Letting the Good Times Roll!

It's Friday!  Woo hoo, it's Friday!  Like I said yesterday, this week is just weird.  The past couple of weeks have been weird.  I'm not quite even sure what normal and a routine looks like anymore.  But I miss it.  I think...

Anyway...

Cupid was back early this morning!  He left Lucky Charms for each of the kiddos with this message:

They were ready for school in plenty of time this morning (it's blue day for the Bean today, apparently Noah was on board, too) and we noticed the flag was up! 

They had a note telling them to check their email

Where we got the following message:

Dear Detectives,

Greetings from the Big Easy!  I am contacting you from the state known for saying “Laissez les bons temps rouler” (Let the Good times roll!)  There is no time of the year that this saying is more overheard than right now!  I have a feeling that when you see the picture I’m attaching to this email you’ll know exactly what I mean.  I don’t think I even need to tell you the name of the celebration, though in English it translates to Fat Tuesday.  Anyway, I was part of a krewe at a parade down in the French Quarter when I snapped the picture.  I’ve been hearing plenty of rumors about Miss Direction being in the area, and I think I spotted her!  I wanted to get you the information as soon as possible.  Even here in my parish (we don’t have counties in my state) we’ve heard that the Gatchel Detectives are THE people to catch Nita Direction!  Hope this helps, Detectives!

A Concerned Citizen 

They had quite the hunt to spot Nita...

Noah found her!

Amazing work, Mike!

They felt confident enough to make a guess of...

Louisiana!

The Bean sent it off.  Guess we'll have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I decided to bring some Mardi Gras fun into the kitchen today.  I made these for dessert:

 King Cake Balls (Grant said they were good but not as good as the cinnamon roll cake.  I may never make anything as good as the cinnamon roll cake again.)

And Kayla and I had a nail painting party!  During which she shared with me my favorite funny of the day.  She told me they were playing house at school today - she was the kid, one of her friends was the Mom and the little boy playing with them was Batman,  I love it!

We furthered our Louisiana adventure with a dinner of Cajun Dirty Rice with Shrimp (just for my seafood loving Bean!) tonight,  Grant and Noah have been working on finishing up a few of the details for his pinewood derby car (they're hoping to have it completely done by the weigh-in next Wednesday night.  And on a side note, I would be one SUPER happy Mama with that.  Done before the deadline - what a concept!  But I digress...) and the Bean has been consumed with puzzles all afternoon.  Me - I'm getting ready to head out!  A few of the girls and I are taking 24 whole hours for ourselves to get away.  What a concept!  So it'll probably be Sunday before I can let you know if the kiddos were right in their Louisiana guess, tell you if Cupid has been back and all the other going on's around here.  So until then...

Kayla's puzzles

Dirty Rice and Shrimp.  Everyone here liked it.  Not necessarily a go to (like last night's lasagna) but we'll keep this one