A Family Affair

My brother and his family arrived in Austin last Sunday. It was good to see them again and I am glad they took a detour on their way to Mobile to visit us.

The weather here has been unseasonably hot....or so that's what the Austin natives tell us. 95% of things to do in Austin are outdoor related so that left us doing outdoor hot things most of the time.

On MONDAY, we went to Hamilton Pool Preserve. I have never been there and had been wanting to check it out. The "pool" area was really nice but a little too crowded for us. We ended up walking down towards the river. Diep, Megan, Summer and I didn't make it that far. We stopped off at a little pond area and fed a HUGE catfish. Diep also caught a live crawfish. Buddy trudged on to the river without us. I'm sure gladly in the fact that he could make the 1/2 mile trip to the river alot easier and quicker on his own than with a bunch of slow moving girls.

Here is the pic of the river I never got to see in person.



The actual Hamilton "Pool".



Megan holding the crawfish.



Buddy finally made it back from checking out the river. He said it was really nice but a good walk down there. At least he got some pics of the river.

On the way back we spotted some deer drinking water from the creek. The girls had walked way ahead of us and by the time we called them back the deer were almost gone.

On TUESDAY we visited the Science Nature Center at Zilker Park. We checked out Barton Springs and visited the Botanical Gardens. At the Botanical Gardens we saw a couple of snakes that entertained us for a while.

For all those who say I am never in any of the pics, here are a couple:






One of the snakes at the botanical garden.



Megan and Summer digging for fossils at the Nature Center.



Megan and Summer playing tic tac toe at Zilker Park.



Megan and Summer in the butterfly chair at the Botanical Gardens.



On Wednesday Toby took the day off from work to spend some time with us. They came over and Diep made us some of her very tasty spring rolls. I didn't realize how much work is involved in preparing them and felt a little guilty for her having to do so much work on her vacation. She was a trooper though and we had a great lunch of spring rolls and vegetables. Scrumptious!

After our lunch we Toby and I decided to take them to one of our favorite places, Walnut Creek. Unfortunately it hasn't rained in a couple of months so the creek wasn't exactly a creek anymore. There was very little water and the water that was there stunk and was stagnant. Buddy didn't let that stop him though. We walked a good ways down the creek and was even able to see the bottom of the creek freely because there was no water in it. Buddy even found me a very good shell fossil.

It was so, so hot at the creek. Since there was no water I couldn't manage to cool myself off. The water I brought had also been depleted by my very thirsty daughter. I now know a little bit of what it may feel like to be in the desert. It was really almost ironic that I was the one that was on the verge of a heat stroke when I am the one that usually doesn't mind the heat. The heat this particular day was very oppresive to me.

Megan stayed with us a little while after our "creek adventure". Buddy and Diep came to pick her up later on in the evening. This would be the last time I would see them before their departure on THURSDAY morning.

It will be noted in this blog that I did very well when they left. It makes my brother very uncomfortable to see emotional family members so I saved it all for Toby after I got inside my house.

It's really odd that I don't remember when my brother left to go into the Air Force many many moons ago. I don't remember it ever having an affect on me. I guess as you age you realize what your favorite family members mean to you.

Hopefully they had a good enough time that they will hold fond memories of visiting sis in Austin Texas.