Gaylord Texan 2009

This past weekend Ryan and I made our annual trip out to the Gaylord Texan for our anniversary! Our anniversary couldn't come at a better time, because the Gaylord is decked out for Christmas and that is the best time to go there!!!!!! We started out Saturday afternoon in downtown Grapevine walking through some quaint shops and taking in all the beautiful decorations and fun activities that were going on in downtown. Once we finished there we headed to The Gaylord Texan. We checked into our room and then began to explore. Every year they do a big ICE show and this year the theme was The Grinch and it has turned out some big crowds! We didn't go see the ICE, but did walk around the gift shop and walked past the long line of people who had been waiting for at least an hour or more. Once we were hungry we headed to The Riverwalk Cafe for dinner. This restaurant is probably one of our favorites at The Gaylord. It is a nice, upscale buffet with some very delicious food! After dinner we walked around some more and stopped to watch the Cowboys game for awhile. The next day we went to breakfast at a little coffee shop and had some of the best hot chocolate we have ever had before. We walked around a little more and took some pictures and then headed home. All in all it was a great weekend!!!!

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Christmas Card 2009

Only 5 more days to go till Christmas Break!!!! Can you tell that I am counting down? I think any true teacher is probably counting down at this point in the game.

Below is our Christmas card for this year, made by Ashley Boothe. You can check out her products at www.blueboxdesigns.blogspot.com

Pictures of Christmas Decorations!

Holidays

Well...we have officially started the holiday season now! We had a pretty good Thanksgiving, in spite of me being sick. We headed to Sherman on Wednesday and stayed until Saturday. Wednesday I spent some time shopping and getting a pedicure with my mom and my very sweet hubby stayed behind and cooked all the pies for the family reunion the next day. We also set up for the big Thanksgiving meal that evening.

Thursday we had our family reunion with my dad's mom's side of the family. We had 36 people in attendance and 25 people absent. We had a great day! We finished off the day watching the A&M vs. t.u. game, which ended sadly, but it was a very good game and much better than many people expected.

Friday my mom and I got up and went shopping for a little bit. We didn't get up real early, but we were out and about by 8. After some shopping we came home and decorated my parents' house for Christmas. Friday evening we went to see the movie Blind Side with some cousins and my aunt and uncle and went out to eat too.

Saturday Ryan and my dad put up the Christmas lights outside and my mom and I made a dessert for Alex's fiance Emily's bridal shower. Around noon a big group of guys headed down to Mesquite to watch the Denison Yellow Jackets play in their playoff game. While the boys were gone my mom and I went to the bridal shower for Emily.

All in all it was a great a break!!!! Now we only have 15 school days left till Christmas break!!!!!!!! We do have lots of fun things coming up in the next 3 weeks too! Some of the things we will be doing are going to the symphony, having a Christmas party for Ryan's coworkers, shopping in Watters Creek and at the outlet mall, shopping at Canton, a church Christmas party, fun weekend at The Gaylord Texan for our anniversary (#3), and then some time with my family for Christmas and then we will leave on the 25th to go to Utah!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our house is slowly coming together with all the decorations. As soon as I get back from Canton and put all the finishing touches on the house I will post some pics!!!

I hope everyone enjoys this time of year! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

This past Saturday Ryan had to go help with the 11 year old Scout campout and that left me home alone all day Saturday. Well...what did I do you might ask. I went SHOPPING, duh!!!! I decided to slowly begin my Christmas shopping and kinda, sorta came home with a few things for myself. GOSH...I hate it when that happens! I have been thinking about having a 2nd Christmas tree in our house for awhile and I've always wanted one in a window that people can see when they drive by. On Saturday I finally decided it was time to take the plunge and buy one. I bought a tree, brown ornaments, leopard ribbon, and some really CUTE leopard butterflies that clip onto the tree. I do have to say that I think the tree turned out pretty cute!!!!!!!!!!! Most of you know that I love leopard things and this tree is just perfect!!!!!! I had been eye-ing those leopard butterflies at Macy's for quite sometime and now they are on my tree! I will post more pics of that later. We haven't put up our big tree yet, but I did manage to to pull out some of the rest of our decorations. I figure why would I put all this work into decorating my house and only enjoy the decorations for one month....so I decided to decorate a little earlier than normal this year.

