Day 2 - Thurs 6-9-11

We started off the day going to Cathedral of St. John in Lafayette. We saw the wonderful collection of creche figures -

Housed in The Cathedral Museum is an outstanding collection of BaroqueNeapolitan crèche, or presepio, perhaps one of the finest and most extensive in the country. It was written in the Smithsonian (December 1991) that "the cache is the passion and pride of partners Jeffrey Gueno and Frank Hanley (now deceased), whose talents and shared interests in miniatures, antiques, art, design and collecting enabled them to assemble this remarkable display". Hanley and Gueno purchased the 18th century figures over a 30-year period. The collectors built sets to display the authentically dressed puppet-type characters fashioned by Neapolitan craftsmen. Enshrined in the place of honor is the Holy Family surrounded by angels singing tidings of great joy to shepherds while the elaborate procession of Magi makes its way through typical street scenes of daily life characteristic of 18th century Naples.

We then went to Breaux Bridge, LA to eat at Cafe' Des Amis and visit some antique shops.

We ended our evening going to the Frenier Landing restaurant that overlooks Lake Pontchartrain. I am happy to say I got to see a Louisiana gator out in the wild in the waters outside the restaurant- I had been hoping to see one on the trip!

More photos from Day 1 at Cynthias house.

Day 1 of our Trip Wed 6-8-11

We arrived at Cynthia Orgeron's house and got to see her wonderful doll collection. She has a bit of everything to interest all collectors. We got to see some very rare dolls. She made us a chicken and sausage gumbo for dinner. We also got to see the dolls she has for sale.

Jr Collectors

Jr Collectors working on the doll house , Leeann, and Sewing.

New Orleans Doll

Since we had a tie on choosing the doll that is going to New Orleans we let Bonnie choose which doll would be our club gift.

She chose the Stars Over Alabama doll. This doll will be a good representation of Alabama and our club. Thank you to Sandy for making this doll for our club.

May 2011 Meeting.

Ann had a fun time being Amelia Earhart. As always our members did a wonderful job on the outfits and the props.

Welcome to our JR UFDC collectors who were visiting us for this meeting. We enjoyed meeting you.

We had a good turn out for our sale day. Lots of neat items and dolls. Hope everyone found something they liked.

Thank you also to Sandy for creating such wonderful dolls to give as our gift to Sherry in New Orleans. She put a lot of thought into each one to represent Alabama. We had a tie between two of her dolls. We are going to let Bonnie be the tie breaker and choose our doll. No matter which is chosen they are both equally fantastic and will represent us well.

We have 9 members who are going to New Orleans on our trip. We will be contacting them soon with more details since we wont be having another meeting before we go. I will take lots of photos and post them on the blog when I get back. It should be a fun trip and hopefully we will see a lot of wonderful dolls.

Dont forget to bring in your baby dolls and baby items to display at the Libraries. We are doing 3 this time so we need a good selection of dolls.

Hope everyone is doing well after the storms. Hopefully none of our members had damage.

I wanted to remind everyone about sending Kat your recipes so she can include them in the book for our gift to Cynthia in New Orleans.

If you can include a photo from a doll in your collection to go along with your recipe that would be great.