We have stayed busy this week.

We had a fun ornament exchange party at a friend’s house on Tuesday. A great time and a lot of fun singing since Doug is an incredible pianist.

Then we went to New Orleans to spend Friday night. I would never want to live in New Orleans, but visiting for a couple of days is always fun. We have season tickets to the musicals at the historic Saenger Theater — less historic now than it was prior to Hurricane Katrina, but much nicer now than it was then! — and we usually try to spend the night nearby when we come to town. We have a particular favorite hotel on Canal Street that is close to all the things we are here to do.

Several of the hotels do a tremendous job of decorating for Christmas, so this is always a fun time of year to visit. We ate at the Palace Café on Friday night and visited the Ritz, then we ended up at the Bourbon House for lunch on Saturday. Our tickets for “Jersey Boys” were at 2:00 pm, so we hung out in NOLA until showtime and then drove back to Baton Rouge after the play to get ready for the Christmas celebration at our church on Sunday morning.

Sunday was an absolute blast. I was a guest singer with the church quartet because one of the guys was sick. The Christmas at Istrouma was a great morning of worship and celebration. I even wore a suit to church (let’s just say it’s been a while).

We came home and had a fantastic dinner that was the perfect ending to a wonderful weekend.

Now the countdown begins.

The bloodletting begins in thirty-six hours. I’ll let you know how it goes…