Merry Christmas!!

We had a wonderful Christmas yesterday. It started with presents at my parent's house at 11AM, followed by a yummy Christmas dinner/lunch. Then we went to the Sharkey's for more presents and food. We are so blessed to have such wonderful families. Thank you all for your generous gifts!


Tim bought me a new digital SLR camera! YAY!

I bought Tim a new treadmill to help us train for our half marathon in March!

Our beautiful tree!

My favorite ornament that Erin gave us the year we got married :)

Sweet Bella is mad at me for making her wear a Christmas collar :)

My dad playing with his new gifts - swimming goggles & a lazer level

A new Usher Christmas

This year we switched things up a bit - we celebrated the Usher Christmas at Megan & Josh's "new" house. I say "new" because they completely rehabbed Buddy's house over the summer and did a fantastic job! In addition to the new setting, every Georgia-based family member was there (it has been a while since that has happened!)!! It was a wonderful weekend, a little too short, but I was glad to spend quality time with my extended, and growing, family!

The gang's all here! (minus Rob, Peg & Val)

The parental units

The host & hostess

Busy cooks in the kitchen!

Full bellies!

Celebrating Becky's birthday!

Tacky Christmas Sweaters

Kristen & Kelly had a Tacky Christmas Sweater party this past weekend. Some of the sweaters were hilarious! Here are a few highlights:

Cheesemakers!

We had another wonderful annual weekend in Wisconsin. Not only was it Grandma's 86th birthday but Uncle Ron was also celebrating his 60th. So we had a larger crowd than in years past. They didn't have much snow this year, we were fortunate enough to leave town 48 hours before the Blizzard of 09!

Cousins + Significant others (left to right):
Jordan, Dana, Tim, Erin, Jeremy, Me, Laura, and Brad

The "Kids" with Grandma:
Dad, Mom, Jim, Sheryl, Ron, Grandma, & Rhondi

The Grandkids with Grandma:
Dana, Brad, Erin, Jordan, Grandma & Me (missing: Becky, Andy & Jon)

Grandma & I

Our Group dinner

Dad & Ron - I couldn't resist this picture, it's TOO FUNNY

Grandma and this red sweater lady were trying to hook Erin up with the bartender (also the restaurant owners son) It was hilarious!

Erin is embarrassed, but the bartender was cute!

Sunday afternoon at Peg & Rob's!

Happy Thanksgiving

I cannot believe it’s already Thanksgiving! Where did this year go?? On Thursday Tim and I had the pleasure of enjoying two delicious Thanksgiving dinners. We started at the Sharkey’s house for an early Thanksgiving lunch so they could head up to the cabin for the weekend. Then we had our 2nd meal at my parent’s house later that evening. We got to meet Becky’s new puppy, Sammy, she is a beagle pointer mix with a joker smile. By the end of the day we were stuffed, tired, and very thankful to spend our Thanksgiving with two wonderful families!

New Setting

You may notice that we have put a privacy setting on our blog page, requiring visitors to log in to read our blog. Sorry to make you all have to log in each time you want to read it, but this day and age, you can never be too careful. Happy reading!

What Happens In Vegas...

Well, you know the rest of the saying :) Tim and I had a FABULOUS time in Las Vegas last weekend. It is definitely on our list of favorite vacations…so far! We arrived on Thursday just in time to have a wonderful dinner at Prime. Dessert involved sitting on a semi-private balcony with a front row view of the Bellagio fountains. I don’t care how many times I have seen that show, I still enjoy it every time! On Friday night we went to see Cirque du Soleil’s O at the Bellagio. What a fantastic show! It did, however, miss the guy stacking 15 chairs on one leg and doing a head stand on the top. But it was not lacking in high dive activities. After the show we went out for dinner and then tried our luck on the roulette tables, there was no shortage of gambling over the weekend. I had to win everything back that Tim lost ;) On Saturday we walked around the strip to visit all the different hotels. I think we hit every hotel from the Encore down to the Bellagio, on both sides of the strip! On Sunday we went downtown to see the old school Las Vegas…that’s right, we actually went to the Golden Nugget and Fremont Street! We played $0.50 roulette just to make the experience complete! It was an exhausting, fantastically fun weekend. I can’t wait to go back!

The view from our hotel suite at The Palazzo

Ready for a night on the town!



Ready to see O!

The front entrance of our hotel, it was GORGEOUS!


Watching the fountain show at the Bellagio; love the Eiffel Tower!





At The Mirage

Fremont Street!!!

Our hotel, it was beautiful!

At the Wynn

The Venetain & the rest of the strip

The funny Banana Republic add that I saw and had to take a picture of :)

ALTA City Finals

This weekend my women's ALTA (Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association) competed in the City Finals...we are now officially the 1st place losers :) Oh well, better luck next time! It was still a lot of fun and a great experience playing in the City Finals, not to mention the weather was PERFECT! Hopefully we’ll make it next season!

Our Highland Point Team with our Finalist Plate :)

Kristen, Leanne and I with our plates

Even though we lost, we still celebrated with mimosas!

Kristen with our 4 month old team mascot, Leah :)

Memory Walk

We did the annual Alzheimer’s Memory Walk in October again this year. This is the 2nd year that we have done the walk with Kristen’s family. Her Grandmother is currently battling advanced Alzheimer’s so each year we have walked in honor of her Grandmother and in memory of our Poppa. We had a smaller team turn out then last year’s walk as my dad & Tim were unable to participate. This year it was held on the Marietta Square so we got to walk down streets with cute old homes :) Despite cold weather and the thread of rain, the walk was a huge success and a lot of fun!