little bit of lately...

A few things we've been up to lately....

We were able to go with our good friends the Douglas's, Kellen and Chelsea, up to Solider Hollow and went tubing. No one in the group had been there before so it was fun to check it out and we ended up having a blast. I had been a little hesitant about tubing the last couple of years after a girl from our high school was paralyzed one winter. But needless to say I forgot what I've been missing out on!

They broke ground finally on our new home! We received an estimated date of completion and they told us around April 15 (YAY!). I haven't taken an updated picture but when we stopped by last night they have the concrete laid for our basement, window wells, basement walls, and they have started filling in all the dirt around the hole. It's so exciting and we can't wait for it to be done!

One of my best friends, Jacqui, had a baby a little over a month ago and due to sickness in the Hudson home and schedule conflicts I just barely met him for the first time on Monday! Liam Andrew is adorable and had me wrapped around his finger in seconds! It worked out perfect that our other good friends, Brook and Daphnee, were also able to be there and it was great day catching up since our lives are all so busy now and it's hard to meet up our schedules. I'm so grateful for amazing friends and friendships. Also grateful that I get to enjoy their adorable little ones.

We continue to have the cutest dogs, especially our puppy who takes the place of the baby in our lives right now. One day we'll have cute kids to brag about but for right now you'll have to endure the endless dog pictures! 

Remi is in a stage right now where if she's in the house, she just wants to be close. I obviously think its the cutest thing...

 

 

Russ got his cow elk! His hunt that started in December ends this Friday, so last weekend was his last chance to get one. The lack of snow has proved to be a huge problem with the cow elk hunt this year as there's not enough snow to push them down off the top of the mountain. His area was on Mount Timpanogos, and the past month he's gone up every weekend with either my brother Taylor, bro in law Jake or both! This Saturday his cousin Wade and Jake went up with him early that morning and they went up a different route than normal, American Fork side instead of Provo Canyon. He shot one and they began tracking the elk. After a few hours of tracking, Jake had to come down for an appointment at 4PM. Wade and Russ found the elk and began gutting it while Taylor and Russ's friend Bryce met up and went to meet up and help them get it down. At this point Russ and Wade had been up on the mountain for about 9ish hours. Taylor and Bryce took more water, and warm socks. The trail was covered in ice and so they also were bringing up rubber adapters with chains on them to put on the bottom of boots. Supposedly the 4 of them found each other and started to head down the mountain around 7PM. At 9pm they still had miles ahead of them and was dragging the biggest cow elk Russ had ever seen. Jake and my dad then geared up and rounded up snacks and water to go meet up with them and get the darn animal off the mountain. By the time Jake and my dad met up with them, they claim Russ and Wade seemed delirious, and Russ was limping after hurting his knee. Russ said by then they had already started 2 fires to get warm-one when Wade felt his feet were going to go frostbite while waiting for fresh socks, and the 2nd before my dad had got there. Anywho.... At about 1AM all 6 men were alive and back loading the elk in the truck and headed home. Russ had been on the mountain (hiking almost to the top of Timp) for 19 hours!! Needless to say, now we have this huge elk with lots of meat to go around and disperse to all the people who helped us get the thing down!

  

After all they'd already been through with this elk, Jake and Taylor helped Russ cut up the elk and quarter all the meat Sunday night. I ended up getting to leave work after an hour and a half that night (YAY) so I went and met up with them. We chose the shop where we had the advantage of owning an auto shop and used the forklift to get it out of Russ's extremely high truck. Have I mentioned how grateful we are for all the help we received?? because seriously!

Viewer discretion advised.......

I don't have a picture for our last update, but I was assigned/chosen for a precepting student at work. If anyone remembers my hellish last semester of nursing school part of it was because of my preceptorship! Basically, this student is assigned to me and comes with me for 9 shifts where she transitions over to being the nurse instead of just the student and will eventually be doing the charting, talking to doctors, etc... under my supervision. Kinda crazy experience after having not been at the hospital for very long but I'm excited because maybe we can learn a few things together, and she proved on her first shift to be very helpful and excited to learn making my job of teaching much easier!

Life is so great! We continue to love life, love each other, and enjoy the craziness of everyday life. We look forward to the Superbowl this Sunday, (GO BRONCOS!) as well as going to Island Park next week for out winter vacation!

change is a good thing

Russ and I began looking for houses almost a year ago! He had his own house before we got married but as crazy as it sounds we knew we'd already outgrown it. We had the worst luck looking for houses. We'd get screwed over on the littlest things when we'd find one we liked and saw PLENTY of homes we didn't like. We have been blessed with a great real estate agent who's been more than patient with us and has turned out to be one of our great friends!

