Tao Family Reunion at Lake Travis

This daunting post on Eunice's family reunion at Lake Travis in honor of her Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Daniel's 60th birthdays has single-handedly brought our blog to a stand-still. Cousins Karen and Erin went all-out in this celebration of their parents' birthdays, renting a 4-house compound walking distance from the lake, complete with professional chefs who cooked 3 gourmet meals for us a day and a photographer who documented the entire weekend. Now four months later (and 30+ blog posts behind), we have finally made our way through 1,575 photos (we're not joking!) in order to get this out. So here, for your viewing pleasure are four painstakingly selected collages and two videos to give you a small glimpse into our crazy family reunion at Lake Travis...

Given the sweltering heat, we spent as much time each day as possible in the lake. The water was pretty low, but that turned out to be perfect for the kids who spent hours playing in the shallow waters along the bank.

Mom arrives to find her boys happily romping, naked, in the lake.

Erin put together round-robin tournaments for pool, ping pong, and foosball. We were the reigning champion in foosball, fared pretty well in ping pong, and didn't even attempt to compete in pool!

Erin coaches Spencer in ping pong but concludes he needs to work on his stamina.

Eunice and Mimi put together Olympics-style games, diving the extended family members into two teams to compete in a piggy-back relay race, limbo, water balloon toss, and tug-of-war. Eunice's team was the decisive winner, though that might have had something to do with having Karen's husband, Alex (a professional basketball player), on our team. :) Go Fire Ants!!!

The most decadent aspect of the weekend was the professional chefs Karen and Erin brought in to cook our meals. Everything was made from scratch, even the bagels, which required the chefs to literally work around the clock. Spencer's favorite chef was Angela, whom he fell in love with when she made him a peanut butter jelly sandwich as a snack, and plated it beautifully before presenting it to him. Eunice is somewhat of a peanut butter sandwich connoisseur and can confirm that it was, indeed, the best PB&J she has ever had.

This was the first Tao family reunion with a significant number of children present. We had every age represented from 0 to 7 (Jake-newborn, Tyler-1, Paxon-2, Spencer-3, Valerie-4, Justin-5, Valerie-6, Joshua-7). Mimi is pregnant with her third child, so the extended Tao family continues to stay on track with one baby born each year. Between catching up with the cousins, watching the kids bond, and helping Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Daniel ring in their 60th year, it was a weekend to remember!

Click here for the full slideshow.