For Thanksgiving this year we will be having the big family reunion on my dad's side. There should be a big crowd. We will also be watching the big rival game between A&M and t.u., hopefully the Aggies can pull off a big win! After Thanksgiving we are planning on making a trip out to Canton to find more Christmas decorations and some Christmas gifts! I can NOT wait!!!

I hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather and will have a great Thanksgiving!

The Best 2 Years

A lot of you know that my brother Ross has been awaiting his mission call for the last 2 weeks and he finally got it on Friday. My mom had been frantically checking the mail everyday last week and she left school early on Friday to check the mail and sure enough it was there! Ross was on his way home from A&M Friday afternoon and we had a letter opening party with a few family members. A little excerpt from the letter is below:

***Dear Elder Little,

You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the California, San Diego Mission. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 24 months.

You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, January 27, 2010. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Spanish language.***

WOW...can you believe it?? It seems just like yesterday Ross was born! We are so proud of him for choosing to serve a mission and know that we will do a great job and bless the lives of many people as he serves for the next 2 years.

Below are some pictures of him opening the letter and some fun pics of me and my sweet little cousins, Andrea 4, Alivia 2.

We love you Ross!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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The Great State Fair of Texas

Last weekend Ryan and I had a weekend full of entertainment! We don't normally have these types of weekends, but it was a ton of fun! We started off Friday night by going out to eat to one of our favorite restaurants in Dallas called Momo's Pasta!!! After dinner we headed off to see Mary Poppins! It was magnificent!!!!!!!!!! The scenery, costumes, music, and special effects were wonderful. I highly recommend it to anyone! My favorite parts were when Bert clogged up one side of the wall, clogged upside down on the ceiling and down the other side of the wall; and when Mary Poppins flew across the audience and into the ceiling. I would definitely go see that musical again!

On Saturday we headed off to the Great State Fair of Texas!!!! We love to go to the Fair once a year and eat to our hearts content. After a very long and frustrating ride on the DART we made it to the State Fair and headed straight to the lemonade stand to get some fresh squeezed lemonade. While most people who were at the Fair were drinking the beer, I was downing the lemonade, three large cups to be exact!!! Of course what would the State Fair be without a corny dog? We definitely stepped right up and got ourselves a delicious Fletcher's corny dog!!!! Later on in the afternoon we had a funnel cake while we watched the bird show. For dinner we had a homemade, fresh gordita! We didn't eat all this food at once, it was spread out over the course of several hours. We walked around and looked at the car show, saw a dog show, cooking demonstration, bird show and a pig race. All in all it was a great day!!!

Fall

YES...Fall is upon us and I LOVE it. Except for all the rain we have gotten recently. It has rained 11 out of the last 13 days and we have only seen the sun 1 day out of the month of October. NUTS I tell you, just NUTS! We have received cooler weather, which I am grateful for, but I could handle it a lot colder, maybe around 40 or so. I guess that is why we will be heading to Utah for Christmas!!!

I am very excited right now for a few reasons.

#1 Ryan and I are going to see this wonderful musical on Friday night



#2 We will also be attending the "Great State Fair of Texas"



I can NOT wait to eat a Fletcher's corndog, fresh squeezed lemonade, and a funnel cake. I might even be adventurous and try the fried cookie dough. The new fried food this year is the fried butter. I don't think I will be trying that!

#3 Ross will be getting his mission call soon! This is very exciting, scary, and sad all at the same time.

#4 I can decorate my house BIG time for Christmas really soon! Going from 800 sq feet to 2700 sq feet means that a lot more decorating will be taking place!!!!!

Friendly People

Today was Fair Day for my district and so we had the day off from school!!!!!!!!!!! I have totally enjoyed every last minute of doing whatever I wanted! I started my day by going to visit my friend Brandi and her new baby girl, Landry. Let me just tell you that she is SO CUTE and such a snuggler, which is the kind of baby I would like to have someday too!