Maybe 4 months ago we opened our minds up to the option of building a house, but then we never quite found a lot we liked, contractor etc... So we kept looking for houses. One night while I was at work Russ went and looked at a new house going up in this new neighborhood in Springville. Russ loved the house and neighborhood but it was a much bigger house than what we were looking for/need. So that same week we went and looked at one in a neighborhood in Lehi. Loved the house, but the location was what we were struggling with. We thought about it for a while, I drove by it again the next day and I just kept feeling anxious over the idea. It seemed like a great house but living almost at Thanksgiving point, and in an HOA neighborhood was not really us. So after much debate we got the idea of maybe the same contractor that was building that house in Springville could build a smaller house more what we need, and if not we'd put an offer on the Lehi house and see what happened.
Everything fell into place perfectly, we couldn't help but feel like it's meant to be! When Spencer, our real estate agent, called the contractor he had already informed them of some our needs we've been looking for in a house such as a garage Russ's truck would fit in, fenced yard, etc.... They not only agreed to build us a rambler style house like we wanted but they'd throw in the fenced yard, bigger garage etc... not increasing the price at all. We were in shock.

We met with the agent for the builder, looked over plans, next thing I know we're under contract, and picking out everything from our granite, tile, carpet, down to our stucco colors, and even our shingles!

While we're a little nervous about such a big change and all the other things that go along with it, such as renting out the house we're living in now, we can't wait for it be built and see what life holds for us in Springville!



Remi Girl

Meet One Shot Remington aka Remi.

 

When our dogs had puppies I knew I was doomed to get attached to them but I never expected to get exceptionally attached to just one. We had no intentions of having puppies, so obviously wasn't planning on keeping any of them. I was overly protective of these puppies and as I'd watch them to make sure they were all eating, that lady didn't roll over on them, etc.. I noticed Remi. She wasn't what we'd call the runt but she was just slightly smaller than all the rest of the pups. I immediately began watching her making sure she was okay being so small. Long story short there were instances such as her swallowing a wood chip and almost choking to death(we had to perform a small procedure to get it out of her throat), that I got attached to her. I soon found myself telling Russ that I didn't think I could let anyone else take her home. I knew we had to make a decision since people were already wanting to start picking out puppies, so we decided to keep her! We painted her nails red first (nail painting was how we told who wanted which pup) and sure enough so many people were drawn to her, one of the puppy prospects even told me "just take this nail polish off paint another ones red and they'll never know", little did she know it was ours :)

 

Anywho, life with a puppy has been an adventure! She's so playful and fun to be around, she's ready to be anyone's best friend that comes over and is my personal greeter when I get home from work in the mornings. It's been fun and stressful trying to teach her tricks, potty train her etc.. but she's very smart and getting so big!  

First time out in the mountains, she loved it!

 We took Russ's new AR-15 out to shoot and Remi did great with her first time being around guns going off.

First snow fall

learning what it's like to be a dog in the dog run, not the puppy in the garage  :)

First bath

our poor dogs will be so happy when we have kids to take photo shoots with instead of them.

Russ's uncle got one of our puppies, and Remi loves it when her brother comes over to play! She doesn't care he's bigger than her, she starts whooping on him wanting to play as soon as he comes in the house.

I came in the room to find Russ has dressed Remi up to be a rapper.

Life with three dogs has been super crazy but we feel like parents now who say they couldn't imagine life without any of their kids :) Everyone keeps telling us that if we can survive training a puppy then we can be parents. Not sure how that relates but I guess we'll see what happens!



Happy Holidays 2013

I had to work Thanksgiving this year, but we were able to celebrate with my family before I had to go in. Russ and Taylor went duck hunting that morning while I slept in for work. We got to my parents early afternoon and helped finish dinner preparations, and set the table. With 2 siblings on missions, and Ash & Jake at his family's this year it was a much more quiet Thanksgiving than what I was used too but it was still great. My grandparents made the trip up from Sanpete and we enjoyed playing games with them after eating.

checking out the black Friday adds

I love my cute grandparents!!

 The Saturday after Thanksgiving Russ, Jake and some of his brothers went down Manti to go pheasant hunting. They had a great time and so did the dogs :) While the boys were hunting us girls had a sleepover and then went and spent the day at my grandparents in Fairview while we waited for them to finish. Then we chopped wood for hours to help my grandparents get a good firewood supply ready for winter.

I got lucky enough to have 3 weekends off in a row in December! It was heaven. With all the festivities surrounding Christmas it was nice not to have to worry about getting work off to attend them.

One of the blizzard Saturday's Ashlee called us around 4PM to tell us that they had been given some Jazz tickets for a game that night but were unable to attend and wanted to know if we wanted to go. With the weather outside being crazy (I'm a hermit in the winter), we worked out a plan to take front runner up to the stadium and then ride the train home again after the game. For the record: Russ and I are not city folk, had never been on the front runner and don't know our way around SLC. So thank goodness Ash helped us out and even though we missed the first train and was a little late to the game it was a blast. It was first for us to go to the jazz game together and taking the train was well worth not having to drive in the snow!

