Home Again...

Yes, we are home and yes, we had a great time. And for those of you who did not know we were even gone, I'll just tell you since I do not want to turn this into a guessing game. So, if you did not already know we went to Austin for four days, we went there...
1. To go to my aunt's baby shower
2. Because my dad had some business in Austin
3. To see my sister (Nicole) and my niece's (Sophia and Mia).
4. To see my aunt Amparo and her family
5. To see my aunt Gaby and her family
6. To see and have dinner with are friends, the Eberle's (our tenants)
7. To............ (ran out of reasons)........
So, we have six good reasons why we went to Austin. Oh, and sorry about all the "to's"and "my". Anyways we left late afternoon on Friday and we went straight to the Eberle's (well besides picking up Sophia on the way) and Mrs. Eberle fixed us a Greek meal by which we all agreed was delicious! The interesting part is since the Eberle's are living in our old house (if you didn't know we used to live in Austin for ten years) it is weird that now we are the visitors. It was interesting to see my old room (which at one point had be painted green). When we had left their house it was 11:00pm!!! Sophia was kind of getting silly; that's what happens when she's tired. Elena and I stayed with my aunt Amparo and while we were there, we got her hooked on "North and South" so by the time we got to bed it was 12:30am and if you do not already know, all her children (including Abby) are EARLY risers! Like 5-6am early risers and we actually were able to sleep in till 7:00 or 8:00; I don't quite remember. Anyhow we met up with the rest of the family (meaning my aunt Gaby, Nicole, my cousin Estella, my great aunt maria, and (secretly) my grandma (phew a lot of names to type) all who had come down to go to the baby shower. You should have seen us at "Babies 'R' us"; we were like a mob in the store with little kids running around while the moms are looking at the strollers while other people are looking at us strangely. For lunch we went to La Madeline and I am afraid those types of restaurants aren't designed for large groups (like us). From Austin to Burnet (that's where my aunt Gaby lives) is 1 hour to get there (unless you're my mom then it takes 45 min's but mom wasn't driving).....and most of you who know us know that we are always late, sometimes fashionably late and sometimes beyond fashionably late. But we still had lots of fun! We played this game where you are holding a baby while talking on the phone and pinning up clothes to dry and you have to do this in 30 seconds or less! Only 4 people did it: cousin Estella, great aunt Maria, my grandma, one of of my aunt's friends. After the baby shower ALL (yes I said ALL)of us went to my aunt Gaby's house and hung out and we didn't get back to bed till 12:30 (again), But this time we woke up at 6:00am to go have breakfast with the entire family (a total of 20 people) at village inn ( it's like an IHOP). After our breakfast we said our goodbye to everyone who was from out of town and after that, everyone who wasn't from out of town went to aunt Amparo's house and had our own "church" and sang a few songs and read out of 2 Samuel and Acts. When we finished that, we just hung out and played Nertz and laughed a lot. Later that afternoon, we packed up and stayed at the Hyatt hotel because if you remember, I told you one of the reasons(reason 2) we went to Austin was because daddy had some business, so his company was going to pay for hotel SO we checked into the hotel (which was VERY nice)and we went swimming. That was interesting because Sophia hates dunking her head under water so she was mad because mom threw her in the pool. But she lived. We went to our room (which was very chic) and for dinner we had PIZZA! You see, we rarely order pizza (mom usually makes it) and we played Nertz, by 9pm we exhausted. Mom and dad slept on the king size bed with feather stuffed pillow while the girls on the pull out queen size sofa sleeper and me on about 4 foot by 1 1/2 foot little area (you see, the sofa was an L shaped sofa and can you guess who got the smallest end???). It was still fun.....sort of.......well it wasn't very fun at 6am when I had to go to mom and dad's bed because I was freezing and boy, did they have a nice bed! At 8:30 am we were downstairs eating breakfast and it was a very nice eating area; all the dishware was white (except the cups and utensils) and squared, the breakfast was Continental breakfast and they had all the Tazo tea's! So all in all, the Hyatt is a good place to go whenever you're in Austin. We still had our morning to get on with so we went to Wholefoods downtown, REI, Anthropologie, and this one herb store. We had lunch at Nicole's house, and after that we just sat around talking. Around dinner time we picked up daddy and headed to a Mexican restaurant,we ate a fattening Mexican meal; with hugs and kisses, we said goodbye. We left at 7:40pm, picked up ice cream in brenham, and we were home before 10. And now, with tired fingers, I have told you about our trip to Austin!

Caro :)