and the winner is...

it should actually be "and the winners are..."

i had josh draw out 3 names from everyone who participated in the pay it forward challenge.  i'm sure the suspense is killing you...

ashlee winkelman

aubrey seeholzer

emily mills

congrats!  woohoo!!  so now the next part is i need your addresses so i can send you your prize.  you should send your address to my email:

liz.hankins08@gmail.com

and now it's your turn to post this on your blog and share the love!  sorry to everyone who didn't win, i wish i could send something to all of you!  oh- to kevone- josh wanted you to win something because you were the only guy who participated so he's taken it upon himself to give you a little somethin somethin.  no guarantees for what that will be!

pay it forward

so over the christmas break i was the recipient of my cousin's pay it forward challenge (kim, don't think i forgot about it!!!) so it's about time for me to continue the chain and spread a little love!  respond to this post by saturday january 24th with something funny or random about yourself.  i will choose 3 lucky people out of a hat and to them i will give a surprise!  you'll love it, i'm sure of it.  once i've picked the three lucky ducks, i'll get  your addresses from  you and send a package your way.  i'm not sure what i'll be giving quite yet, but it'll probably be valentines themed because it is a favorite holiday of mine!  after you get your little package, it'll be time for you to pay it forward!  anyway, i hope you decide to participate because it'll be fantastic!

ring in the new year

for new years this year, we decided to mix it up a little bit.  josh and i love going to lava hot springs and have been wanting to go for quite some time, so we invited a few of our friends to join us.  josh and emily mills came as well as josh's brother spencer and his friend liz.  so yes, that made for 6 people, 2 named liz and 2 named josh.  no... it wasn't confusing at all...  anyway, we drove up wednesday afternoon and checked into our fabulous room for the night (river bridge inn did not disappoint).  we decided to walk around town a bit and check out the crazy little shops.  

we asked the hotel owner if he recommended a place for us to eat.  he told us to go to the white wolf restaurant (for mexican food, but he didn't inform us of that).  it was really good if you like soggy nachos, canned salsa, and cold refried beans.  but the lack of tasty food didn't really matter to us.  after dinner we headed back to the room to change into our swimwear.  we headed to the hot springs and soaked there for hours.  the boys enjoyed the hottest pool there while us girls chatted away in the cooler (kid-infested) pools.  it was fun to just hang out, laugh, and soak outside in the natural hot springs.  once our fingers and toes had turned into prunes, we ventured back to our place and busted out games galore.  we started it off with pass the pigs (a hankins favorite), moved on to jungle speed (which was a fabulous game).  we laughed till we cried while playing curses, and finished off with skipbo.  throughout all of our game playing, we stuffed our faces with plenty of junk food to last the new year.  when the clock struck midnight we did what any other mature adults would do... we grabbed pots, pans, and spoons and ran outside singing auld lang syne at the top of our lungs while banging on the pans like children.  
then we all topped it off with new years kisses.  we returned to some of our game playing and ended up passing out around 3 in the morning.  the next morning emily and i made waffles, eggs, and bacon for the gang.  we then packed the car up and headed back to the hot springs for another round.  everyone hopped in except for me- i was spoiled by my hubby with a fabulous 1 hour massage.  it was exactly what i needed (and what i wanted, i've never had a massage before) to de-stress before school starts up again. we finished up our time in lava by taking pictures on the big bull that has a sign that says "do not climb on statue".  we decided to cover the sign with snow and plead ignorance if busted.  

our mini vacay ended in logan with a trip to costa vida and then we bid farewell to our friends who still had to drive back to murray.  we had a great time and we were so happy to have some fun friends to join us on our little adventure.  

in less exciting news, school started up again today.  why can't we be on the same schedule as the u?  they don't start till next monday!  i hardly felt like we even got a christmas break because unless we were in murray for a few days or on our lava trip, josh and i were working like crazy.  josh will be working full time this semester and taking 3 classes and i will be going to school full time and working a couple of nights a week.  it'll be nice to get back into a routine and hopefully this semester will fly by as fast as last semester did!