I normally like to decorate for Christmas, including putting up the Christmas tree, the day after Thanksgiving. But last year Russ and I decided to continue with his tradition of getting a real tree. So thanks to the weather the first few weekends in December we were a little slow getting our tree this year but nonetheless got it in plenty of time and we loved it! Mark (Russ's dad) came with us this year as we ventured down to Sanpete county in search of the perfect tree.

I love Russ's dad, I love spending time with him and seeing all the fun traits that Russ inherited from him.

Our cute family of 5!

Mark needed a second tree for his girlfriend's son's family, we had to get a picture of it because he hit ice while chopping it down and ended up sliding down the mountain with it.

Every Christmas my mom does what we call Family Bingo. The months before we start collecting "beans" for the service we perform and use those beans to play. Dinner is served then we make up our bingo cards and play to win prizes. We made it an ugly sweater party this year, and my mom went all out with fun decorations and treats!

my mom's "specialty drinks" she made. Sugar lined glasses and everything.

 

 

 

December is a busy month for birthdays in our family. My dad, Russ's dad, Jake, Taylor and Jaxon all celebrate birthday's in December and we enjoyed lots of birthday dinners to celebrate. I realize now I didn't get any picture of these birthday dinners but I did get a picture of me and Princess Kez the night we had cupcakes for Jaxon's birthday if that counts :)

 

We finally got around to hanging some wedding pictures on the walls in our house around the same time we put up Christmas decorations :) we also met some neighbors we'd never met who brought us some Christmas treats!

 

The best part of working Thanksgiving was getting Christmas off! (Last year was crazy work schedule the week of Christmas and I feel I spent it in a dazed state of exhaustion) I worked the Monday night, got off work Christmas Eve morning. After getting a few ZZZZ'S I got a few things ready for Russ's family Christmas party that night, and got food ready to take as well. Russ got off work early and we headed to his Grandma and grandpa Shaw's house. Dinner, treats, presents and spending time with family was how we spent Christmas Eve. Followed by driving around looking at Christmas lights with his mom and her boyfriend before heading home to open our Christmas Jammies and get some sleep!

We decided to wake up early and open our presents at home before going over to my family's house. Russ had my Christmas present hiding in the front room under the elk for about a week before Christmas. I made a promise I wouldn't look and as I opened it Christmas morning I was so excited!! He surprised me by making me a coffee table out of his elk antlers! It is so cool and I can't wait to put it out in our new house!

 

We opened the rest of our presents, ate breakfast, got cleaned up and dressed then headed to my parents. My grandparents were arriving about the same time we got there. More present opening occurred before eating a delicious lunch and then we hurried to get things set up to be able to Skype with Channy!! (have I mentioned how weird is it to be missing 2 siblings? cause it's super weird and I really miss them!!)

 

It was so good to get to see her and talk to her. We set up the computer up off the TV in my parents kitchen so we could all see her. She dyed her hair brunette a while ago and on Christmas we finally got a better explanation why: she was recently transferred to a new area where it's safer for her to be brunette :) But she's doing great and she loves being a missionary and loves her area and the people she's serving!

we took this to show that I lost my twin and she looks more like Ash now



We took a quick break to go visit Russ's dad and give him his Christmas presents. Mark loves my nieces and nephew and they love him back so Kez and Jax came with us to visit "Grandpa Hudson"! Mark always commented on lexi's little leg warmers and we always teased him how great they'd be for him to get a pair :) So for Christmas we hooked him up! He's such a good sport and even tried them on for a picture.



We had a few more hours before Tanner was supposed to call so we played games with Taylor's girlfriend while Jake and Russ went and looked for Elk (Russ's elk hunt started December 23 up on Timp). Sure enough the Peruvians held to the description of how Tanner describes them: late for everything, and he was about an hour and a half late calling. But it was so good to see him too and get to Skype with him, see his companion and the family whose house he was at. Taylor got to speak Spanish to the family members that didn't speak English and Tanner ate something pretty much the entire time we talked to him so it felt like he was back home.

It was such an awesome Christmas and I can't say it enough how blessed we are to have such amazing people in our lives, and for the amazing things life allows us to do!

 

Fast forwarding to New Years.... I had to work New Years Eve again this year, and as much as I was looking forward to it (not) my co-workers and I decided to make the best of it and bring treats, make hats, and drink martinelli's at midnight if work allowed. Luckily Russ got to spend the night partying and celebrating with Ash, Jake and friends so he didn't have to be alone while I worked. My patients were gems that night and luckily I got five minutes free before midnight where my co-worker Ashley and I watched the ball drop, toasted martinelli and facetime our husbands for a new years "kiss".

Side note: promise we really did take care of our patients that night, these were taken in just a few seconds : )

New Years Day Christmas Decorations came down and we got my table all set up complete with the antler lamps Russ also made.

 

I hope everyone had a great holiday, and a great start to the new year!!