TUESDAY

Goodbye to Lafayette

Marc and I briefly visited Mom and Dad's graves. We were running a little behind schedule, so we did not make it to FLOWERLAND® to visit with Pearl and get some fresh roses. Maybe next year... We then drove over to Aunt Lou's to visit with her and Felix before leaving Lafayette.

Dinner with our cousins in Houston

After saying goodbye to Aunt Lou and Felix, we drove us to Houston and checked into our hotel. We then drove down to the Galleria to meet Julie and the rest of our cousins and family for dinner. Julie surpassed herself in organizational abilities and managed to round up Rusty, Jo-Jo, Andy Pardue and Donna, Donna's kids Taylor and Nick, Taylor's boyfriend Tyler, and Mary Anne's son Elliott. We met up at the 5115 GRILLE® in SAKS 5TH AVENUE® in the Galleria.

Rusty was looking great as always. Julie was in fine form. Jo-Jo was looking good. He is currently living near his place of work. Andy was having some issues with his lower right leg. If I recall correctly he had a bone spur in his knee. He was kind of quiet at first but warmed up as the evening went on. He and Michelle are now divorced. The children are mainly living with him. Other news: Donna and Tricia went up to Pennsylvania to visit Mary Anne and drive Nick to Washington, D.C., on account of he won an award and got to attend a high-powered workshop (I can not recall the details; I claim young age as the culprit). Donna talked briefly about Mary Anne, but I cannot recall the details about her either. Claudia and David are doing great and still living in the Dallas area. John Dempsey is keeping really busy and no one seems to hear from him lately. I encouraged Donna to stop by his house on the way home and give him heck :-)

We visited until almost closing time and then finally said our goodbyes. Marc and I drove back to our hotel and crashed. The next morning we got up and flew home. And that was our Pitre family visits for 2011.