Valentines Day & Exploring Austin

V A L E N T I N E ' S   D A Y 

We had a wonderful Valentines Day this year. Eric is always saying that he'll never buy me flowers because 1. They just die and 2. They always overcharge you for them. Both reasons I can agree with. But the little bugger surprised me at lunch with a beautiful bouquet of gorgeous red roses! I was shocked! (Thank you Costco for making reasonably priced flowers on Valentines haha) Then I have been saying how I am "eating healthy" (yeah right but I try) so sweet Eric didn't want to buy me chocolate and ruin my "diet" so he found these healthy greek yogurt dipped strawberries! And they are Yummy! He is so thoughtful :)

That night we went out to dinner at one of our favorite spots, Mandola's. We ate way to much and got delicious gelato. Afterwards we walked around the galleria (an outdoor mall) while I waited for my next surprise.... the new Nicholas Sparks movie that came out that day! This is the only day of the year I can get Eric to go see a chick flick with me and he knew I had read the book and been wanting to see the movie so he had got ticket for us and let me get popcorn! This is a big deal cause we never get that horribly bad for you but ever so delicious treat! 

I am so lucky to have him in my life and I am so happy I have eternity to spend with him! Don't worry I  didn't let him only spoil me without him getting him anything. I did a Valentines count down for him and left him treats and little gifts every morning when he woke up. 

** Disclaimer to our future children.... Your dad does know how to smile like a normal person.... He just never does it :) Let's hope this doesn't carry on to your generation!

E X P L O R I N G  A U S T I N

The past few weeks we have had gorgeous weather! Sun shining, mid 70's, can't go wrong with being outside! So we've taken some time to explore our new city. 

We stumbled upon the cutest and most fun candy store on south congress. This place is a mix between the candy store Honeydukes in Harry Potter and an old fashioned ice cream parlor. Needless to say, we were in sweets heaven! Eric drooled over the salt water taffy and walked out with a big bag full munchin like a little kid as we walked up and down Congress. 

Austin is known for "Keep Austin Weird" and we sure witnessed plenty of that. But honestly I love it! 

I don't know who drives this car but they are one kooky person!

Zilker Park is my favorite place in Austin. That is where my favorite running trail is around the lake, and it's just so fun! It reminds me of Central Park during summer in all the movies.

I don't really understand this sticker but it is Harry Potter so I love it!


And yes, that is a Horse head wearing a Suit! Keeping Austin Classy!

A RoadRunner!! This little cutie was just outside our apartment! My first live Roadrunner, I guess he was trying to hide behind that sprinkler :)


We live right by the Barton Creek Greenbelt that has hiking (nothing like Utah hiking) and when we have rain and aren't in a drought like this year has lots of water and little waterfalls and pool you can swim in. We were watching a friends dog, Mushu, and took her out with us to hike and explore the Greenbelt. It was so fun! Eric says next time he's going swimming in the pool of water ;)

Recently we bought a juicer! Thank you again Costco :) we loaded up on fruits and veggies and had a juicing fest one night!  So much deliciousness!

We made:

- Fresh Orange Juice

- Carrot, Celery, and Apple Juice: this was actually really good!

- Strawberry Juice

- Pineapple Juice: my favorite, added a little coconut syrup and had the BEST pina colada!

- Orange, Apple, Pineapple

We are going to be having lots of fun with this little gem!

Blurry yes, Still trying to get used to my fancy camera haha but i liked it so I kept it :)

Eric has been playing on the Ward Basketball Team and I love getting to go watch him! He does really well, makes me so proud :) He enjoys playing a lot and the team does pretty well when we can get enough guys there.

W E I R D  T R I P  T O  S A N  A N T O N I O

We took a mini trip down to San Antonio for a night. I had a volleyball tournament on Saturday so we went down the night before to go to the temple and explore San Antonio a bit! Boy was it completely opposite of what we had planned! First we took off early afternoon and as we drove down realized that you had to have an appointment to do a session. So we decided to check into the hotel and then call to see if we could get a spot. We had reserved a hotel earlier in the week off the internet. It looked like a decent hotel, clean and nice with free breakfast! As we followed the GPS we ended up in a not so good looking hotel. I got out and walked into the lobby to be greeted by a Male clearly dressed as a Women. Hmm....should this be a warning? I think "No, don't be judgmental, He, or she?, was very nice". They couldn't find our reservation and had no record of us in the computer, they did have a room available so it ended up working out. I walk out to get Eric and there is a police car out front. Warning Number 2? We gather our things and go to our room. Definitely NOT like the picture online. Warning 3 for sure! Oh no what do we do? We'd rather sleep in the car then here. Thankfully one of my players mom had some hookup at another hotel so I called and they had a room left! We grabbed our stuff and hurried down to the lobby to cancel our stay! We GPSed our new hotel and I have never seen a prettier and clean Holiday Inn in my life! I was so grateful! We got checked in and went to our room, had a good laugh about our funny adventure and sat down to plan out the rest of the day. We needed food ASAP, called to temple to see if we could still make a session, nope they were all full, and knew we wanted to go see the River Walk downtown. By this time it was probably 3:30. We got dressed for the temple and walked out the door, only to find that our hotel room didn't lock. It was broken. We called the front desk and they sent up a workman. He was so nice and hurried as fast as he could but took forever fixing our door! I was starting to worry we were never going to make it to the temple. And to top it all off I was getting a major migraine and wasn't sure how long I was going to last. Eventually we got out the door and were debating do we eat first or just go to the temple? We went straight to the temple knowing that we already had someone working against us making it there and didn't need anymore interference!

