mo, z, ben, and lebron are all on the all-star ballot this year...z and ben are up for the same position so try to alternate your vote for them...you can vote once a day, and you can do it right here!:

lame beyonce reference.

anyway.

the city is now officially CRAZY. everyone is here now, it's insane, people, music, partying everywhere!!!!

okay so where did i leave off?

well we went to the all-star jam which was really cool, i though. people i saw: tim duncan, kevin garnett, charles barkley, daniel gibson and other people but i didn't know who they were.

after that we went to the riverwalk and looked at stores and stuff.

then we headed back to the hotel and went to lunch at this place called the bourbon house. it was really nice and they were really good with my gluten-intolerance. actually, the person at the table next to us was gluten-free, also. they were really helpful and gluten aware and the food was delicious!!! the alligator soup is gluten-free, as is the pecan gulf fish and both were AMAZZZZZZING!!!

right after lunch (oh and after that stuart guy from espn walked by us on the street) we hung out with my dad's friends that live here and they gave us a really long tour of the entire city and we saw all of the areas that were really badly affected by hurricane katrina, like the ninth ward and st. bernard's parish. it was really sad. while we were there we stopped at this place called rocky and carlo's which apparently has a lot of st. bernard's flavor. it was cool.

then we came back downtown and by that time it was really hopping!!!!!! we ate at this place called mulante's which is great for celiacs because they have a grilled and a fried menu so basically you can get anything you want grilled. i had red beans and rice and alligator. both were great, and so far i feel fine. :)

i don't really know what we're going to do tonight. everything is so wild, and it's even crazier than last night so i don't really want to go back to bourbon street. just walking back to the hotel i saw people doing crazy and vulgar things and that's not really my scene at all. tonight's the 3-point shootout but we don't have tickets to that :(, i mean neither do most of the other people that are here, but i really don't know what to do. it's like not the city where you just go out and walk around on a night like this!!!!!!!!!!!!! i just don't know. i kind of want to get ice cream, but it's not like i know a place. that happened to me that one time in new york and i was just like AAAH I'M UNDERAGE AND WITH MY PARENTS BUT IT'S 7 PM AND I DON'T WANT TO WATCH A PAY-PER-VIEW MOVIE!!! it's like i'm on the verge of everything, but there's not anything i can do not that i even want to do most of it but then it's like what do i do at home? um, eat, go to movies, shop...but that's what i do at home and i'm supposed to do something different!!! ugh, it's annoying. i mean it's crazy and fun out there and i want to be part of it but i just can't because i'm not that type of person and i'm so naive!!!! wow, now i'm beginning to think i'm not ready for college.

i've got to go before i go crazy.

tata!!!

is really bad. that's the only downside of this town. i have really thick hair, and it's really humid, so my hair gets frizzy and limp and looks bad. yesterday it was all not-straight and i had it in a thick black headband and was wearing my big sunglasses and i really looked like britney spears....i was like, wow that is definitely not the person i want to be looking like right now...i mean we have the same sunglasses and we have for a long time (but i swear i didn't know she had them when i bought them, i just realized that this fall when i saw her wearing them on the cover of us magazine and i've had them since like february) but i look way cuter in them because overall i think i'm a lot classier person than she is and, oh, i'm not a drugged-out-alcoholic-crack-bimbo.....ooooooh, burn to brit.

so anyway. we woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel. it was fabulous. tons of eggs, fruit, bacon, yogurt. a celiac can do fine here. oh, and grits are gluten-free by the way, and they are now one of my favorite things.

then we went on a really long walk by the mississippi river and got coffee at cafe du monde, which is really famous and way better than starbucks by the way.

then we walked around town a lot more and went over to bourbon street and saw how different it was in the morning. it was literally like the "morning-after" scene where they were cleaning up beads and streamers and food from all over the ground....someone got hit by a car or something on bourbon street....i don't know, but someone died there and the crime lab and the csi were investigating it and it was totally awesome. (i'm so morbid and insensitive, but whatever).....

by the way the vintage stores are really cool here cuz it's all like vintage vintage. like some things came over from europe or are really in the european/french style because they're so old.

ah, everything here reminds me of interview with the vampire!!!

okay, i gotta go, nba all-star jam time!!! wooowooo!!!!!

okay, so i'm here. i'm in new orleans. this is amazing.

we got here around lunch time so we headed straight over to the tulane area and went to lunch at this awesome place called camellia grille. it was great, and from a gluten-free standpoint it worked well, too. the whole entire restaurant is a diner counter and they serve typical stuff, sandwiches, burgers, chili, salads, and AWESOME omlettes!!! i highly recommend those. and the staff there are awesome as well! they're like new orleans legends! we had this one server named marvin, but his nickname was word because he literally said "word" after ever single thing!