I then went and ran some errands and my last stop of the day was Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market. I got everything I needed and when I was checking out the checker noticed that I had Manicotti shells and asked what I do with them and how we make them. I proceeded to tell her how Ryan makes them (Yep, that's right my hubby does ALL of the cooking around here) and she was so excited that she just learned a new recipe that she had been wanting to try, but just didn't know how to make. She was the nicest lady ever and then thanked me before I left for telling her the recipe. So good luck to the Wal-Mart checker when she makes her Manicotti!!!!

Since moving to Rockwall Ryan and I have noticed just how much friendlier the people are around here. I mean everyone says hello wherever you go, they offer to help in any way possible, and are truly interested in how you are doing. This however was not the case in Mesquite at all. Yes, the people were semi-friendly, but nothing like the people in Rockwall. One example is when I went into a home interior specialty shop on the square in downtown Rockwall I was greeted by another shopper that was in there and she asked me what brought me in to that shop today. I told her that I had just bought a new home and was just looking around for things to decorate with. She went on and on about how nice this shop was, told me all about this book club the ladies of Rockwall have (little did she know that I do NOT enjoy reading at all and that I work during the day) and she told me about this Newcomers club that the new citizens of Rockwall can join to get to know people. She pretty much followed me around the store telling me everything and anything I wanted to know about Rockwall and she even wrote down her name and phone number and gave it to me. She was a very nice, and friendly lady! I guess this is just how the people in Rockwall are and we like it!!! We are very happy that we chose to live in Rockwall and are really loving it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Weather

As some of you may know, I really LOVE cold weather and absolutely despise hot weather. I love my winter wardrobe more than my summer one too. Right now these are really wanting to come out of my closet....



I also wish the weather would be more like this......

Aggie FB Weekend

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The Garden

Since we have purchased our 1st home Ryan has been wanting to build/plant a garden for awhile! He is very excited and is ready to start growing some fruits and vegetables. We started working on it on Labor Day and Ryan has been working on it a little bit this past week too. I have not helped so much because I do not enjoy the heat and it is kind of a one person job. I will give ALL the credit to my sweet hubby!!!! Since it is about to be cooler weather we will not get to plant a whole lot just yet. For now we will try broccoli, winter squash, and peas. Let's hope we will have a very productive garden! If you have any advice as we get our 1st garden started please share with us. Below are pics of the project. It is not quite finished yet, but we will post more pics of the final project.

Graduation Party

Well, I have officially graduated from Lamar University with a Masters in Educational Administration and I have the diploma to prove it!!!!!! I am so happy to finally have that behind me! No more school for me. To celebrate we had a graduation party at our house last night. This was the first social gathering we have hosted and to say the least I was a bit nervous. I wanted everything to be just perfect and I didn't want any little kids to spill anything. Thankfully nothing got spilled and everything went very well!!!! We had lots of great food thanks to my hubby and a beautiful cake, thanks to my very talented aunt Kelly Dolezal who works at Society Bakery in Dallas. Thank you to all those who came and celebrated with me last night! Also, a HUGE thank you to everyone that helped me accomplish this degree, especially my hubby because he is the one who listened to me complain about all the homework I always had to do.

As for now, we are just enjoying a nice 3 day weekend! Not a whole lot going on around here. We are headed to A&M in 2 weeks for a FB game. It wouldn't be fall without some college FB!!!!!!!!!! Ryan is headed to Austin City Limits music festival in about a month and that is about it from us right now. School is just chugging right along.

Below are pics from the graduation party!

Back to the Grind

Not much to say here. We went to Utah about a week or two ago and had a great time! The weather was nice and cool and we went out to eat at Fleming's Steakhouse to celebrate my graduation from graduate school and Ryan's promotion at work. Let me just tell you that Fleming's puts on a fine show and you will not be disappointed when you leave there, it's just practically impossible! We went to Ryan's aunt's cabin up Logan canyon and had a family get together, and then drove up to Bear Lake. I also got to meet up with my good friend Amber who just recently moved back to Utah a few months ago. It was fun to see her and the baby again! Love you girls!!! Ryan went on a fishing trip with his dad to Montana and had a great time! They fished about 4-5 different rivers. Ryan had the most success when he fished the Logan river. He fished for about 3 hours and caught 17 fish, that was a record for him!!!!!

