Locks of Love

For the past month I have been looking at my split ends thinking, "Wow, I need to get my hair trimmed!" Then yesterday my thoughts started changing and I decided it was time for a new look. :) So, at about 6:00pm I headed off to Great Clips and cut off 11 inches and donated it to Locks of Love. Best part is that when you donate your hair Great Clips will cut it and mail in your donation for free!

Locks of Love is an organization that takes hair donations of 10 inches or more. This is my 5th time doing it. :) When I realized it was my 5th time I was in shock at how fast time flies by! The girl who cut my hair was super nice and I think she did a good job. She was in awe at how much hair I had so she tried to thin it out as much as she could too. And... here is my new look!

Before

After

 Dustin started making me laugh so I couldn't look at the camera. But... here I am!

**Happy Birthday Dustin!**

I wanted to wish a Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband! He has been the most wonderful blessing in my life and I love him with all my heart. :) At midnight he opened my present because I couldn't wait any longer... and it was a bunch of Blue-Ray DVD's including: The Lion King, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, AND Star Wars: The Complete Saga! Yay. We are both pretty excited about our new movie collection. :) As soon as the birthday boy finishes working the party will continue. So far it has been cinnamon rolls for breakfast that he has requested and the rest of the day promises to be amazing! He is so sweet and wonderful to me everyday and I couldn't have asked for a better companion to spend eternity with. Yay. Eternity with Dustin has the perfect ring to it! :) Now I better get back to spoiling the birthday boy.

**Happy Birthday Dustin!!**

Scattered Thoughts

I am officially losing my marbles... today I spent about 1/2 hour looking for my wallet to find I had left it in a grocery sack in my closet. Ya... that was hard to find. :)

Yesterday Dustin and I had to write an 8 page paper for our New Testament and miraculously we got it done and now only finals stand in our way of a glorious Christmas Break. Last night we made chocolate dipped hot cocoa spoons. It was fun! Dustin is such a good sport to do random crafty things with me. :) 

I can't believe it is December 10th... I am determined to get something amazing and unique for Dustin for Christmas but I don't feel like I am a very creative gift giver... some people have that skill and I feel like I am lame. But not this year! If anyone has any ideas send me a message! 

The pregnant life is okay other than trying to sleep. I have started to get sore shoulders from sleeping on my sides. It is weird. I could really use a good nights sleep on my stomach but it just doesn't work. haha... We signed up for a Labor and Delivery class at the hospital and had our first session on Thursday night. It wasn't too intense. They talked about all the different options that come up in the stages of labor and how to know which decisions you want to make. It is starting to feel very real to me the fact that in a matter of weeks I will be in labor and then recovering... just the thought made me tired but I am comforted in the fact that millions of women have done this, so I should be okay. :)

Not much else is up around here but we hope everyone is having a good December!

Sweepstakes Winner!!

Really... I thought sweepstakes and drawings were somehow rigged... I had never actually met someone who had WON a sweepstakes. Well, I should have known that Dustin would be the person to win. :) I guess he sent in a text or filled out something online a few months back for the Sprint Legends Sweepstake. 
As the winners... we won: 2 free tickets to the BYU vs. New Mexico Football game with field access and also the seats were up in the suites! (I had never been up there but now I know why people get into that kind of thing!) Tucanos catered Dinner and snacks/drinks galore were provided. AND... we got to watch the game with Chad Lewis (previous BYU football player who played professional for the Eagles) and two signed footballs (Jimmer's signature was a bonus!) and free backpacks from the suite sponsor... gee. I hope I am remembering it all! Needless to say we felt pretty special by the end of the game!
One part that we found funny is there was absolutely NO advertising for Sprint the whole time. No one tried to sell us a cell phone or anything like that... we just met an advertising rep who had flown in from Kansas City and he gave us our lanyards and watched the game with us. Super nice guy. And then after it was all over... we just said bye as we left the gates and walked to our car. It seemed dreamlike. Seriously, no strings attached. We just said "thank you" and left with our loot. TO MAKE THE STORY EVEN BETTER: I found $10 abandoned on the sidewalk on the way home. So basically we made money. haha...
We seriously had so much fun! Chad Lewis was super fun to talk to and Dustin had a really good time talking football with him while I tried to take some good pictures! We met a reporter named Jay Drew who covers a ton of BYU sports and some other really fun people. :) Everyone just treated us like we were part of the crew! Well, that is enough of that... let's get to the pictures!

