christmas in arizona

this year we spent christmas in arizona with the hatchs at grandma and grandpa sloan's house! it was my first white christmas, and was so fun!

on the way there we stopped at a giant arch just off the road in moab to spice up our drive a little- and hiked up to it just in time before the sun set.

after this start to our holiday we knew the rest was going to be packed with fun filled adventures!

sledding!

austin, janessa, erin, ben, alex

4-wheeling!

the snow was pretty deep up on the mountain, and we got a little innovative to get some more weight and make it up a little higher....

ben, austin, janessa, alex

where theres a will, theres always a way.


awesome christmas with the hatchs! 

tree.

one of the most exciting parts of our first christmas was getting our first TREEEE! we shopped around a lot until we found just the right one; and then we had to drive allll around orem for over an hour looking for a tree stand because apparently everyone was sold out- i know we couldnt believe it either- for a while we were afraid our tree was going to be stuck on our car over night because we were unsure what we could do without a stand, buttt we finally found a walgreens and bought their very last one and got our tree home!

we made lots of little ornaments to decorate our tree:

and then of course we had to REP-RE-SENT!

and mom sent us this cute mickey and minny ornament for our tree!

finishing touches...

annnd, i also made us some stockings!
yes home-made and hand-sewn! woohoo!

merry christmas!

lights.

in the christmas spirit we went to the lights at temple square with our good friends the haskells!  

(they just got married in november woohoo!)

we love going to see the lights every year, one of our favorite christmas past times.