This past weekend, we rented a 12-passenger van, rounded up my folks, brother and his family and all headed up to Dallas for the weekend. BUT, before we left, we knew we were gonna miss Maya’s birthday, so earlier in the week we stopped by to wish her a happy birthday! Here’s a shot of Layla, Maya and Ezzy looking cute.
The night before we headed out to Dallas, we were lucky enough to meet up with our friends Beth and Gordo. They came in from out of town on work. We met them up along with Wes, Kasey, Priya and Hope for dinner at Beavers in the Heights area.
OK, back to the Dallas trip. We rented a pretty sweet 12 passenger van just to make it nice for all of us to roll together.
Here’s a shot of all of us ready to roll out. You can’t see the boys, but they’re in their car-seats right next to their moms.
The kids did really well on the drive. We drove straight to my uncle’s house and got settled in. I think we only made one stop to stretch our legs and let the kids run around a bit. After a nice dinner, some of the girls had a drawing/coloring session.
Saturday morning we stepped out and got some fresh air. Here’s Sunny Uppapan with Ezzy.
Jancy took Layla and Brucey for a quick walk.
Sheela Aunty made an awesome American Breakfast! French Toast, bacon, sausage, and potatoes!
After breakfast we headed out to Layla Farms. You might have seen a few pics of “Lucky Layla Farms Drinkable Yogurts” on prior posts. Well, the actual farm is about a mile from my uncle’s house! We figured we had to go for a quick visit. We also wanted to pick up a gallon of raw milk just to give it a try. Here’s a shot of the cows posing for the camera.
And here we are admiring their mooing skills.
After the farm, we headed to another one of my uncle’s homes for our 2nd breakfast. This time it was Indian food.
After 2nd breakfast, some of us decided to go to an outlet mall close by. While we were driving there, I noticed that the engine of our van started overheating! The girls and kids walked around the mall and did some shopping, while Blesson and I dealt with the van. Apparently the coolant reservoir was totally empty! The hose connecting the tank to the radiator was disconnected, so all of the fluid flushed out of the system, heating up the engine.
I reconnected the hose the best I could and Sunny Uppapan came to our rescue with some coolant.
I created a new logo for Ford. Found On Road Dead.
After everything was up and running, we finished up our shopping and headed to my Aunt’s house for lunch. Alice Aunty and Finny Uncle put on an awesome Indian feast! It was soo good, I forgot to snap a picture of it! Blesson and I didn’t want to take any chances with the van, so we decided to head out while everyone was at Alice Aunty’s house and swap out the van for something that was working properly. That took about an hour to deal with, but we got a replacement van pretty seamlessly (Thanks Avis!). We kicked it with the family some more at Alice Aunty’s house, then we headed out to another one of my uncle’s houses, where we were going to have dinner. I’m sure you’re noticing the pattern here… the entire trip revolved around meals! Once we got to Samkutty Uppapan’s house, we were greeted by the smartest dog I’ve every met. Dexter! Lasha and Asha got him to do a ton of tricks. Here’s a pic of Lasha putting Ezzy on Dexter. I don’t think that’s one of his tricks, but Ezzy seemed to like it!
Here’s a shot of some of the cousins with Layla.
Before we dove into another meal, we decided to head out to the local mall just to walk around a bit and work up an appetite. This time we left Brucey and Ezzy with our parents so they could rest up. It’s already been a long day for those guys.
When we got back, Samkutty Uppapan and Jolly Aunty made some awesome grub! Burgers, hotdogs, grilled chicken and a bunch of sides.. it was all delicious!
Through out the entire day, at every house we went to, other uncles/aunties/cousins came to join us for meals. It was awesome to see everyone and just spend time together as a family.
Sunday morning we had plans on going to Tony Evan’s church, but it was horrible weather that morning. We decided to just wait out the rain and head home as soon as we had an opening to dance between the rain drops. The rain stuck around for a good portion of the morning, so we headed out anyway. The rain stayed with us for about an hour of our drive, then it cleared up and we had a pretty nice drive back home.
Once we got to Conroe, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for a Mother’s Day lunch. Here’s Layla and Ezzy getting ready to chow down.
Cracker Barrel has some comfy rocking chairs in their front porch, so we kicked it there while we waited for the rest of our crew to finish up.
We were all pretty tired. It also started raining when we got home. After I dropped off Mom, Dad, Blesson, Jolly and Brucey at my folk’s house, I dropped off Sheena and the kids at our house, cleaned out the van and finally returned it.
Overall, it was an awesome weekend. We love when we get a chance to hang out with our family. My Dad has 10 siblings and a great majority live in Dallas. It was awesome that we could show up to a few houses and see a bunch of ’em, although we still didn’t see all of ’em. Hopefully the next time we do this trip, we’re able to see a lot more of the family! Good times!
Sajan Abraham 