The cool view from our suite!

 

Cougar Tail anyone? 

 

The band

Dustin and Chad Lewis

 

Hi Bronco!

The guy with the grey hood... ya, that's Jimmer! 

 

 These guys are huge!

 

My cool touchdown shot!

Saying "bye" as we headed back to our suite

 

 **What a fun night!**

 

 

Our Update:

UPDATE:

Amy- 

* I have discovered Pinterest and StumbleUpon.com and I absolutely love it. I'm not exactly addicted but that could just be me rationalizing. :) I have found some of the coolest recipes and crafts that I want to make.

* The Student Dietetic Association is a lot of work but I am learning a lot. I think I have finally learned how to lead an effective meeting. I have definitely gone out of my comfort zone in this position but I know I have learned a lot. I would say my favorite part of being president is getting to know all of the girls in the program. I learn so much from the qualities/strengths of all the talented girls around me. Go Dietetics!

* I am officially in my 3rd trimester and my appointments are every 2 weeks now with my doctor. On Monday my doctor said everything is going great. I am measuring right on and the baby's heart is beating strong so I am just praying this last trimester continues to go well. He kicks like crazy now and I love feeling him move around inside. He seems to be having a good time. :) I am going to be a mommy!

* Exciting events since the last post: We went on a trip to Manti and stayed the night at the Manti House... the only downside was the temple was closed!, we ate a P.F. Changs for the first time, and we've been bowling a few times, and of course done lots of homework!

Dustin-

* Is rocking his classes at school. This week is test week and he is doing great while being calm as ever, like always. :)

* He is still working for Exceptional Accounting and enjoying the flexibility he has there and the experience he is getting in his field.
* The Cowboys continue to disappoint week in and week out. Sad. :(
* He took a Portuguese fluency exam that he will be able to have on his transcript to show his fluency.
* He is working hard and I am so proud of him. Even with everything he is doing he still helps me with everything I am doing too. :)
* We are taking a New Testament class together this semester and about miss class every week because we end up falling asleep about 30 minutes before class starts. We like to keep things exciting.

And... that's us! Next time I will post a picture or two. :)

Baby Bump

Well, here I am! I have had some requests for a picture of my growing belly. I feel huge already... imagine how I am going to feel here in a couple of months! I am past the 1/2 way point and on the downhill slope. :) School makes the weeks go by so fast... next thing you know I will be getting my bag ready to head to the hospital. Thank you everyone for your support!

Little Boys

Now isn't that just cute! This is Baby Hanson's little bassinet. Fun fact: this is the bassinet I slept in when I was a baby! Grandma Billie made the whole set of sheets,bumper pads, blanket, and even included the fun stuffed animal. Thanks Grandma! :) Baby Hanson will just be snug as a bug in his little bed. We are getting so excited for our new little addition to our family. I can feel him kicking me and seems like he is having a good time in there. I bet he wonders at times what it is I am doing... like today when I was almost running up the stairs to make it to class on time. :) Thank goodness for little boys, especially ours.

Back to School!

It is true... I haven't proved to be the most faithful blogger in the world. But just so ya'll know... we are still alive! This picture is proof! haha... that was us on our anniversary up in Park City. We visited the Olympic Park. It is a pretty fun place to visit. We had so much fun. We got ourselves a new camera as our present to ourselves. I absolutely love it! Now I just need to figure out how to use it better.

August went by way too fast! I held on to every last day. My job at the senior center came to an end. It was so sweet, on my last day two of the seniors sang me a song, they all signed a card wishing me well, AND they gave me some sour patch kids that said "We are a sour bunch now that you are leaving us!" It was such a sweet job, I have never had a job where I got so many hugs. :)

One of the funniest things that happened was one day after lunch an old guy came up to me and looked me straight in the eye and said, "I just wanted to tell you something." I said, "okay" and he goes off on telling me how I should make sure that I never pluck my eyebrows or they will fall out and I will have to paint them on like his aunt. I thanked him for his advice and promised I would be careful about that because I sure don't want to have to start painting on my eyebrows! I got a lot of good advice from those sweet seniors. :)

In August we also went on a super fun family vacation to Mesquite, NV and San Diego, CA. My mom and I even got to catch "The Music Man" at the Shakespearean Festival! The boys just golfed their hearts away and my mom and I had fun chatting and not golfing. :) In Mesquite we got facials at the Casablanca Spa while the boys golfed. Ahhhh... it was so nice!

