Drumroll please.  Blue the Birthday Baker has officially chosen the name for the magnificent out of this world cake he created for my birthday! Thank you all so much for entering the contest.  It was so much fun to read your entries. Y’all crack me up! I couldn’t have thought of more creative and ingenious names. Especially since naming my birthday cake is like serious bizness, ya know? I really enjoyed NOT being the judge and I know the Birthday Baker had a hard time choosing. So let me break down the judging and how winners were chosen:

In order to keep the contest fair, Blue the Birthday Baker was not aloud to view your  submitted cake name. This was to keep him from seeing the entrants names and to reduce bias. All the submitted names & entrants were anonymous to him. At contest deadline, I put all of the anonymous & eligible cake names on a list and they were emailed for judging. This list of names was sorted alphabetically and scored.  Fourteen cake names survived the first round of cuts and the remaining names were once again re-sorted alphabetically and scored leaving only six cake names in the second round. After the third round, only four remained.  Blue the Birthday Baker chose the final and favorite cake name and placed each of the four cake names as his winners. The winners were announced to me and now to the world!

Here are the Name My Birthday Cake Contest winners:

1st place: Glazed Raspberry Chocolate Fusion Cake submitted by Daniela Boyce

2nd place: German Chocolate Raspberry Fusion Cake submitted by Keith

3rd place: Double Decker Chocolate Raspberry Cream Cake submitted by Morgan Dominique Poteet

An honorable mention goes out to:  Chocolate Berry Blitz Cake submitted by Anne. Blue liked the fact that the word Blitz was subtly used to reference the German Chocolate cake.

Glazed Raspberry Chocolate Fusion Cake

Congratulations to the winners!

I am thrilled with the brand new sparkly cake name! My Glazed Raspberry Chocolate Fusion Cake was the best birthday cake I have ever had.  On that note, I wish you could have tasted it (a few of you lucky souls did get a piece).
I know this is just plain mean of me to keep shoving all these picture in front of you.

But Look.

Mouthwatering huh? Glazed Raspberry Chocolate Fusion Cake in your face!

Okay, I am now done with the cruelty and taunting.  It’s just not fair to have you name a cake that you can’t make for yourself and truly experience. Right? Right. Sooo, Blue the Birthday Baker decided that a remake of Glazed Raspberry Chocolate Fusion Cake is in your future that will include pics plus his recipe. There were obviously no protests from me. Be on the lookout for his cake featured in my Zesty Kitchen. And the best thing for me – all I have to do is show up for the cake mak’n, take pictures, then eat this blissful, to die for Glazed Raspberry Chocolate Fusion cake. And the kicker,  my birthday is looong gone!

I am truly the luckiest gal in the whole entire world galaxy!

Be sure to join me for more fun, contests and prizes in MZL!

Zestfully yours,
Robyn

My adventures began a few Saturday’s ago, when my BFF of the female variety came to visit from Northern CA. Her and I go waaaaay back. Back into the time when Chance was 3, way back. Her trip included a short but sweet 2 night stay to celebrate my 37 years on the planet earth. I had a jammed packed schedule planned ’cause she hasn’t seen much of Austin. Thus, we began a day trip with Izzy in tow supposedly ending at Inks Lake.

Well as time would have it – my planning didn’t include the actual driving time. Duh. I guess I thought we could cross our arms, blink and poof. My planning did not include meandering and eating a bite at Driftwood winery.

My planning also did not include this:

Milton Reimers Ranch Park. Located on the Pedernales River and one of the newest county parks. It is also one of the largest parks owned by Travis County.

I couldn’t have planned a better day! We were able to bring Izzy. Pedernales falls (which is up the road a bit) does not allow dogs. See how happy she is? Izz-she happy. Get it? Got it. Good. Now moving on.

After a 2 mile drive to the entrance, we were greeted by one of the coolest park ladies ever. She gave us a map of the ranch and asked us what we were thinking of doing. We gave her a blank look so she directed us to the river, since obviously we didn’t have our climbing gear. Come to think of it, I don’t own any climbing gear. Climbing? huh? Yep climbing. World class rock climbing at that, and if that’s not enough to get your tail wagging, the ranch also boasts of major biking trails.

But we weren’t here for any of that. In fact, I don’t recall what we were here for, nor how we actually ended up at Reimers Ranch. But I was sure glad we did. We hiked down a little trail to the Pedernales river front which runs 3 miles through the ranch. The river was so clean and the fish were a biting.

No, really, they were! We happened upon a fishermen’s (or fisherwomen’s) paradise – white bass season. Take a look – I ain’t kidding.

We were also informed that there were a lot of cute fisherman (thank you park lady).
Hey now, my friend is a single lady – so she can fish all she wants!

Instead she decided to do some rock fishing. She found a lot of jasper. Her son is named Jasper. So this was a good thing. We like rocks. They are treasures. So she filled up a bag of rock treasures to take with us home.

And I took these pictures.

Ahhh. I wish I would have brought my fishing pole. Apparently there are a lot of white bass and you can go home with up to 20 good size fish. That’s a lot of fish!

Clear water and a rock. A feng shui picture.

nice sandy beaches….

and this.
A water gremlin stretching her legs. This is as deep as the gremlin goes – she is no mermaid.
What a nutter.

The trail back.

And a purdy flower. I know real scientific huh? Will identify at a later date. It’s the taxonomist in me, or the botanist. Okay, it’s the nerd in me.  If you know the name of this flower do please tell. The nerd in me thanks you.

One last thing – if you stay too long at the park and don’t leave before sunset. You will turn into a giant shadow with long legs.

What an unexpected discovery and a real gem of a county park. I will soon be back to share more adventures with the dudes. Next time with my bathing suit and fishing pole in tow and ready for the hot Texas summer!

What a fantastic time we had – day trippin’ around Milton Reimers Ranch Park.