birthday week.

luckily our birthdays are only 3 days apart, so this week we partied all week long to celebrate! wednesday we both took off work and went to an indoor rock climbing gym in provo. austin taught me some cool knots and techniques from his recent army training school- so legit! we climbed until our hands were numb and then went for some brazillian bbq at tucanos, which was oh so yummmm! and we got some famous texas blue bell ice cream, flavor birthday cake of course. we ended the day by going back for a second round of climbing at the gym. in short: best birthday ever.

saturday night we had a birthday bash for austin with cake, ice cream and friends! i like to make him special birthday cakes, themed with things he likes. can you decipher this year's cake?

its a fish! with rainbow scales and a white tail!

happy birthday to my fisherman hub!

colors.

the festival of colors. the great annual celebration of the coming of spring, which allows us to have a huge powder chalk war at the indian temple down in spanish fork. aust and i love going each year to get our throw on, and this year our friends matt and taylor came with us-- it was a blast! come on peeps, and have some fun:

can you tell that i had pink chalk and austin had green?

Amazingly Awesome Austin.

Fact: Austin is Amazingly Awesome. at pretty much everything.

(he would die of embarrassment if he knew about this post right now, but he is not here so i can write whatever i want!)

Austin had the opportunity to go to an Army Training School in Vermont called Mountain Warfare. For two weeks Austin was taught, tested, and certified as a Mountain Warrior. This is a very difficult school to get into (out of 1 spot for 5 universities Austin was chosen) and most Army personnel only hope to get this training during their entire career. He learned and practiced proper techniques for ice climbing, rock climbing, packing and transferring animals up cliffs, navigating using barometric pressure and altimeter readings, aiding and rescuing others on cliffs, and shooting/sniping peeps on the mountain side (Aust sniped peeps up to 500 meters). 

warrrrhammmerrr

Austin was 1 of 7 cadets (students) in the group of about 60 that started the course (meaning the other 50+ participants are already enlisted or officer personnel with lots of experience). Of those that started about a quarter did not complete the course as they failed the written and physical tests.

Most amazingly awesome, Austin graduated from the school on the Commadant's List (meaning he finished in the top 10% of his class, passing all his tests on the first try). Austin is the first Cadet to accomplish this honor at the prestigious school in 9 years for the entire nation. Way to go Aust! Awesome and Amazing only begin to describe you.

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.

gingerbread men.

gingerbread men have invaded our house, or at least Austin would claim this. gingerbread cookies are my favorite, and probably Austin's like 5th favorite cookie; hence I made a ton! all sorts of gingerbread men came out of the batch, because lets face it- decorating the same little smiley face guy with two buttons over and over again gets pretttty boring, so i decided to have a fun party in decorating my guys.

here are some of my favorites:

From Top Left to Bottom Right: zombie, pirate, regular joe shmo, mummy, and harry potter!

the raptors.

This year my intramural soccer team won! 

We got the coveted shirts that read "champion" really big on the back, so we can publicly display our awesomeness wherever we go. 

Champion quality, obviously.