We got to the beautiful temple and who did we see? Two friends from the ward! Ah I love seeing friends at the temple! It was so nice being able to go to the temple and feel the Spirit! 

San Antonio Temple

 We came out of the temple and directly went out to eat, we were starving! Then we went down to the River Walk. This is a pretty cool place! This river runs through a bunch of restaurants, cafes, bars and shops all downtown.

XOXO, 

The Peterson's

M E R R Y  C H R I S T M A S

We went back to Utah and Idaho for Christmas this year. Being with family is all I wanted for Christmas, I couldn't imagine not being surrounded by family and friends for the holidays. Plus what's a Christmas without snow? And we got lots of it!

Winter wonderland. And I just have to brag... Doesn't my dad make beautiful homes! It fits so perfectly with this weather! So cozy in the freezing cold! 

This wasn't mom's most exciting holiday though she had foot surgery a few days before we got there so she was stuck in the house. Poor mama. It was fun hanging out and relaxing, just what I wanted to be honest. She did get a sweet scooter to roll around on and Addi enjoyed the rides :)

So with mom being out of commission she didn't want to deal with putting all the Christmas ornaments on the tree, which was fine by all of us, but was not acceptable to Addi! She was very concerned with why the tree had no decorations haha. So we had her decorated it. She put up a bag of gold balls, then she stepped back to look at it and realized the top didn't have any decorations and turned to Eric and said "you do up there" haha silly girl     


         

   

Warning: We are NOT dancer and this was our first time dancing to this song so it is really bad haha

My favorite tradition is Christmas Eve, we have a big dinner, we have always had my Robison grandparents over, give sibling gifts, and drive around and look at Christmas lights. As we were pilling into the car this year Hannah found some little boy clothes, turns out the Young men had done a sub for Santa and these had fallen out of the bag. So 10:30 at night we drove down to Spanish Fork to deliver the lost gifts. Problem: the family doesn't speak English. Do we just drop them on the door? Do we ring the doorbell and let Jack try his Spanish? We debated this for a while. We decided to just leave them on the doorstep. Well Jack goes up to the door and the whole family is sitting in the living room where they can see him so being the stud and unshy guy he is, he rings the doorbell to talk to the guy:

Jack: "Hola"
Man: "Hey"
Jack: "oh, Hey!"Yup the guy spoke English hahahahaha We all had a really good laugh about it in the car afterwords. Jack was actually a little disappointed he didn't get to try out his foreign language. Maybe next time :) Then we went and watched a Christmas movie to fall asleep. 

Christmas Day was fun, woke up with my two boys by my side, opened presents, had a big brunch and as tradition now, watched Dad's new snowmobile movie he got that day. This year mom put "jokes" in all the kids stockings. Jake and Eric didn't seem to find theirs very funny....

Hannah got a Justin Beiber singing toothbrush (not really a joke, she actually did want this)

Eric got baby clothes haha Mom really wants to be a Grandma! 

Jake got a nice dating book lol

Jack got a bag of coal (chocolate coal) for ALWAYS teasing Mom.

And these two are what I got to see first thing every morning... Love them both so so much!

We got the best best gifts this year from both our parents! A fancy camera and Costco membership! We really are ready to start a family I guess HA NOT! Sorry Mom... in due time ;)

Of course Max had to get a gift, but watch his little tail wagging in the begging haha he gets so so excited!

We went and spent a few days up in Idaho. We spent some time with Rose and John. They always make the best dinners when we go up, we had a full turkey dinner, Delicious! We went with the Hen House to their cabin for two days and had a blast! We played games, talked for hours, sledding, snowmobiling, and played with the kids! We love spending time with these guys, they are such good life long friends!

 

Baby Golden, most adorable little guy ever! Loved cuddling up with him!

Presley is back there, you can barely see her head poking out behind Eric before we went down the hill 

Drue, Grace and Presley

Cute Finn all bundled up

This looked like it hurt :)

We went to HangTime with Jack and Hannah, it's a big Trampoline/Tumbling place that is so so fun! Hannah learned to do a gainer, I learned to do a backflip (something I've always wanted to do) and discovered Jack is so good at doing tricks and flips! Hidden Talent?!

2012 was a no chocolate year for me :( but I finally got it back! I did it, 1 year of no chocolate was NOT fun and I DONT like it. Our NYE wasn't very exciting because we were flying home that night so the first day of 2013 this was my indulgence.... Heaven! Nothing could ever taste as good as chocolate, I am a true Robison through and through!

We got to get together with so many great friends we don't get to see very much and meet new babies in the families! We are so blessed to have such great friends and know that Heavenly Father leads us to certain people who we need in our lives and we are so lucky! This was a fantastic Christmas for us and am so glad we got to spend it with friends and family! I hope you all had a great one this year and Wish you all the best in the upcoming year!

XOXO the Peterson's