JifferDoodle With a Flourish!

My goodness, the Southern Flourish blog looks lovely this afternoon! You should all hop on over and take a little looksy - I think you'll like it.

www.SouthernFlourish.com

That girl on the longhorn looks awfully familiar...

Okay - it's me! I'm the guest blogger today! Who knew I was that cool? Not me!

There She Is!

I met my friends Nick and Becca this past Monday to take some portraits of their little girl, Ellie. These are just a couple of my favorite shots, but it was definitely hard to narrow it down! Ellie was such a good model and we all just had a good time! Here she is!





My inexperience as a mom was evident when I handed Ellie a little bunch of flowers - that sounds cute, right? She thought it sounded tasty. It took about two seconds for her to get it in her mouth. Still cute!




Love those teeth!!


And those eyelashes!!


The sweetest thing that you'll ever see in the whole wide world is a happy girl!

*If you or someone you know would like to set up a portrait session, you can email me at jenni.m.roberts@gmail.com.

Thunderstorms Today!

I'm always wishing that I would get a day with thunderstorms when I can just stay home and enjoy it. Welll - Michael and I are on vacation and we planned to go to Hamilton Pool today and swim and have a picnic. But it looks like we are definitely in for some thunderstorms, so we're not going to try. We still have a few days of vacation left and maybe we'll get to go tomorrow or Saturday.

Right now, I'm planning on eating some breakfast that Michael is making and reading some more blogs (they just never end!), reading some more Lonesome Dove and moving some furniture out of the middle bedroom, so we can start getting it set up. I've almost got all the bedding I need. Even buying it at places like Marshall's and Pottery Barn Outlet, I can't afford to do it all at once, so I've been buying a little bit here and there. I think I'm really going to like it once it's done. I'll post pictures.

I've also been waiting to post pictures of my (almost complete!) bathroom until I find a toothbrush holder and soap pump that I like. Maybe I'll go in search of those things today and finally get you some pictures!! I know that's difficult to believe since it's been more than a month since I said I would, but painting four coats takes a long time! I'm never painting anything ever again. This is long.

And now, because I hate it when there are no pictures, a little preview of the portraits I shot this Monday. Miss Ellie was so much fun to work with and her parents are so sweet! Here she is:



Oops! We were too slow!! She's already on the move. We'll catch her next time.

Well, Hello Chic Little Fredericksburg!

So I've been to Fredericksburg more times than I can remember since I moved to Austin, and yet I have never been inside red. I can't believe I've wasted so much time not shopping here! Well apparently they used to be down at the end of Main Street, but have now moved closer to the other end into the old Buick building. I have no idea what it looked like before, but the new space is so fun! Just look:



They have all sorts of unique/quirky home accents and gifts:




I want my whole house to look like their showroom! They also have heftier home items like lighting, home textiles and furniture:





I bought a gift (that I have yet to present, so I won't tell you what it is in case the recipient is reading.) But there are sooo many things I was wishing I had an occasion to give someone! I mean - anybody can bring a sock monkey to a baby shower - you could bring a sock zebra and it's guaranteed to be the most unique gift there!



This whole table smelled great!!


I don't even know what these things are supposed to be, but put them in a bowl inside red and I want one!


I have decided that I am definitely going back for these pillow cases! They're going on the guest bed so come stay at the house and you can enjoy them too!


It's all just so great! Check out their website at www.redinfred.com

And lastly, a little tip - the girl who helped us out said there will be a sale going on toward the end of July - it would be a great time to visit!


*all photos by JifferDoodle

Last Roadtrip Blog

I wanted to put this post up a few days ago, but my free subscription of Photoshop Lightroom ran out. I put a new free trial on our old desktop computer, and the poor thing made a valliant effort, but apparently photo editing is just too much for it's ancient processor to accomodate. It kept freezing up in the middle of it. Oh well.

I did have a few extras already edited, so I'll go ahead and post them here along with the route that we took. Our route was almost perfect, with the exception of the last day. Here it is:

Friday:
Started in Austin, TX.
Took Hwy. 71 west to Spicewood, TX.
Took Hwy. 281 South almost to Johnson City.
Turned right onto Sandy Rd. and followed it all the way until it T'd into RR 1323.
Followed 1323 to RR 1631 which hits Hwy. 290 and hook a right into Fredericksburg.

Stonewall is back east on 290 about 15 minutes from Fredericksburg. (Unless there's a rodeo, there's really no reason to go here. There might be some wineries or something.)

Saturday
Took Hwy. 290 east to get to Jenschke-Kunz/Barrett Rd. which takes you to Luckenbach. Don't blink. You'll miss it.
This road basically turns into RR 1376 which will take you all the way to Boerne, where you will look for Hwy. 46.
Head west on 46 and stick to it when it turns into 16.
This takes you to Bandera where you will look for RR 470 which takes you to Hwy. 83.
Hook a quick left on Hwy. 83 and you're practically at Garner State Park.

Now, we headed on into Uvalde after Garner, which was nice because there was a Holiday Inn Express (and at least one other chain) and you can pretty much count on them having some kind of room. But if I had it to do over again, I would've either camped or made a reservation somewhere around Garner or the Frio and just stayed there. Or, stayed in Uvalde, but headed back that way for the last leg of the trip toward Gruene. The way that we took on Sunday was not nearly as impressive as our Saturday drive. For this reason, I'm not gonna bother figuring out the crazy way that we went on the last day of the trip. There were many Ranch and Farm Roads involved and I don't think I could figure them out if I tried.

