Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

Wes won the contest of the ugliest Christmas sweater at the Christmas party. I'm not sure if it's the fact that it's clearly a womens' shirt or that it has the most typical christmas picture on it with a lace border. And my dress was homemade by someone who has really good taste in fabric. Thanks to the DI in good ole Richfield, Utah, we dressed very fashionable for the party as was everyone else who attended. There were some really ugly Christmas sweaters!

I also want to point out our beautiful Christmas tree. I have a really good friend out here who let us borrow her 6-foot tree and another who spent hours stringing popcorn and cranberries on floss with me to create a wonderful garnish for our cute lil tree and get us in the Christmas spirit!

Meet Jaxton!

My twin had her baby last week!

This is Jaxton Gary Hansen.

Born on November 3, 2010 at 8:20 PM.

He weighed 6 pounds 13 ounces and was 19 inches long.

He was 3 weeks early, which is good because he wanted to come 2 months early putting Lana on bedrest for 2 months.

The poor girl tore to a stage 4 and got over 100 stitches. (I'm terrified to give birth!) But she's recovering and they're both doing well :)

I can't wait for Thanksgiving break so I can meet this handsome little man!!!!

HaPPy HaLLoWeEn

CHICAGO MARATHON

The marathon was such an incredible experience! It was one of my biggest accomplishments! It wasn't as bad as I expected in some ways, but it was harder than I expected in others. It was so great to be part of something so big. And something that so many people are participating in for nothing more than self-accomplishment.

Driving into the city!

My first cab ride!

The runners expo

I think this was Chinatown around mile 22.

Can't believe we're still smiling!

I'm so glad to have been able to run every step with my amazing husband! We finished in 5:06:00

- a whole hour faster than we anticipated, but we felt really good and ran more than we planned. We realized that we weren't in as bad of shape as we thought we were and of course the adrenaline helped a lot too. We were also accompanied by 3 of Wes' cousins in the race and cheered on by several more relatives which added to the excitement.

We're really glad we chose Chicago for our first and last marathon because it is such a great race. With around 45,000 runners and 1,000,000 spectators (or so I read somewhere) it was a huge event and they took great care of us with lots of goodies and live entertainment the whole way.

At first, Wes said he never wanted to run again, but now he says the most he'll do is a 5K. I'm going to stick with 1/2 marathons and less.

Our New Home

I know I promised this to some of you a couple months ago, but I'm just not that on top of it. So like 13 weeks later, here is our new home! We love it. It's the perfect size for us and in a great location with an awesome ward!

This is the outside. Our door is the one one the right. We live upstairs.

This is our cute kitchen. Isn't it adorable? Our house came with great colored walls! We love the red!

The dining room. I really like the tall table and chairs.

Living room. When you open the front door, you have to scale 16 stairs. (You can see the railing behind the couch.)

This is where Wes spends the majority of his time (besides school of course).

Those 2 rooms are connected. We love the vaulted ceiling and the openness of the house.

(So I used to think I was a good decorator when I lived with my twin sister, and now that I don't live with her anymore and my house isn't decorated, I realize SHE was the good decorator!... help!)

Guest Bathroom. Love the pedestal sink.

Master bedroom. We struggled with our full-sized bed for the first year of our marriage and HAD to get a king. We LOVE it! It's so comfy and we have so much room!

And this is our master bath complete with JETTED-TUB :) (and by the way, when you have jets, you don't need to put in very many bubbles... it gets out of control real quick)

This is our cute lil deck. We don't use it as much as we though we would. Something about sitting out in the hot humidity just doesn't quite seem as nice as the air-conditioned inside.

And this is your room! Yes you! The one reading this! We prepared this room especially for you! We love having guests and want you to come visit! Doesn't that bed look so comfy?...

HAWAII #2 with friends Jordan and Kelly

Thanks to Jordan and Kelly for sharing their time share deal with us and Wes' parents for helping with the plane flights for both our graduation gifts, we were able to go to Hawaii for the second time!!

