a little night music.

Someone told me, when we first moved here in the dog days of summer and it felt like we would never stop sweating again, that New Orleans in October was worth the wait. Today, a blustery autumn wind blew in from somewhere and suddenly everything felt different, right on schedule.

This week marked two months of livin' in the Big Easy. Everyone keeps asking us if we've gone to the typical New Orleans tourist traps and, to be honest, we haven't. It's been too hot, mostly. We have two small children. We live here and still have 9 more months to soak it all in. But Jazz in the Park - specifically, an all-woman brass band performing right at dinnertime - seemed like the perfect chance to check something off the bucket list because, honestly, it's hard to believe we only have 9 more months here to soak it all in.

I want to tell you all about the hilariously-unpleasant bits, like the diaper change on the side of the road that left all of us covered in, well, you can figure that one out, or the scolding from that rigid security guard about our admittedly large picnic basket, or how we got all the way back to the apartment before we remembered that we had carpooled from campus and Jason's car was still sitting on St. Charles Avenue. But the moment I'm holding onto is a lovely elderly gentleman who pulled me aside while Phoebe and Lorelei were dancing their little hearts out and told me "I just love watching you and your beautiful family. Thank you." It was a perfect New Orleans-in-the-fall evening, and it was absolutely worth the wait.