The Ussery Update

Let's see, the "4th of July" weekend was two weeks ago and I'm just now getting around to blogging about it - better late than never I suppose. We had SUCH a fun weekend! It was a bonus having the Monday off following the holiday, so it made for a really nice 3-day weekend. We wanted to spend the weekend being productive on a few things, but also enjoying some fun and relaxation as well. Friday night after work, we bought our groceries , ran some errands and did a little shopping. Saturday morning, I made a coffee cake for breakfast. It's my Grandpa's recipe and it's incredibly delicious - the best coffee cake I've ever eaten. The recipe makes a full cake pan, so we were able to eat on it all weekend for breakfast. After breakfast, we spent all of Saturday getting all of our "chores" and domestic duties done around the house. John also worked on smoking brisket all day for dinner Saturday night. We wanted to get all our work done Saturday so ...

Whew - I've been a busy blogger! I realize that I haven't blogged in about two weeks. There has been various things going on that have kept me wrapped up in life and away from the computer (and that's okay!!). I have lots of topics to blog about and catch up on, but for now I wanted to talk about my favorite "things to be happy about" from my desk calendar in June. If you are new to this, I have a day-by-day calendar (the kind where you tear off a page each day) and everyday the calendar page lists a few things to be happy about. I keep all the pages from the month and at the end of the month I pick my favorites and tell you why. Click on the names of the months here to read the previous five months, if you are interested. January , February , March , April , and May . Here are my June things to be happy about... Smell of fresh paint ~ I love a freshly painted room - just a nice, new start to a room...a blank canvas if you will. We have painted all the areas o...

Last weekend, John and I had the privilege to attend a marriage conference called "Weekend to Remember" and boy was it ever! We had an amazing weekend together. The purpose of the weekend is to put aside all of life's distractions and focus on each other. The conference consisted of going through a workbook while listening to speakers addressing various aspects of marriage. There were breaks in between topics and also periods of time where you and your spouse were to work on an application project. Saturday, for all of the couples, was reserved for a Date Night. We got all dressed up and went out for a delicious dinner at Pappadeaux (the best seafood ever). Over the weekend, we did lots of talking, laughing and some crying too (well I did anyway). They also had a great resource center/bookstore set up with books, CDs, DVDs, games, activites and so on to do with men, women, marriage, parenting, family and so much more. We made a few purchases there! While we feel that Go...

Carianne and I had a wonderful time last weekend enjoying Seasons of Friendship . It was a great weekend from start to finish full of all kinds of fun. We cooked/baked, ate, shopped, talked, laughed, cried, played games, stayed up late and played with her sweet boy Owen. We also worked on a couple of little projects around her house. We are two wild and crazy girls - haha! It was such a nice weekend. Although nothing is set in stone, we look forward to getting together again sometime in the fall. This weekend, John and I are going to a marriage conference called "Weekend to Remember". We are really excited! There's nothing at all wrong with our marriage, we just want to make our great marriage even better. It's important for us to take care of it. The conference is here in our area, but still about an hour from our house. We will stay in the hotel where the conference is taking place so it'll have the feel of being away on vacation. The conference is full of ...

This afternoon, I am flying out to spend the weekend with my best friend, Carianne . We met in summer marching band before our sophomore year in high school (way back in '94). We have been the best of friends ever since - that's 16 years! We truly are forever friends. We been through so many joys and sorrows together in life and we were each other's Maid/Matron of Honor. We have memories galore!!! Obviously, I live in Dallas and she lives in Lubbock - so with a few hours and miles separating us, and very busy schedules and calendars, we don't get to see each other that often. We decided to make more of an effort to see each other a few times a year - either I go visit her, she comes here or we meet somewhere together. We decided a great way to keep up with it is to try and get together once a season. Surely, every three months we can find time to catch up and have some fun. Carianne came up with the brilliant name "Seasons of Friendship". She even made this ad...

I am VERY late in posting about our Memorial Day trip back home (which I mentioned here ). Life has been busy since we returned a couple of weeks ago, so I'm just now getting around to posting a few pictures (we took over 150 so I'm just going to post some of the highlights). We arrived there on Friday evening and drove back home the following Tuesday, so it was a full and fun extended weekend! We went to celebrate both the graduation and wedding of our niece Hillary (and her now husband Jake). We also got to relax and enjoy some time with my family. It was a great trip!! We of course enjoyed all of the graduation and wedding festivites for Hillary and Jake. We also did some swimming, visiting and catching up, board game playing, shopping and LOTS of eating. There was a lot of family in town for the celebrations so my Dad's house was full of people and fun activity. I was also very blessed to spend some quality time with my Mom and Grammy - just us three girls. We had yumm...