This is me surfing :) It looks like I'm surfing on nothing, but the waves really were overhead (when you're laying on your board)! haha I tried surfing on some 3-feet waves, but they were too big and scary for me! I like what Wes calls "ankle-biters."

We swam around with this big guy for a long time. I just couldn't leave him! And he didn't care that he was being stalked. He's HUGE!!! Almost as long as Wes! They look like they're doing a synchronized swimming routine.

The blowhole is one of my all-time favorite things to visit on Maui! And I have to have a few snow cones! No place on earth can make snow cones like the ones there! First of all, have you ever seen a snow cone this big?! And nothing compares to the flavors, the texture, the macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom... mmm!

Of course we had to come back with some nice Hawaii tans (although I'm convinced that Hawaii tans fade faster than any other sun tan.)

We can never snorkel too much! haha my goggles are all foggy. I don't know if I could even see the camera!

Mmmm! The fruit there is soooo delicious!

This was our most intense hike. Luckily, there were ropes to help us scale the vertical rock walls. There was even a section where we had to swim 100 yards to continue our hike!

This was a fun beach. Can't remember what it's called though. We hung out in the area behind us because the area behind the camera is the nude beach section! Haha Kelly didn't know about it and we took here there to see her reaction! hahaha

Just hangin out on the beach! (Hawaii is also the only place my hair will curl this much all by itself... danget)

Wes was always looking for cliffs to jump off!

We were there at the end of the whale season so we took a tour and got to see some mom and baby whales up close!

We also discovered some shocking news...

Of course we had to splurge... our favorite, the one and only... Ruth's Chris! Just look at those beautiful filets! My mouth is watering right now.

Can't wait to go back!

Yup! In 2012 for an orthodontic conference!! :)

Countin down the days already!

AIR SUPPLY CONCERT IN WENDOVER

Before I met Wes, I didn't really like concerts that much. But he took me to a Keane concert when we were dating and it was sooo much fun! My favorite concert ever...... until we went to Air Supply!

We had the best seats! We were right on the end of the front row

of the second section so...

when they walked out into the audience, they literally walked directly in front of us and we both got to touch one of the guys!

This was right before Wes got a high five.

And this was him shaking my hand!

What a blast! Except for the part where we missed the first song which happened to be one of my favorites "Even the Nights are Better" because they wouldn't let me in because they didn't believe I was 21! Wes had to run back to our hotel and get my ID. I was so mad! But the concert was so great I couldn't stay mad long.

.....FuN iN tHe SnOw.....

Ok, I'm really trying to get caught up so I can share what we are up to NOW. But these are some of the fun things we did during the cold winter in Utah.

Wes grew up in California, but he grew up skiing. I've lived in Utah my whole life and had never skied until I met him... a little weird, I know. He was a very patient teacher as I struggled to conquer the bunny hill and got mad at him when I would crash (I know I'm mean).

We had a better time when we went with 2 of our best friends because the guys could go ski off the steepest cliffs they could find and the girls would stay on the lower, easier hills. It's always a good time with Jordan and Kelly :)

We went down to a cabin near Cedar City over New Years to visit one of Wes best friends Joe Miller. We had such a blast sledding with him. You can't really tell, but we were going REALLY FAST in this pic!

On the way home from the cabin, we stopped at Fish Lake to catch the end of the ice fishing trip with my family. We were there less than an hour, but that was perfect for Sun Boy (aka Wes). We sat there long enough for him to see what it was like, but not long enough to freeze our toes off.

Teaching Wes how to HUNT

We had a good time hunting this beauty!

And we always camp like royalty when my dad's there.

Our camp had all the major accessories with Mom making it all cozy

and Dad made us some really good grub.

We found this guy on the 2nd day and it only took 1 shot to kill him :)

Pheasant hunting with the fam.

Wes is actually pretty good with a gun.

He did better than me at shooting skeet!