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In 1984, a group of brave and loyal North Louisianans decided to take a stand. This group was tired of hearing: “You people in Shreveport are more like Texans than anything else. You’re hardly a part of Louisiana, at all.” So this daring group gathered in the Downtown Shreveport Unlimited office to organize their ranks and pay homage to the most cherished of Louisiana institutions – the crawfish boil! And this group wanted to make their crawfish boil the granddaddy of them all.

So Mudbug Madness was born. What began in 1984 as a two-day street festival in downtown Shreveport is now one of Louisiana’s largest and most popular Cajun festivals, featuring renown Cajun, Zydeco, Blues and Jazz artists, mouth-watering Cajun cuisine, raucous contests, and fun for all ages. Now a four-day festival held each Memorial Day weekend, Mudbug Madness is nationally recognized as one of the Southeast Tourism Society’s Top 20 Events, drawing as many as 56,000 people in one day.

Mudbug Madness created renewed interest in Louisiana’s rich cultural heritage and the event’s original organizers are proud to have brought a little bit of south Louisiana fun north to Shreveport.

Through the years, festival organizers remain dedicated to the original premise of Mudbug Madness: Provide a downtown venue where everybody has a good time celebrating Louisiana’s rich Cajun heritage. But Mudbug Madness is more than just a big crawfish boil. Supporters take their commitment to downtown Shreveport very seriously and the festival has been successful in producing healthy revenues, a portion of which are reinvested in other downtown endeavors. Downtown Shreveport Unlimited, the presenting organization, provides sponsorship dollars for other downtown projects and events including: “Let the Good Times Roll,” “Jazz & Gumbo Festival,” “Cinco de Mayo,” “Rockets Over the Red” and the Shreveport Police Mounted Patrol Unit.

Mardi Gras in Shreveport, LA is not quite as wild & crazy as New Orleans, but it's crazy enough for me. Shreveport has a quite a few Mardi Gras Krewes, but the two largest Krewes have parades on two different weekends (on Saturdays).

The Krewe of Centaur has a parade two weeks before Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) and the Krewe of Gemni's parade is the Saturday before Fat Tuesday. In comparison to New Orleans, Shreveport's parades are supposed to be more family oriented, but it’s not really. Shreveport has a designated family area along the parade route, where alcohol is forbidden.

It's a great time to get together with family and friends cook some food, have a few beverages and enjoy a parade. We were fortunate this year to have great weather on both weekends!

This is my "first born" Max. He is a five year old Scottish Terrier. Isn't he handsome??

I couldn't get him to keep his eyes open for the picture.

This is Maddie. She is also a five year old Scottish Terrier. My husband and I bought Max & Maddie right before we got married in 2002.

Millie is a little spoiled, as you can tell. She is from the first litter of puppies we had with Maddie & Max.

This is Mileaux (pronounced Milo). He is from the second litter we had with Maddie & Max.

It was never our intention to have four dogs, but I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.

I just recently made my first trip to New York. My mother in-law (pictured center) gave me my Christmas present earlier this year. She took my sister in-law (Aimee-Grace) and I on a whirlwind trip for four days. The first day we flew from Shreveport, LA to Dallas, TX to meet up with my sister in-law (she flew from Austin to Dallas). Then we flew to Philiadelphia, PA. This was my first trip to Philadelphia, but we were only there for a few hours. We visited Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and, of course, made a stop at the Hard Rock Cafe. From Philly, we drove to Princeton, NJ to see some old friends. The next morning, we took the train to NYC (which was the highlight of the trip). This was my first time in NYC. We saw so much and had so much fun on our girls only trip!