In San Diego we visited Old Town, the boys golfed, we went to Coronado Island and played on the beach, and just had fun! Dustin got completely sunburned at the beach even though it was as overcast as can be! We even buried my dad in the sand... I will attach a picture. :) I loved seeing the San Diego temple. It is amazing how it all of the sudden it just appears off the side of the freeway. I thought it looked smaller in person than in the pictures.. but it looks just as much like a princess castle!

Then we had to come back to reality and get things ready for school to start. The girls in my family did fit in another little girls trip down to St. George the weekend before school and we went to Tuacahn, saw The Little Mermaid, and shopped the day away. It was so much fun! Somehow they all managed to keep their surprise baby shower a secret and I was SO surprised when they pulled it off. Thanks to all my sweet family! Little Baby Hanson is already getting spoiled. :)

Last but not least, the day finally came and we found out we are having a BOY!! We are SO excited. I didn't have a preference, I just really wanted to know. :) I loved the ultrasound he was moving around like crazy. I can't believe that little body is inside of me. I can feel him moving around in there and my belly is getting big, but it still seems so surreal. I am already starting to hyperventilate about birth/epidurals so I guess I better not watch anymore videos. haha... But I know it will be SO worth it when I get to hold our little baby in my arms.

School is going good it sure makes the weeks fly by. Dustin is doing wonderful like always. I don't know what I would do without him so I just won't think about it. I read The Last Lecture and basically cried for a week because it made me so sentimental about our relationship. (I recommend the book!) And that is us! I am going to try to update more often so that each update isn't so long. Loves!!

Dustin had flowers waiting for me in our motel on our Anniversary!


The handsome hiker

Our wedding cake... one year later. I was amazed that it was still moist! I couldn't get myself to eat more than a bite though. :)

Lunch at the Mandalay Bay buffet in Las Vegas This is just a bit of my leftover prime rib and crab legs! Oh my goodness... it was so good. :)

The beautiful San Diego TempleMe and My best friend :)Padres vs. Mets baseball game

Old Town San Diego. Thanks Mom and Dad! The trip was awesome.
The body surfers

My dad, the sand man with a 6 pack.The mighty golfers


The END!

Boy or Girl??

As everyone may know... I am not a professional when it comes to blogging... and I can't figure out how to rotate this picture... but I am sure you can figure out what it means.

Baby Hanson will be joining our family sometime in January! And next month we will find out whether it will be a boy or a girl. You are welcome to start making guesses. Considering both of our families are boy dominant families I think it will be a boy... but we shall see! I can't even explain how excited we are! It seems so unreal at times. I feel so calm about everything one moment and the next moment it feels so surreal... so many emotions! I haven't had any real symptoms. I feel bad for those who have bad morning sickness... but what I had was anxiety! I thought there must be something wrong with me. I was nervous to tell anyone because I thought there must be something wrong since everything was going so smoothly. After 12 long weeks we finally heard the little heartbeat and the little kicks and at that point I calmed down and finally believed everything was okay. Now I am safely out of the 1st trimester and ready for the next fun milestone of finding out the gender.

Adding on to the excitement we just moved into a bigger apartment and I guess now it is no secret why! We have a nice 2 bedroom apartment and we are so grateful we found it. I love having a pantry and extra space! We had some great help too making it easy on me. My dad and brothers came and did all the manly work and had all the stuff moved in nothing flat! Then my mom and grandma brought their master cleaning skills and we have both apartments sparkling! I couldn't have done it without them. I will admit pregnancy has made me pretty tired and just the thought of doing all that made me want to take a long nap. And with all of the expert help we had it didn't seem too bad. Thank you everyone!!

