Family Vacations

I'm not very good at packing. 


I'm especially not good at packing when it involves fitting 3 days of work clothes needed for 50 degree weather in Seattle and 4 days of vacation clothes for 100 degree weather into a carry-on suite case. Needless to say I had lots of repeat outfits. But it appears I only take photos of things not people so you won't see my repeat outfits....


So, after my trip to Seattle for work I flew to Dallas to begin: Family Vacation 2012. 


Our travels over the course of the next 5 days would look like so:

Fly to Dallas-> Drive to Little Rock-> Drive to Branson-> Drive to Tulsa-> Fly home to Austin.

I met the fam on Thursday night at the Rangers game. The Rangers lost. They went on a 7 game win streak after we saw them. 

The next morning we got up and drove to Arkansas. Along the way we stopped in Texarkana for lunch at Bryce's Cafeteria. If if you ever find yourself in Texarkana and need some good cafeteria food I'd recommend Bryce's.  Once we were back on the road we drove to my Dad's family homestead outside of Little Rock. The original house is no longer standing but we got to look around the property a bit.

This is a really big tree. So I took a picture.

Our family is so fancy we even have a loop named after us. We also went by the family cemetery and saw some dead relatives and proceeded to get chiggers. I don't think I can live in Arkansas because of the amount of bugs alone.

After seeing some dead relatives we saw some living ones. Turns out there is another Kelly in the family. 

Another food recommendation in Arkansas: Purple Cow. So Good.

The next morning {Saturday, if you're keeping track} we did the driving tour of Little Rock and headed on our way up to Branson. Side note: Arkansas is really pretty. 

Along the way we had some car troubles. Turns out there isn't an abundance of car repair shops in middle of no where Arkansas that are open on Saturday. Luckily, we found a nice family garage that helped us out. Brandon was able to save the day and bring us the part we were missing from one town over. {He was driving from Tulsa to Branson to meet us for the weekend}. 

After a couple of hours of eating hot dogs and people watching we were ready to be out of there. But what's a family vacation without car trouble? Soon we were back on the road and headed to Branson.

Lots o barns in this neck of the woods

The whole point of the trip {other than seeing the dead relatives in Arkansas} was to see my Brother who is working in Branson for the summer. Obviously since we were in Branson we had to go to a show. We picked Dolly and had a grand ol' time. Other than the fact they don't give you silverware. You had to eat with your hands. Which is fine if you're eating pizza but an entire chicken and baked potato makes it more of a challenge.

The rest of our trip to Branson involved:

Going to Bass Pro Shops {duh}

Looking at Armadillos on the side of the road.

And going to the lake. My G-ma Betty was a rock star on this trip.

Brandon and I headed to Tulsa on Sunday night to spend Father's Day with his Dad. On the way we got to see the {at one time} largest McDonald's. 

It goes over the highway.

The rest of my family joined us in Tulsa on Monday. I was glad they were able to see where we are moving to. That weekend was my last as a Texan. 

I spent all day at the DMV to officially become an Oklahoman before I flew back to Austin. 

It was definitely a jammed packed vacation but that's how my family rolls. 

Kelly