Shutterfly

As many of you know, I am a big fan of Shutterfly. I have made several photo books on their site, and even used it to make our wedding album.  They are a great place to get prints, gifts, cards, photo books - you get the idea.  Not to mention that if you're willing to wait for them, they offer some great deals!  One such deal is available right now, which is where this blog post comes in.

Now until December 31, Shutterfly is offering 50 free holiday cards to anyone who writes a blog about them!  If you would like to get in on this deal, here is the link: http://blog.shutterfly.com/5358/holiday2010-blog-submission-form/. They have hundreds of designs to choose from and they are so easy to use.  You just have to pay for shipping!  There are so many to choose from that I haven't looked through all of them yet, but some favorites are Candy Cane Fun, Perfect Present, Gorgeous Gift Card, and Merry Montage.  You can look for your favorites here.

Enjoy getting into the holiday spirit with Christmas cards while you stuff yourself with turkey over the Thanksgiving break!

October

I realized today that I managed to completely miss October on the blog (but only by a day on either side)!  In a lot of ways, I could copy and paste my September post here and it would be pretty accurate. Justin is still enjoying teaching and things are beginning to fall into place with that.  It is still a challenge, but he is putting a lot of energy into finding creative ways to reach his students and being rewarded for it.  I am still at my internship in Garland, still in school, and still working.  This past week was a little rough, but for the most part I have figured out the dance between all of these and it really hasn't been too bad.

We did get to do some fun things in October!  Justin's final bicycle race, the big State Road Race Championship, was held at Fort Hood earlier in the month.  Since it was so close, we spent the night in Belton and my parents were able to see Justin race.  He did well and is already excited about the next season starting!

The next weekend, I was able to go on a little "girl's getaway" with some of my best friends, Kellie and Savannah.  We were planning to leave town for the weekend, but decided that we would prefer to cut out the traveling and enjoy some of what Dallas has to offer.  Kellie found us a great deal at a fancy hotel and we really enjoyed getting to spend some time doing things we wouldn't normally do here.  We also made a little trip up to the McKinney trade days (similar to Canton but on a smaller scale), which was a lot of fun.  Kellie is planning to move to Maryland in December and Savannah is getting married in March, so it was fun to have some time with them before all of the changes take place.  While we were getting pedicures and having girl time, Justin and his brother headed to the Rangers game and found themselves with a couple of tickets that put them about 20 rows behind the Yankees dugout.  Needless to say, Justin was a little bit excited!

This last weekend Justin's grandparents came into town to visit and we really enjoyed having them!  We don't get to spend very much time with them, so we enjoyed showing them our home and getting to catch up a little bit.  We took them to the arboretum (of course), spent time with Justin's brother and sister-in-law, and played a lot of games.  We are already looking forward to seeing them again at Christmas!

Justin and I have been so blessed with good friends and family and we are very thankful for the ways that God uses them to point us back to Him.  Even when life gets busy and sometimes frustrating, we can never doubt that we have been richly blessed!