My family is pretty cool.

Well one of my favorite restaurants was closed, another had an hour and a half wait when I could have made a reservation, and a third we arrived an hour prior to them opening. Apparently organizing meals isn't my strong suit, but unconditional love and all that made my family still say I was a fantastic travel guide for their weekend in Austin.

The whole [immediate] family gang flew down on Friday to come visit me in my new city. My parents came from Minnesota, and my brother from Denver. Kyle, the brother, had been down just a short couple of weeks ago for ACL, but this was his first weekend to actually see the city.

I'm lucky to have a family that I truly like. Many people love their families, but not everyone likes their family. But not us Hagglunds we like each other, which makes family vacations something we all enjoy.

Special Thanks: My father and brother are "true Minnesotans" in the sense that they say frequently that they'd rather be cold than hot. Therefore, Special thanks to Texas for whipping out the 90 degree days for one more weekend while they were here... they just LOVED it.

Top Highlights

BBQ

We ate. SO. much. In fact we ate so much that none of us ate for about 20 hours following that meal.

I decided on Terry Black's BBQ and we all rolled up our sleeves and ate more than we probably should have. It was worth every uncomfortable stomach in the Hagglund clan.

Also, I think I won. Not that eating is a competition, but I ordered a pound and a half of meat and ate all of it prior to leaving the establishment. Is that something to brag about? Probably not.

Lake Travis

Look, we are all from Minnesota. It's called "the land of 10,000 lakes" but every Minnesotan knows we have over 13,000. And we will challenge other states [*cough*Wisconsin*cough*] who say they have more. Why? Because MNers have strict rules around what constitutes a lake vs. just being a large pond something other state [*cough*Wisconsin*cough*] don't do.

Anyways, so why would I bring a bunch of Minnesotans to look at another lake? I'm not sure.

But I did and it was gorgeous, I will definitely be going again.

Live Music

We went to 6th street, earlier on in the day - no worries I didn't drag my parents through the barricaded streets of Dirty 6th at 2am. We bounces around to a few places with live bands before stopping at The Library, which had Ricky Duran [currently on The Voice] who was playing for 3 hours.

We stayed for the whole damn thing. I had a tequila too many, but hey you only have family in town so often.

Just chatting it up

In no particular location or day, it was just nice to see the family again -- all in one place. We are an odd bunch who bicker a lot, are constantly ripping on someone about something, and laughing at not with one another frequently, but it's like how we show love or something.

Thanks family for coming down to Austin, I hope the heat didn't kill you.

Advice: Call your Mother.