippi Trip

I apologize for taking "forever" to post the rest of our trip. Believe it or not, our trip was only 2 days! We left Texas on Sunday, September 30 and came back home Wednesday October 3.

Anyway, the second day, we went to visit Ray's paternal grandmother, Mrs. Laura. She suffers from Alzheimers and did not recognize Ray and was not able to talk to him. But she was willing to pose for this picture. Sorry about the quality of the pic, it came from my cell phone and I didn't realize that I was able to change white balance, etc on the camera phone.

Several other family members were there. Aunt Mae, her daughter Sheeka and Sheeka's twin daughters. We also saw Uncle Jimmy Dale and Aunt Laura. Here's Ray with his Uncle Jimmy Dale. One of his dad's brothers and the one who looks most like Ray.

Here's a picture of Aunt Mae and Sheekas twin girls sitting on the porch with Samara.

After visiting with Ray's family, we headed to the coast to ride on a shrimping boat. Ray's sister Brittney came with us. It was cool because there were only 2 other visitors on the boat. So we got an up close and personal tour! Here's Nehemiah, Isaiah, Malachi and Samara on the upper deck of the shrimp boat.

Here's a picture of our shrimping guide. He explained everything you ever wanted to know about shrimping. He had lots of pictures on the boat of things they've caught over the years, including a sea turtle. He also had before and after pictures of the area due to Hurricane Katrina.

We were disappointed that we only caught a handful of shrimp. There were a few other fish and lots of jellyfish and "sea sourcrout". Here's a picture of one the shrimp we caught and threw in a tank.

But the good news was, we caught some small non-stinging jellyfish and the fisherman gave one to each kid to hold.

The twins posed for a silly picture while sitting on the back of the shrimping boat.

Here's Ray sitting on the lower deck of the boat.

Next we headed to the beach. Here's Brittney and the twins walking along the beach.

Then we rented jet skis. Brittney did not want to ride. She said she can't swim and didn't feel comfortable riding out in the ocean. We tried to convince her but to no avail. We rented two 3 seater jetskis. They let us put 4 on each jetski since we had little ones. Trent, Isaiah, Malachi and Nehemiah rode on the first one. Ray, Seth, Samara and I rode on the second one. The twins were having a blast, laughing and carrying on, until Ray tried to turn the jetski and we flipped over. Then they were both terrified and screaming. The lifeguard guy rode his jetski over and helped Ray to flip our jetski back over while I held onto the twins. Ray climbed on first, Samara hesitated but was convinced to get back on. Seth refused to get back on, instead crying and clinging to me. I finally pushed him back up with the help of the lifeguard. We headed back to shore and Ray and the twins got off. I got to ride alone for the rest of the trip. Trent was able to keep his jetski from capsizing, but rode too fast on the waves and knocked Nehemiah off the back! Of course Isaiah and Malachi were terrified that they just lost their brother in the ocean! Nehemiah was able to climb back on before the lifeguard guy was able to rescue him. Here's Trent and Nehemiah after they dropped Isaiah and Malachi off on the shore.
Me on the jet ski.

Here's a picture of the bridge that crosses over the Mississippi River. We took this pic on the way home. Goodbye Mississippi! We'll be back soon!


While on our way home, Ray saw his dream bike so I took a picture of it. A picture of the stretched Hayabusa for all to enjoy. Thank you stranger for letting us take your picture!!!