And to wrap it up, the last few pictures:

And a Cat Named Calamazoo...

Home again, home again, jiggity jig...

Today is Father's Day, and even though we weren't with daddy, we honored him with our playlist. This morning we rocked out to the perfect country and western song: "I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison, and I went to pick her up in the raaaain!" We also listened to Della and the Dealer (and the dog as well) a couple of times. "If that cat could talk, what tales he'd tell!" and we felt like we were eight again. We didn't think our childhood was weird at the time...

We slept until we couldn't sleep anymore this morning. Turns out rope swinging really takes it out of you. After taking our time getting ready, we made our way to New Braunfels, Texas. Gruene was our real last stop, but Brandi wanted to eat here:



so that we could order these:



Fried pickles! Pat's is the first place we ever had these and we like to revisit it every once in a while. We stuffed ourselves with even more fried food and then headed on down to Gruene. Crossing over the Guadalupe River, we stopped to take a couple of pictures.




We didn't see anyone floating, though.

Our very last stop was Gruene Hall, where there was a band playing. There were a few people dancing, but mostly everyone was drinking beer and listening. It was really hot and sweaty, but the band was good. The huge red bass made it pretty easy to get an interesting shot.




And now we are home again. Well, at my home, anyway. Brandi's got one more day and a stop at Pottery Barn outlet before she's home.

Whewww!! I'm pooped! There will be one last post with details about our route, stops and some extra pics that didn't make it into previous posts. But for now, I'm off to sleep, because I have to go to work tomorrow. It feels like a long time since I've been at work! Good night!

How to Marry a Cowboy - Day 2

Oh! We've had so much:



Just like every morning, we started out with a little exercise:



Waaaait...that doesn't seem right. Oh! Psych! We started with shopping and blueberry French toast! Yes, that sounds much more like us.

While we were looking for somewhere to eat breakfast, we "discovered" what we thought was a new store. Turns out the store, which is named Red, used to be at the other end of the street. I can't believe I'd never walked far enough to see it! I was missing out on so much! I took a ton of pictures, made friends with the workers, bought a gift and made mental notes to go back and buy about twenty more things! In fact, I'm so excited about this shop that I think that it will have it's very own posting sometime this week. Here's a teaser:



There's just so much more I can't wait to share! Moving on for now, though!

Hitting the road and leaving Fredericksburg in our dust, we made our way to Luckenbach.



We had a little errand to run there. It was a double secret errand, so I can't go into details. I had heard that Luckenbach is really not all that great, so I was expecting...not much. But there happened to be a classic car show there this weekend, so there were hundreds of people and live music and cool cars and, most importantly, a bull to ride.

Now if you read yesterday's blog already, you know that Brandi and I attended a rodeo last night. After watching, like, eight bull riders, we felt fairly confident that we could do better than that. So we did. We both stayed on for like...a full two minutes at least!




And with such grace, too! Let me tell you, the hardest part is getting on the bull in a dress. I mean, there is a very nice cowboy who lets you push off his shoulder and is nice enough to turn his face when you put your foot in the stirrup, but even then it ain't easy!

So, bull riding - check!

On to Bandera! On our way there we passed through:



and we waded through snake infested grasses to get this picture. At least they could've been snake infested. So I say, Snake charming - check! Of course Brandi was wearing her new:



So it wasn't a big deal for her. I was wearing flip flops.

Bandera claims to be the cowboy capital of the world...so perfect! (Stephenville says the same thing, by the way.) As we're driving into town, we passed a feed store. I pointed it out to my sister, and she says, "We don't need feed. We need a cowboy! Where's the cowboy store?" I'm a little crestfallen, but only for a minute or two before we round a corner and find:



Well, if someone had told us this was here we would've driven straight to Bandera! But the cowboys must've all been on bathroom breaks, because there were no cowboys in there.

There were cowboys at our lunch spot, though. Four of them right at the table next to us. Don't get too excited - there were handlebar mustaches and wives involved. Not exactly what we were looking for. But our drinks came in jars, so we feel fairly certain that Bandera has at least some claim on the cowboy/country title.



The day was beautiful again, but hot, hot, hot! We were getting awfully close to Garner State Park and we were pretty much ready to jump right in. We did stop for a few photo-ops along the way. At one point, Brandi got mad at me and decided to hit the road solo:



But we made up and drove the last few miles to Garner State Park - which is, I've decided, the best swimmin' hole I've ever been to. Just look!



It's just so beautiful! You can swim, or kayak or rent a paddle boat:



There is also a rope swing, but you can definitely add that to the list of things that is fun when you are small and NOT when you are - well - not small. When you are not small and you try to rope swing, you fall awkwardly into the water, you lose a flip flop, your bikini top pops off and the thirteen year old boy in line behind you laughs and doesn't even try to hide it.

I hate that kid.

After the rope swing incident, we got out and laid under the trees reading for a while. This is the view from my beach towel:



And because you haven't had enough pictures yet:




That sno-cone was so good! I'd been looking for one the whole trip. And there it was in Uvalde, Texas, which is where we are tonight. I'm blogging from a comfy bed in a clean hotel instead of from the McDonald's parking lot. This is just so much better!

Home tomorrow after a stop in Gruene! And probably the Pottery Barn outlet in San Marcos, 'cause I just can't see Brandi letting me pass that exit up.

Sweet dreams!