Austin

We were invited to my Aunt Pat's house for the Labor Day weekend.  It was something that we've been looking forward to for a while.  We drove out on Saturday morning and arrived at her house that afternoon.  We went out to the new home of my cousin Deb and her husband Ron.  We did some catching up, then went to Saturday Mass with them.  That was an interesting service.  Then home again for dinner.  Delicious chicken fajitas.  Man they were good.

The next day (Saturday) we headed out to Lake Austin.  Pat took us out to look at my Grandmother's old place on the lake.  I really miss that place.  It's sad it's not in the family any more.  But, we got to West Lake Beach and all had a great time.  Here are some pics of the afternoon.

Cindy found these awesome mayflies (there were thousands of them out there).  She wanted a picture taken with them.  She stirred them up and I shot the picture.  Too bad you can't see the bugs, they are surrounding her.

 On the right here is a picture of them a bit close-up.  They didn't bother us, but there were a ton of them out there.

 

 

This pic below is a shot of the lake from the park.  I remember when most of the far side of the lake was just trees.  Now there are so many houses over there it's not really the same lake anymore.  I mean, I loved being out there and it brought back a lot of memories, but it was just so different than what I remembered.

It was a great day, and we had most of the family out there with us.  The funny thing was that this was supposed to be a retirement party for my cousin Martha's husband Larry.  The sad thing was they were unable to make it to that lake that day.  A few days prior, Larry had fallen off a ladder and shattered his arm, so he was at home suffering the pain associated with that.  We missed them.

This is a photo of me and my Aunt Pat.  She's my Dad's sister.  She is so much fun to hang out with.  Cindy and I stayed with her when we were there in Austin.

Following are just some pics we took out at the lake.  It was a blast.

 

 

We were going to stay all day and drive home on Monday.  We were keeping an eye on hurricane Gustav, however, and decided to leave on Sunday instead.  I think it was a good move.  Even as late as we were driving (we got home around midnight), there was still quite a bit of traffic coming out of Louisiana and every motel we passed had a parking packed with cars.  Glad we have a nice house here that's stocked with our food storage and ready for the coming storm.