Lakey Visit

Most of my family came in to town this past week to visit (all but one brother), and I am so glad they did! It was very good to see them, even though NOTHING went as planned. I guess that's what I get for planning too much. My expectations were too high.
I tried to take them to Texas-specific things to let them get a feel for the South. And it turned out that was a LOT of eating out...
The first night they were here, we barely had enough time to get dinner in before they all fell asleep by 8 (which is 6 pm their time!). They must have had a long day of traveling.

Day 2: We woke up to a dreary day, but it wasn't raining (yet) so we decided to go to a place called McKinney Falls. The place I really wanted to take them was closed up (figures!), so McKinney Falls it was.We had a pretty good time there getting growled at by enormous squirrels,
followed by a crazy guy in a swimsuit, and rained on eventually.

My brothers are so funny. They are always goofing off taking funny pictures. Here's my brother Qile taking a photo shoot of Ryken by some of the falls.
...and one of Qile sitting on a cactus. Jaimason just about had a stroke when he did that!
It really was a pretty place. Here are some more pictures of that day.








That night, we had dinner at a fun BBQ place that's pretty popular called The Salt Lick (It's on Travel Channel's "Man vs. Food", if you've ever seen it). It's amazing how much we ate! You forget what it's like in a big family when you've been a little family for so long. We ordered about 6 or 7 lbs. of meat and about 1.5 pounds each of beans and potato salad....and we ate it ALL!

Day 3: We hung out around Round Rock. We met Ben at Round Rock Donuts (also on Travel Channel) during lunchtime and scarfed a BIG Texas donut.Then it was off to see THE ROUND ROCK, our town's namesake. It's actually a pretty small rock in the middle of a river, but I guess it was pretty important because it marked where the river was low enough to cross back in the old days. You better believe my family was impressed!
After that, we went to Old Settler's Park to look around, and we actually got some good pictures of our family. I like Old Settler's Park because it has this neat place with old homes, wells, barns, trucks, tractors, and silos that are GREAT for taking pictures. We actually just got our family pictures taken there a few weeks ago.










Here are 3 of my 4 brothers: Qile, Ryken, and Darek.This is me and my only sister, Brynn.

And once again, my brothers goofing off while taking pictures.

Day 4: My family went off to Sea World for the day. It seems they had a pretty good time, even though some of the things were shut down. Even the Shamu Show was not the same, because of the recent events in Florida (if you haven't heard, a whale killed one of his trainers during a Sea World performance).

We met them in San Antonio for the evening, to show them the Alamo and the Riverwalk. Before we left, we went to a diner called Lulu's (ALSO featured on Travel Channel). They have 6 pound cinnamon rolls! These are one of those things you gotta see to believe. All 8 of us shared one, and we only ate about half! Day 5: It was off to see downtown Austin: Juan in a Million (ALSO featured on Travel Channel's America's Top 100 Places to Eat), Zilker Park, the Bats at Congress Bridge, and the capitol.

Day 6: We went to church and spent the remainder of the time they were here relaxing and playing games.

The next day, they left. I cried for 2 days. Very embarrassing to admit, and it's certainly never happened to me before, but I was really sad to see them go. It seemed very empty around here for a while, but I am so happy they got to come!