The Foliday

Fol-i-day.  noun. Fake-holiday.  A day on which one is supposed to be exempt from work; specifically : a day marked by the desire for a general suspension of work in commemoration of an event.  July 5 is a state foliday in Louisiana.

Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal, may have declared July 5th a state holiday, but apparently the state's flagship university did not.  Since I had to work on Friday, Alex and I convinced my parents to visit us in Monroe for the holiday weekend instead.  Side note:  Really, I could have taken off, but I'd just taken off the week before for our weekend in Dallas, and plus, asking someone to care for our animals two weekends in a row was a bit much.  Once Alex tossed out the idea of fishing with my father, it didn't take much convincing in our part anyway.  ;-)

So yeah, my parents visited us for the July 4th weekend.  Because they spent the first part of the week down at Grand Isle (basically the end of the earth as far as south Louisiana goes), they decided to drive up to Monroe on the morning of the 4th.  Our morning was pretty chill, as Alex and I relaxed a bit, caught up on some DVR, and prepared the grill for their afternoon arrival.  For dinner, my parents brought steaks from Hebert's Specialty Meats so we fired up the grill and enjoyed a finger-lickin-good meal that evening.

Friday, the boys made the trek out to Lake D'arbonne for a day of fishing.  Thanks to a coworker, they were armed with excellent directions to a new locale for my daddy to test the waters.  The fruits of their labor were few, but I think they enjoyed themselves nonetheless.  While I worked, my mom slept in and later ran a few errands for us.  For dinner, we tried out the new fish fry kit my mom got for us a while back.  In true Cajun form, we once again stuffed ourselves with the fresh fish from the day's adventures.

My daddy enjoyed a piece of Heaven on Saturday when we took him to visit the motherland, aka Duck Commander.  Wide eyes and a bright smile were permanent fixtures on his face that day.  By now, Alex and I have been there a few times, so the magic has worn on us a bit, but it is always fun to visit with a newbie.  I've included a few pictures for you below.

THE Camper, featured in several episodes.

If you can believe it, this was the line to take a picture with the Duck Commander/Buck Commander sign.

Mom and I came out of the gift shop to find the boys near the front of the line;  pictures resulted.

Alright ya'll, come visit us.  We'll even take you to visit some of the many attractions, restaurants, or events voted "Best of the Delta 2013."  Come on, you know you want to...

-Lauren