The Ussery Update

I had high hopes of blogging about various things this week, but it just didn't happen. Life has been busy ~ full and blessed. It's a busy time of year with lots going on here, there and everywhere. You know how it is! We will be loading up our sleigh and leaving town this afternoon...making the trek to central Arkansas to spend Christmas with John's family. We will come back home Monday morning. We are looking forward to a few days off and spending time with family. It'll be lots of fun and there will be an abundance of yummy stuff to eat! Nevertheless, I did want to post our Christmas card! We mailed our cards out on December 1st. I think we mailed out about 125 - whew. We love getting Christmas cards. Due to the fact that John works from home, all through the Christmas season he will check the mail during the day, but save the Christmas cards and we open them and look at them together when I get home. It's one of our little traditions. Our Christmas c

A couple of weekends ago, we went out for a fun "date day". We started out the day with some shopping and then we headed to the Gaylord Texan Resort for their annual "ICE" exhibit and then ended the day with a delicious dinner. Each year, the Gaylord Texan has a one of a kind attraction where they carve a Christmas exhibit or display out of nearly two million pounds of colored ice. It's a walk through exhibit - a VERY COLD walk through, 9 degrees to be exact! Obviously, they have to keep it so cold so that the ice doesn't melt. Before you can go in, they hand each visitor a parka and also encourage you to bring gloves, scarves and hats. They weren't kidding! Even with gloves, my hands were freezing. It was super cold in there, but super fun. We were SO EXCITED to find out that this year "ICE" would be presenting "A Charlie Brown Christmas". We LOVE the Peanuts gang. We have a little display of Peanuts characters out with all

December is upon us and 2010 is nearing it's end - what a year! It's time to post my "things to be happy about" from November. If you are new to this, I received a bright yellow, page-a-day desk calendar for Christmas last year and it sits on my desk at work. Each day the page lists various things to be happy about. Throughout the month I keep up with my favorite things the pages list and blog about them at the end of the month explaining why it makes me happy. I try to find happiness in the littlest of things and so many things excite me very easily. If you want to catch up, I started this in January so you can always look through my archive. It's only fitting this time of year that I quote Buddy from the wonderful Christmas movie, ELF . When asked by the department store manager "Why are you smiling?", Buddy replies, "I just like to smile. Smiling is my favorite". Here are my November things to be happy about... Holiday Shopping ~ CHRISTmas

Nine years ago today, December 3, 2001, John and I met each other. Well, electronically anyway! Here's the story... For Thanksgiving in 2001, I went with my Mom, Armando (my step-dad) and Andrew (my brother) to spend it with Armando's family in Pearsall, Texas and also celebrate Grandma's (Armando's Mom) 70th Birthday over the weekend. During the evening of Thanksgiving, a few of us were sitting around visiting and John's sister-in-law, Angela (who is also Armando's niece), asked me if I was dating anyone. At that time, I was a few weeks away from my college graduation. I was not dating anyone at the time, but was focused on finishing school and looking for a post-college job. So I proceeded to tell Angela that I was currently single. Well, she got all excited and said that I should meet Jason's brother (Jason is her husband - John's brother). Are you confused? Hee Hee! Anwho, Angela went on to tell me a little bit about John and what