Rosoks Visit Texas

Welcome, Rosoks!
We were in for quite the treat this past extended weekend when we received a visit from Lauren’s sister’s family, the Rosoks! With one set of family visitors here and gone in February, we had a good idea of what fun things to show the new visitors, although this time would be a little different with a six-month-old baby along.

Tim, Kate, and Annika arrived Thursday after work, and we took them out for Mexican at the same restaurant we took the Glanzers–Curra’s, an authentic Mexican place just south of downtown. Afterwards, Lauren wanted to show off the Whole Foods flagship store, so we all grabbed a beer and a dessert from the giant store and headed to the roof as the sun set over Austin.

Friday, we had brunch at the original Kerbey Lane Cafe where I devoured much sugar with a full stack of lemon poppyseed pancakes, then ventured on over to the state capitol building for a brief tour. The tour was brief, however, as Tim and I were beyond eager to race home and catch the Twins season opener on MLB.TV which I purchased for the new season. Many a beer and good time were enjoyed, but the Twins predictably left us disappointed. That night, we ate dinner outside at Shady Grove down near Barton Springs.

Saturday, we roamed the Zilker Botanical Gardens (nine unique floral parks in one… never been before) before driving an hour south to the small town of Lockhart, known as the BBQ capitol of Texas. The city of 10,000 boasts four of the most famous legendary BBQ places in the country, and Lauren planned for us to get a small amount from each one and set up with a picnic in the park. Well, many others had the same idea on a Saturday and lines were long, so we only made it to three of them, but each was a very interesting experience. Each building was very rustic and appeared no renovations had ever been made. One had us standing literally three feet away from a blazing open fire on the floor while waiting in line, almost too intense to bear. The BBQ ended up being okay, but they apparently like their brisket marbled or fatty, and none of us found much of it to be edible. The rest of the afternoon we hung out at the apartment pool, watched another very ugly Twins loss, and went out for a late night drink at our favorite neighborhood bar, BB Rovers.

We were up at 4am to take the Rosoks back to the airport to return to Minnesota, then back in bed. I spent Sunday morning celebrating our friend Diana’s 28th birthday at Highland Lanes for some good old fashioned Easter morning bowling… four games, all told. Later in the day we visited Diana and her husband Jason for some pool/BBQ at their apartment.

Other Recent Stuff
Last Sunday was the company spring golf tournament, and I again was selected as a D player. Unlike the fall tournament, I amazingly had a few shots that had my teammates jumping for joy, and we even used one of my drives and a couple shorter shots. But the real highlight of the day was my 60-foot throw-in shot on the 14th hole. Like before, I was allowed to throw the ball rather than use a club if I so chose, so I gave a chip shot a toss, and it slowly rolled right onto the green and into the hole. Our team literally all jumped and mobbed me, as it sparked us on a nice run of five straight birdies, but it wasn’t enough to place.

The next night Lauren and I took in the Express exhibition game vs. the Rangers up in Round Rock. We’ll undoubtedly save a lot of money not being able to attend MLB games whenever we want anymore, but with a team in town one time all year, I figured we could splurge and get tickets. It was what you would expect–massive crowds, huge traffic jams, and six innings of Rangers players before even lower-level minor leaguers filled in for them. On the 18th we’ll be back out at the ballpark for Baxter’s baseball debut at the “Bark in the Park” game vs. Omaha.