after that we went and checked out tulane, and i LOVED IT!! beautiful campus, fun atmosphere, it was amazing.

after about three hours at tulane we checked in at our hotel, the hotel monteleone. it's in the french quarter and is really old and beautiful. we have a chandelier in our room! ah, high class, this is how i like to live.

we are one block over from bourbon street which is seriously where the party is at! we went there after dinner and walked around for a while, and because of the all-star game there are soooo many people all walking around trying to see players. there actually were some players walking around but not a ton because for the most part they're still at the convention center watching the rookie-sophomore game. i know that's where lebron is. anyway, bourbon street is insane. it's not even mardi gras and there's all these beads and booze and strip clubs! it's craaaazy! so not my scene but that's okay, it was awesome just to see all the people!!!!!!!

oh, and dinner. we had an awesome dinner across the street from our hotel at mr. b's. the food was delicious and they were really good about my celiac disease. i basically just told them what i couldn't eat and they worked around it and i ended up having a great meal. i started off with seared scallops with pesto sauce, then had gigantic barbaque shrimp and finished off with a crepe without a crepe.

oh, we were at the tulane recreation center today on our tour, and there were all of these converse shoes, like stacks and stacks of them and there was some kind of event going to happen but no one was really saying anything, but i just saw on tv that dwayne wade gave those shoes to new orleans kids. isn't that sweet? and he made a bunch of "survival kits" for the kids around here, which sounded kind of weird, but thinking about what happened here two years ago, isn't exactly that absurd.

anyway, everyone is in new orleans. everyone except sasha. i highly doubt he is here. lots of players use this weekend as a time to relax and new orleans isn't really the place to do that, it's the place to party! considering the fact that sasha is injured, i would doubt that he would come down to new orleans and limp his way around bourbon street. i know he was there last year, but he was healthy, i mean he was pissed off just walking around beachwood mall. he probably stayed home...but, according to my sources he was seen earlier today at the airport getting sbarro. this must have been midmorning because i was there really early and obviously didn't see him. however, i think this information may be incorrect, because when i asked my source who he was with, she said his wife and kid, and sasha has neither a wife nor a child, so it could have just been another tall bald man with an accent. i'm not saying it wasn't him, i just don't think it was.

okay, i have to go to sleep now because i want to get up early and get some breakfast before we go to the all star jam session!!! wooohooo! this is crazy!

kisses, mwah!!!

i'm sitting in the airport right now, waiting for my flight to new orleans. we had to take a connecting flight on the way here, there was no other option.

the first flight went smoothly, hopefully this one does as well. and hopefully this is bigger plane!!! i felt like i was going to die on that last one!!!! it was sooooooooooo small!!!!!

so anyway. there are so many people getting on this flight that are totally nba fans, you can tell, they have on like nba track suits and stuff. i'm actually sitting right across from a rasheed wallace look alike, which is really cool. maybe it is rasheed wallace. except that it's not because he doesn't look exactly like him, just very similar.

OMG I'M SOOOO EXCITED! new orleans is going to be so much fun!!!!!! yay!

ok, gotta go, daddy just got me starbucks!!!

kisses!

mwah!

i just couldn't take it anymore.

i had to get out of there.

mrs. brunswick wasn't there and i really didn't want to explain why i didn't want to go to class because i didn't read the kite runner.

grrrr.

but after i left school, the day ended up being pretty good.

i went to the dentist and that was actually alright, despite the fact that margaret was my dental hygenist and she's really, really annoying.

after that we went to katie's game and grandma and grandpa were there and it was fun and we got some chocolate covered strawberries at the popcorn shop during the 7th grade game! and the 7th graders even won there game, which was a first, and i'm so happy for them!!!! and then katie played really, really well and even had a shot right on the buzzer, which was awesome, and their team won by a lot!!....hot steven wasn't there though because the boys' basketball team had a game tonight. anyway........

we went to yours truly after that with grandma and grandpa, and then we came home and daddy gave up more chocolate covered strawberries!!!! yaaaay!!!!

so now i'm just preparing myself for going to new orleans....and i'm SO PUMPED because my dad and i are going to the nba all star jam session!!! and there is gonna be lots of cool stuff and free stuff and autographs and lots of players will be there!!! maybe even....sasha?!?!?!?!?! i'm pretty sure he was there last year because of some video interviews that i saw on the cavs' website. i don't know, but i'm getting really excited!!!

see you in new orleans!!!!!