Black and White Wednesday - Happy Place

Another Wednesday is upon us, which means it is black and white Wednesday over at The Long Road to China! I took this photo this past weekend when we headed to New Braunfels. Gruene Hall is the oldest dance hall in Texas. They feature some really great musicians, mostly Texas Country artists - which I love. This place is in the heart of historic Gruene, and is surrounded by some great little hops, B&B's, and another favorite of mine, The Gristmill. We have been here a few times to catch a concert, and the place features no A/C, and in Texas - that can get REALLY hot, but the history behind it makes it so unique and such a fun place to go. I have always wanted to get a nice photo of the outside, but had never had the chance. I was able to get this shot after dinner when we were walking back to our condo. Enjoy!

Taken from their website:

"Built in 1878, Gruene Hall is the oldest continually running dance hall in Texas, and the Central Texas birthplace to many great songwriters and musicians. Including George Strait & Ace in the Hole, Lyle Lovett, Joe Ely, Robert Earl Keen, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Hal Ketchum, Bruce and Charlie Robison, and many more."

Check out more black and white photos here

Shutter Love Tuesday - {kind of} Pool Time

This weeks theme for Shutter Love Tuesday is "Pool Time." I have no photos of anyone in a pool, or at a pool, etc... but we did head out to my husbands parents house recently and they live on beautiful Lake Travis. We took the boat out for a spin and I brought the camer along, so while it isn't technically "pool time" it was lake time, and it is a body of water, so it counts right? It is probably a stretch...but here ya go!

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Act of Kindness

This past weekend we celebrated my friends bachelorette party in New Braunfels in the beautiful hill country of Texas. This is definitely one of my favorite places to be. Eight girls packed up a couple of coolers and got going on the Guadalupe river Saturday afternoon. Now if you have ever floated the river, or any river I guess your group will more than likely split away from each other at some point. Well, a few of us did get separated, thought we missed our exit, and tried to swim upstream with 2 coolers. This did not work. We did see this couple sitting on the porch and they kindly came down to rescue us. Tubes, coolers, and all.

Some of you may know that bout a month ago the area got drenched with rain, and the river rose so fast and flooded most of the houses, including theirs. Here are a few images of what the damage looked like...

The condo we stayed in is to the right of the photo, you can see the pool, the place we rented our tubes from is the building on the left

There is a bridge under there people usually float under

When the water receded - the building behind it is the one in the first picture, the water got high enough to make it inside of the building

A lot of buses and cars were wrapped around trees, or in the river

Lance, Jana and their son lost the entire first floor of their house, and still had no power. They had such positive attitudes, and had pretty much lost everything. You see they had no warning this rain and flooding was going to be this bad, no one did. It took 45 minutes for the river to rise and destroy their home. They said they were swimming in their house. The water receded within the hour after the rain, but the damage had been done. After meeting them, and seeing what a positive outlook they had made the little things in life that go wrong not seem so bad. I hope they are able to rebuild their lives and their home. With such a positive outllook on life, how could they not?

Here is a photo of one of the places we love to go, Gruene Hall - Texas' oldest dance hall.

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend!

Brenley + Family

Before I head out for the weekend I wanted to share some more photos from the 6 month old + family session I did last weekend. Miss Brenley sure did like to turn on the smiles and laughter...but when the camera came out it was a whole 'nother story. After putting her through some outfit changes and making her sit and stare at the adults doing some pretty ridiculous things to get her to smile we headed down to the lake area of their neighborhood to take some family photos. Enjoy!

The Weekend & In a Yellow House

No I am not spending the weekend in a yellow house, but I am going to share another photo for another photo challenge...can we all say yaaaaay!!!! Ok really, I have been reading the blog In a Yellow House for a couple weeks, and decided to put a photo in to her photo challenge. The challenge was to share a sepia or a black and white with selective coloring photo. I chose this photo from the session I did this past weekend with Miss Brenley. I shared another one of her photos with Shutter Love Tuesday at Trendy Treehouse earlier this week but here is another one I got, when she was still not looking at the camera = )

Check out more great images here

Hope everyone has a great weekend, I am off to celebrate my friend Barbie's bachelorette party this weekend. We are headed to New Braunfels tomorrow afternoon to float the river, eat at The Gristmill, hang out at historic Gruene Hall and see the beautiful hill country, which is a happy place of mine - oh and of course partake in some adult beverages as well. Happy Weekend!!!

Also, it is New Friend Friday so go and make a new blogger friend!

Simplicity - Splash of Color

Yes....another photo challenge, which means another photo for you to enjoy! I have seen this blog - Simplicity - on a few other blogs that I follow and I have decided to throw in a splash of color into the photo challenge. I took this at the zoo when the flowers were in full bloom. This photo puts a smile on my face - especially with this awful weather we are having here in Texas...and reminds me of a water color painting. Enjoy!

See more here!

Creative Share - Strawberry Cake

For Mother's Day I decided that I wanted to make a delicious dessert to go with our day of grilling. My husband and I had our mom's (and dad's) over and we cooked and spent the day together. I wanted to make something different than brownies, so I decided on a strawberry cake. I found the recipe online and tweeked it a little bit. You see I wanted to make some 3 layer fantastic over the top yumminess, so I doubled the recipe.

Ingredients

1 (18.25 ounce) package white cake mix
1 (3 ounce) package strawberry flavored gelatin
2/3 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 ounces frozen strawberries
1/2 cup buttermilk

Directions

1.Thaw and drain the frozen strawberries (I also diced them up)

2.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease on 9x13 inch cake pan.

3.Combine the white cake mix, strawberry gelatin, oil, eggs, flour, thawed strawberries, and buttermilk and mix until just combined. Pour batter into prepared pan.

4.Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 25 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

After doubling this recipe, and realizing that 3 layers of this was going to be a bit much, I opted for 2. I also decided to buy a couple packages of fresh strawberries and slice those and add a layer of those in the middle with icing, then cover the top with them as well. I did have another round cake left over, plus sstrawberries so I made that and delivered it to my friend Erin who had just had a baby. So yay for not wasting food!

As far as the icing goes, I just used an easy cream cheese frosting recipe found here.

It was delicious if I do say so myself, and the chocolate lovers (the dad's) loved it as well. Here is how it turned out.

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