wild birthdays.

birthday week. our birthdays are only a few days apart so naturally we have to celebrate all week--which usually turns into all month long--of fun festivities. this year i 'surprised' austin (he totally figured it out) with going to the wild animal safari park. this little gem is hidden in the georgia country-side and allows you to drive through the park of wild, exotic roaming animals and feed them.  nothing could have prepared us for how much fun we would have.

me and my llama friend! 

check out the TEETH on this buddy

 there were tons of buffalo who liked to come right up to the car and get a treat. and these buffalo were massive, sometimes as big as our car and drooled like crazy. it was pretty sick. and austin of course liked to surprise me by rolling down my window when i wasn't looking, and letting the buffalo stick its head in, searching for my snack bag.  

seriously, check out how big this guy's head is!

lonnnnnggghorn!

 you weren't supposed to get out of the car...but i just had to touch the rhino! 

oh little deer, if you only knew austin would just love to hunt you...

needless to say, we had an awesome time! 

but the fun didn't stop there...

when we got home austin surprised me with a birthday bike!

it's a beauty! it's white and turquoise and i couldn't love it more!

 and then, as part of birthday tradition, i made austin a surprise cake! this year's theme: a tank! 

birthday week success!

it just gets better every year!

way down yonder on the chattahoochee.

the chattahoochee river=real. not just a made-up country song. and it really is muddy, muddy water. for valentines day austin surprised me with a kayak adventure down the chattahoochee. what a perfect hub! best valentines day ever! we had a blast and it was so fun!

it had been raining all week, so the river was extra muddy and the banks were a little flooded. (side note: it doesn't 'just rain' here--it pours! like rain so thick you'd think it was snowing except its 80+ degrees out and i'm sweating from the humidity)

luckily the weather was perfect for our day of kayaking, and we paddled along celebrating our loooovveee on the chattahoochee. 

as we learned, it is very difficult to take pictures of both of us on the kayak. here are some humorous attempts to get us both in the picture:

fun story: so once we pushed off the bank and were steadily drifting in the middle of the river, austin shared his concern of running into alligators on the river. laughing, i said that was not a funny joke because we would be in some serious trouble, to which he replied "i'm not joking, my friend saw a gator on the river just earlier this week" (yes, he waited until we were passed the point of no return to share this information with me). this led to vigilant watching of the water for any signs of a gator, although you can't really see past 6 inches deep because of the mud. at the end of our course, after only spotting a few swimming snakes here and there, we laughed and joked about 'the terror of the gators'...until we saw this upon...

yes, the gators are no joke. luckily we did not encounter one, but i would not advise swimming or falling out of your kayak in the chattahoochee anytime soon. 

california to georgia.

well we made our long cross-country move from utah to georgia! luckily our schedule worked out where we could stop in california and texas along the way to see our families. it was a crazy long trip, but a great adventure with austin driving most of the way. it was fun to experience the change across the states, i knew i was in trouble when we got east of houston in texas and i had trouble understanding what people were saying because of the southern accent....i learned how to just nod and smile real quick. sadly we were too into watching the scenery change along the way that we didn't picture document very well, but we did snap some great pics of our new home in columbus, georgia.

the green beauty of endless trees in the south

the god-fearing and law-abiding people

lots of museums and historic sites 

fort benning and the ARMY

it's a fun change to be in a new place. for now austin and i will be at fort benning in gerogia while he completes some training courses. first on this list is an intense 14 credit semester of mandarin chinese language training. good luck aust! looks like we'll be ordering a lot of chow mein and kung pao chicken for studying purposes.  

snow.

the hatchs came to visit us for austin's commissioning ceremony, and of course we had to do something super fun while they were here.

aannndd we went snowmobiling! it was some crazy awesome fun, the kind of fun that reminds you why you love the frigid 15 degree weather that brings the soft, fluffy powder that is so fun to ride fast and flip in with no repercussions. 

with austin and i together on a snowmobile, of course we flipped...again, again...and again. only once we narrowly missed a tree...and i won't tell you who was driving that time.

thanks hatchs! we always have such fun adventures with you! 

sir.

2nd Lieutenant Austin Hatch, Armor Officer of the United States Army.

and yes, people now address him as, sir.

so we made it. finally. the commissioning. after years of juggling school, weekend traingings, 5:30 am PT, ranger challenge, the month of LDAC, air assault school, mountain warfare school, 'training' in chile, CTLT in texas, and much much more...we finally made it to commissioning. what a day to celebrate.

the swearing in

so each candidate gets to choose two individuals to put on their gold shoulder pins which i think has something to do with their rank--not really sure what these things represent but that is besides the point. so naturally austin asked his mom and i to do the honors. well those suckers are wayyy harder to attach than you can imagine. and of course austin wanted it to be first time special, so we didn't get any practice runs before the actual event. so there we are, infront of the whole crowd and couldn't get them on. i'm convinced we probably took a good 5 minutes longer than anyone else's appointees did on attaching these suckers. luckily we both had issues, so we struggled in embarrassment together..

and i'm happy to report after much struggle we got them on

austin's first salute to our great friend cameron!

cameron is a wonderful person, has helped us numerous times, and was a groomsman in our wedding.

 we were so excited to have him apart of the ceremony!

 we  felt so blessed to have many friends and family come and support austin 

as we prepare to leave utah we will be sad to miss the wonderful friendships we've made here. 

and i have to give a special mention to the stiles. lifelong friends of both austin and i, they were the ones who originally introduced us. and with pictures like these....

we know we'll never quite find other friends like you.

and for those who need a little update: austin was invited to participate in a pilot language program, learning mandarin chinese. we've decided to accept the offer and will be moving to columbus, georgia to begin classes in january. after a semester of 13 chinese credits, austin will move on and begin his armor office training of A-BOLC. we are excited for the opportunity and look forward to army life! 

sentiments.

before we left utah, we wanted to make sure we paid one last visit to the tree that made it all happen. well here it is people, two years later and the famous tree still stands, where all the magic started with a simple little question.

flashback: 2010

flashnow: 2012

still living happily ever after every day