Our 1 year anniversary is this Sunday and I am still in awe at the kindness and generosity of our loved ones and neighbors. Everyone was so kind to help and I look back on that special day with just awe. It was the best day ever! Now here we are 1 year later and Dustin has me wrapped around his finger. :) I sincerely love him with all my heart and it has been the best year I could have imagined. Everyone told me when we got married about how our love for each other would grow over the years and that still sounds great to me! Dustin is perfect for me and treats me so sweetly that I honestly couldn't ask for anything more. **Happy Anniversary Dustin!!** I am excited for our new little one to join us and for us to learn even more together as we start our family.

We love you all. :) Have a wonderful weekend!!

Wonderful Summer

This has been such a fun month. The 4th of July and Christmas are my favorite holidays. Which is good because they are almost 6 months apart. :) This 4th of July was just super too! We went to the Stadium of Fire with my family and had a perfect shady seat. David Archuleta and Brad Paisley were both really fun to listen too AND we had some tasty kettle corn and snow cones. What else could have been better? Nothing. Well, actually my Dad has some pretty amazing driving skills and got us home in like 10 minutes... that was the coolest part of the night I think!

We finally got to bed at about 1AM and 4 short hours later we jumped in the car and headed to Idaho! We made it with 15 minutes to spare which was enough time for me to change into my dress and for Dustin to tie his tie! yay! Baby Kenzie is just precious and we are so glad we were able to be there for her special day. It was so good to see all of the Hanson family. The grandkids are so much fun to be around... the weekend just flew by too fast! We enjoyed the fireworks in Idaho Falls and of course had to stop at Mr. Pizza before we headed home and that topped off the trip!

All is well at the Senior Center... I can't believe how fast the summer is going by. I will only be there another 6 weeks! Ugh... and then school starts again. I have been trying to mentally prepare myself for school start since we got out in April and I am still not too enthused to go back... I feel like I am back in grade school again! haha... I am however excited for Dustin to get going in the Accounting Program because I know how wonderful he is going to do! And really, I am beyond excited about being a senior so it is going to be a good year!

Our 1 year anniversary is 17 short days away! The other exciting part of that week is Dustin will be finished with his night sales job! We are excited for August so we can spend lots of time together and go on our fun family trip to San Diego!

Yay for summer! I wish everyone reading a wonderful summer too!

Crazy Utah Weather

For Memorial Day Dustin planned on spending a nice weekend up Salina Canyon at my parent's cabin roasting smores, 4 wheeler riding, and relaxing. We only got to roast smores... the first night we got there that is what we did. We had a nice dinner by the fire pit roasting brats and smores. At this point we were still thinking it would be nice weather... then we woke up the next morning and it was super windy so we ate breakfast inside and then by lunchtime it had started snowing! This was Memorial Day weekend!

So, we make the decision to just go down to Aurora and spend the night and then play pool and watch a movie or something. Well, the next morning we woke up and the power was out in Aurora! And it wasn't even snowing or anything... the power was just out. For 6 hours! I think it is so funny when the power goes out because everyone is always trying to turn on the lights, etc. Like my Dad made us breakfast outside on the grill and then came in and tried to use the toaster!

In the end Dustin and I just decided we might as well head back up to Provo and we didn't have power after about an hour of driving and then at around Nephi it was actually hailing! Oh goodness, I thought what next. Well, next... nothing happened. :) It was a nice day and so we decided to go mini-golfing with Danielle. Here are the pics:

Danielle has skills. I am pretty sure this was the hole she got a hole in one!

The whole gang!

While things didn't go quite as expected we sure had a fun Memorial Day weekend!

Summer

SUMMER is finally here and we are very happy about it. It has been so nice to finally have some time to not have homework looming over our heads everyday. It has been such a good summer so far too and we are only one month into it so we are excited for the few months ahead! The most exciting news of all was Dustin's acceptance to the BYU Accounting Program. I was so relieved and happy! We celebrated at one of our favorite restaurants Cracker Barrel. yummm... Dustin is excited to get started in the fall. We have been lucky since we've been married to have pretty good schedules during school so we can spend quite a bit of time together and I have been so grateful for that and it looks like this next year shouldn't be too bad... until we figure out how demanding his program is.
Nothing much else to report. We are both just working hard at our jobs and looking forward to this long Memorial Day weekend to relax. :)