Now it is back to reality for the both of us. I started back to work this week and nearly had a fit Monday morning when my alarm went off. Poor Ryan had to listen to me whine and complain for a little while, but he was a good sport about it. I don't think he has much sympathy for me since I have the whole summer off and he doesn't. I told him if one of us has to be off work the whole summer it mind as well be me!!!!!

Anyways....wish me luck as I embark on a new school year! I definitely will have a little more time than last year since I won't have any more homework to do!

Good luck to all the little children and teachers starting school on Monday!

Weekend in Big D

This weekend my brother Ross came and spent the weekend with Ryan and I. Friday night we went to the Rangers game. We made it to the top of the 8th inning before it started raining. As soon as I felt a few sprinkles I headed for the covered breezeway by our section. Ryan and Ross decided to wait it out a little bit longer than I did. It started to rain heavier and then they bolted as well as many others. We waited almost 40 minutes and then decided it was just time to leave. Thankfully on our way to the car it was only sprinkling. That made for a very adventurous night!

Saturday we started the day off by going to eat breakfast at one of our favorite places, Breadwinners! They have fabulous food and everything is homemade and made right there in their very own kitchen. Before it was a restaurant the location was an old Victorian style home with many rooms and a large garden/atrium area. Now it is a very cute restaurant! After breakfast we headed to the Dallas World Aquarium. None of us had ever been there before and it was quite impressive. Lots of different sea animals and some zoo animals. I think a few of my favorites were the jaguar, flamingoes, and penguins. After the Aquarium we headed into Oak Cliff to the Bishops Arts District to a store called The Soda Gallery. The man who owns this shop said it was his retirement project. He offers almost every kind of bottled soda known to man. At least 15 different kinds of Root Beer, Grape, Strawberry, Orange, Cream Soda, and many others. We stayed there for a few minutes to drink our soda and then we headed down to the JFK museum. Ross had never been there before and well, let's just say this is one of Ryan's favorite things to do in Dallas and he has been several times. I opted out of this adventure since I have been twice before. When we left the JFK museum we went over to the West Village and walked around the shops for a little while. For dinner we went to Chuy's since Ross has not been there, and it was quite tasty! We also wanted to show Ross one of our favorite spots for dessert so we took him to Yogilicious! Yogilicious is a frozen yogurt store. You walk in grab the size cup you want, and then they have about 10 different flavors of yogurt to choose from. You fill your cup up with whatever flavor and with as much as you want. Next, you proceed to the topping bar. The first topping bar is full of fresh fruit and the second topping bar is full of all kinds of sweets. The best part of this place is they only charge you by the ounce! After dessert we needed to stop by Central Market and get some cheese and a few other things. We finally got home and all laid down to watch "He's Just Not That Into You!" Such a great movie!

We were glad we were able to spend the weekend with Ross since he will be leaving us in a couple of weeks to go to college and then be leaving us for 2 years in January to go on a mission. We love you Ross!!!

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Concert on Lake Ray Hubbard

Last night Ryan and I decided to venture out to the concert on the lake that is held every Thursday. The lake in Rockwall is Lake Ray Hubbard and there is a beautiful area on the lake called The Harbor. The Harbor has lots of restaurants, shops, movie theatre, and a Hilton hotel and Conference center. It is a very beautiful area. This was our first time to go since we've moved to Rockwall and it was really quite enjoyable and the weather was actually quite decent and we didn't sweat to death. (Side note: We have received some rain in the past 2 weeks the temp has been in the low 90s. Unfortunately we are back to the 100s next Tuesday.) We listened to a band called 80s Airwave and they just sang a variety of songs from the 80s, they were all covers. We left the concert a little early to beat the crowd and stopped off at Cold Stone ice cream for a treat! It was a great night out together!!!

A few more pics

House Pics

Well, I finally have gotten around to charging the battery in my camera and uploading the pictures to the computer. These are some pictures I took of the inside of the house a few weeks ago. I have since then bought a few things and decorated a little more. The decorating is a slow process. I am currently working on some chandelier light shades for the chandelier in the dining room. Once that is finished we will be looking for a computer desk, grill, and a nice leopard chair with ottoman for our bedroom. If anyone has any great decorating ideas pass them along my way!!!!!!!!