Hi from Texas! We've been here for about a month now and have started making new friends and exploring. There are three other couples working with us and all have been very nice. We have been doing a lot with Bill and Penny who are from Arkansas (I know, but we don't hold that against them). Schulenburg is a small town of about 2800 people and the area was settled by Czech and German immigrants. When they built their churches they modeled them after churches in their homelands. Due to this, the area has become famous for their "painted churches".
We've been to all in the area and have found most to be very ornate and beautiful inside. Most were built in the mid to late 1800's. As you can see they have been well taken care of and many are currently undergoing restoration projects. They are known as painted churches because of the interiors.
Many of them have ornate designs and painted scenes on the ceilings and walls as you can see in these pictures. They also have beautiful stained glass windows throughout the building.
There are about seven or eight churches in the area and we spent two different days driving to them. Most are open to the public so you are able to go inside and marvel at the beauty of them. I think there were only two that were not open during the week. As I said, some are very ornate and a couple were pretty "plain Jane" but that is just due to the religious beliefs of that church.
We really enjoyed visiting these churches. It's hard to imagine how much time went into the art work on the walls and ceilings. I say art work because it is truly art. The people who built these and did the interiors were truly artist. I know I mentioned the stained glass windows and I will again as I love the looks of them with the sun coming through. Have you ever noticed that even when the sun isn't shining or at night they still have that glow to them.
We found a very nice Mexican restaurant about 15 miles south in the town of Hallettsville. We went to dinner with Bill and Penny there and then stopped at the court house and took some pictures. They really went all out with the lights on this one.
This is Bill and Penny (that's right the one's from Arkansas). This is a gazebo that was on the corner of the court house. I can imagine that a few weddings and proposals have taken place there. It was a very beautiful spot. Yep, that's Holly and I in the lower picture. I told you it was a beautiful spot.
The four of us took a ride to Austin and went to a "craft fair". I'll tell you some of this stuff was priced way out of the craft line. I will say though that this is the first craft fair I have ever been to that had live music and beer. I guess that was to take some of the sting out of the pricing. We were able to get a free holiday picture courtesy of the beer company.
We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. We had a big potluck at the park on Christmas with about 40 people so that was nice even though Holly and I worked that day.
This is a 1000 piece puzzle of Tiger stadium that I received from my son and his family. I think they are trying to drive me crazy. Well let's see if I have it done by the next Blog.
That's all for now. Hope you all have a great new year and I'll see ya'll then.
