The Goddess of Liberty

When Mamma, Krystin and I went to Austen to get our birth certificates recently, we where able to visit the Capitol building. One of the first things that catch your eye is the HUGE statue on the very top. The Goddess of liberty.

She's not exactly pretty. She was in danger of falling to pieces once. And when Texans decided to replace her, they had such a tough time they had to call in the National Guard — from another state. But the lady with the exaggerated facial features atop the Texas Capitol is a goddess, nonetheless.

The original zinc statue was designed by Texas State Capitol architect E.E. Meyers of Detroit, probably inspired by publicity about the construction of the Statue of Liberty and by the Statue of Freedom placed on the U.S. Capitol, according to the State Preservation Board.
Nearly 16 feet tall and weighing 2,000 pounds, she was hoisted atop the Texas Capitol in four pieces in 1888. Workers put her together on top of the dome with screws. When extensive cracking was noticed nearly 100 years later, the Preservation Board decided to replace the original with an aluminum duplicate. But it was found to be easier said than done. A Texas National Guard helicopter got her down safely, although The Associated Press noted a moment of drama when a line snapped: "The harness dropped, and the spectators gasped."
Hoisting the lighter replacement back onto her anchor pole was another matter.

After repeated attempts to thread the statue's bottom opening onto , Texas called on the the pole failedMississippi National Guard for help — a story so irresistible, that the New York Times and Washington Post documented it.
The Post's story began: "This has not been the best of years in the Southwest, and in times like these, when life goes bad for awhile, people tend to look for symbols and omens."
The Mississippi National Guard, with a helicopter better suited for the accurate aim required of the mission than those available in Texas, put the new Goddess in place.

And she lived happily every after. Atleast untill she wants a facial or shower. And then I guess we will have to ask Mississippi to come and get her down for us and put her back up.... again.

Birthday cake.

Last weekend was our pastors birthday, so my sister and I offered to make him a cake. Since you could not be here to enjoy the process with me, I thought I would give you a picture by picture and step by step tutorial of making our cake. So here it is, from start to finish.

First we bake the cake and let it cool.

Next we have to cut the cake in half so that we can add filling. We cut the cake in half with a tool called a leveler. This tool can be used to make the cake flat on the top and bottom if needed.

Next we put a dam of icing around the top of the cake so that the filling does not ooze out of the sides.Then we add the filling. Filling can be made of Icing, pudding or jam. It not only adds flavor to the cake, it also adds height and makes it pretty once sliced.Then you want to carefully add the next layer, and start over again till all of the layer are filled.After that you must crumb coat your cake. This is a very thin layer of icing that "seals" in all of your crumbs.

Then we put it in the fridge for a few minutes so we can smooth it out with a paper towel and move on.

The next step is to ice the cake, you want to make sure that you put a thick layer of icing on so that is looks smooth and tastes great. After you ice the cake it is best to let it sit in the fridge overnight so that you can decorate it. (If you are going to be driving the cake anywhere it is best to wait to put ant extra items on the cake till you get there.)

Be sure to get a picture of the person receiving the cake!

Here are a few more cakes we have done.

Scrapbook Pages

Well as I promised, here are some of the digital scrap book pages I have done, I will add some more later. These are my favorites so far.

This is one that I did of my grandfather who fought in Vietnam.

This picture was taken on the last night of the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival with some REALLY CLOSE friends.

Kaiser

Patches

Flowers from Oregon

Good Day!

Good day! My name is Denielle and I am 15 years old. My wonderful family and I live in Texas. I have a twin sister named Belle, a caring Mamma and a wonderful Daddy. I love books, old books to be specific. Some of my favorites are the works of Jane Austen and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I also enjoy digital scrapbooking and will be posting some of my pages on here. I have two main loves: animals and music. When it comes to animals I love just about every one of them. My family has a Great Dane who's name is Kaiser. We also have done dog rescue for about eight years. My favorite animal is the horse. I would be willing to ride all day if I could. As for music, I play the piano and violin. My piano level quite advanced while my violin level is very low. I enjoy classical music the best, and my favorite is baroque. I hope that you enjoy my blog and the God blesses you in reading it.