My Cooking Blog

I started a cooking blog. I love love love to cook! Now that the semester has finished it looks like I can actually start having some fun with it. Yesterday I went grocery shopping and stocked up to make some of the fun recipes I have found that look delicious. I just posted 5 recipes that I have made and so I invite anyone who is interested to start following the blog. The last post I need to make is about the Festival of Colors Cupcake I made for a class presentation... It is a super fun multiple color layered cupcake with a cream cheese buttercream frosting. Yummm... Anyway, check it out!
the address is: myscrumptiouscreations.blogspot.com

Mesquite

Dustin and I had such a fun weekend. We left all of our school work behind and headed for Mesquite for a 90th Birthday Party! Friday we started driving as soon as we got out of class and met my mom and grandma in Aurora then we drove the rest of the way together to Cedar City and stayed the night there with Dad, Aaron, and Adam. We had a fun night getting a tour of the SUU campus and then finishing off the night with some delicious Maggie Moo's ice cream. Yummm...
Saturday the weather was super cold when we started leaving Cedar City and it didn't get any better in St. George but when we finally made it to Mesquite it was lovely and we didn't want to leave! It was perfect temperature. The boys went golfing and the girls had a good time chatting at the birthday party. My great-great aunt Vergie had a special 90th birthday and we were glad we went to be a part of it. It was really hard to leave and come back to the cold weather but it just got us even MORE excited for the upcoming great weather this summer!

Ready for Spring!

This is the pretty rose Dustin surprised me with on Friday.

This weekend has been so much fun! Adam got LASIK on Thursday and came and rested after at our apartment so he could go to his post appointment. Well, we were having so much fun that he decided to stay and hang out longer! We went to the mall and found some good stuff like another game for the Wii. So we had to come home and try it out. It has the funniest game that you ride a cow and run into scarecrows and jump hurdles and stuff for points. I thought someone must have run out of ideas once they came up with that one... but it was fun! Mom said she would treat us to dinner and so we headed to Cracker Barrel and had a delicious dinner. yummmm.... We have decided that Cracker Barrel is one of our favorite restaurants. Thanks Mom!
This morning was so much fun too. We watched the BYU vs. San Diego State basketball game and too bad I couldn't post a video of us cheering because we were getting so into the game! It was so exciting especially since BYU won! Now we are excited to go to the game with a big group of our family and friends. It has been so nice to relax.





We are ready for spring to come that's for sure! We are trying to help spring along. First of all we decided to change our bedspread. Rhonda was so nice to spend a lot of time making us a beautiful quilt for Christmas. She let us pick out the fabric and so I picked... yellow! I have been so excited to put it on our bed so, after it snowed these past few days, I decided it was the perfect time to brighten up the apartment and hopefully bring Spring faster! Thanks Rhonda! We love the quilt. :)

Here we go again...

Well, another semester is underway... this is the week of death. 3 tests, abstract, 3 quizzes... oh ya and reading and studying to do all of the above. Oh dear... how could I forget about my group project that is due on Cancer that has a 20 page research paper, power point presentation to the class, and a brochure to hand out. :) For some reason it doesn't seem to bad.

But... enough of that sadness. We sure had an amazing weekend! We went to the Y-Ball at BYU. It is a married only dance and everything was FREE! First we dressed up and then had a catered dinner by Magelby's Restaurant. Then we went down to the dance, and since we aren't that big into dancing we only danced a few songs and had dessert before we got in line for the limo ride up around the Provo temple. It was definitely a teenager limo with neon lights inside. Once we got back they gave us heart shaped paper to write love notes and then I got 2 beautiful red roses and we went home! It was so much fun and here are some of our pictures:

This one was inside our fancy limo on our way around the Provo Temple.

Our friends Anthony and Bianca came with us to the ball and we had lots of fun on our free date. We think BYU should do more of those!

Tomorrow is sure to be exciting as well. We are picking my little brother up from his mission. It will have been almost 3 years since I have seen him since our missions overlapped. Crazy! He wants to go to Rodizio's Brazilian Grill. So that sounds tasty to me! Then Dustin and I can remember our missions too! We are excited for Valentine's Day. I wish I could make some of my Mom's delicious sugar cookies. Maybe this weekend... well, you're all probably thinking... if she has so much to do why is she writing a blog post?? Well, that is a good question. Better get back to work!
**Have a GREAT week!**