Happy Birthday Dear Russ

This weekend we got to celebrate Russ' 27th birthday! We started his birthday festivities at Carrabba's, as requested by Russ. Then we came home to have some cake and open presents with my family. We had a great day and can't wait to do it again next year!

Can't have a party without balloons!

Russ' favorite part of his birthdays is his mama's famous Strawberry cake. Although he ate mine with a smile, I'm sure it's just not quite the same as when Mama makes it. :)

Yes, yes, those are sparkler candles.

You know you're becoming an adult when you get excited to unwrap investment management books.



Us singing "Happy Birthday" to Russ. Note the 4 part harmony.

I was lucky enough to get a picture with the Birthday Boy himself.

Down By the Sea Shore

Russ is getting ready to start his Masters of Accounting Program at UT, so we figured before he started school we'd have one last hoorah. We decided the beach was the perfect getaway. Now, Texas isn't typically known for its beaches but Russ and I did some research and decided on Port Aransas. It is a cute little island about 4 hours away from Austin. It was kinda cool because you needed to take a ferry ride to get there! We had a blast and enjoyed our mini vacation together.

Russ in front of the Texas State Aquarium.

Us in front of the Gulf of Mexico.

Only in Texas would you find cows at the beach.

On the pier we must've gone a little too far and encroached

on a very territorial pelican's home.

Closer to a hungry pelican than I ever want
to be again...who knows what they have in those oversized beaks.

Russ + Sarah = Love

What Do a Fair, a Rodeo and a Lady Antebellum concert have in common?

...They're all things we went to last night! When Russ, Josh, Lauren and I found out the Pro Rodeo was in Austin we got really excited. And when we found out that there was a Lady Antebellum concert following the Rodeo we got even more excited! And then when we heard there was a fair surrounding the Rodeo events we all let out a big yee-haw! (Rodeo lingo for super excited.)

Us enjoying the fair.

We got up close and personal with some of the livestock.

Our seats were so close to the horses, we got to wish em luck before they went out.

We even had some time to Rodeo clown around.

Lady Antebellum was awesome. We are all now officially fans.

"Snow" Way!

When we left Provo, the one thing we said we weren't going to miss was the snowy Utah winters. But today, the snow we thought we left behind came to Texas! That's right. For the first time in about 20 years it is snowing in Austin, Texas! Although it's been cold, it has been a lot of fun having a snow day and getting an excuse to pull out our snow gear that hasn't been used for months and months. Here are a few pics of the historical day.

Ok so it's not much but still pretty exciting.

Genuine Texas snowballs. They only come around once every 20 years.

I Heart NY

Russ and I just got back from a whirlwind trip to New York City. Russ got flown out to interview for a job (the job's here in Austin), so we figured we'd make a mini vacation out of it. It was a definitely a new experience for us trying to hail taxis and fighting through crowds to get where we wanted to go. We had a blast! Here are a few pictures of some of the sights we saw.

In the middle of Time Square.

In front of Radio City Music Hall.

In front of the tree at Rockefeller Center.

The whole tree.

Thanks to Mama Brown for the tickets to see Wicked. It was "Oz"some!

Wedding Pictures

We are so excited because we just got all of our wedding pictures on a CD! We had such a good time looking through all of the pictures and getting to relive our special day all over again. We figured we'd share some with everyone, so here you go!

Big Man on Campus

For weeks Russ has been working on his application for MBA school at UT and today was the last part of the process...the interview. I got to go with him and after he was done blowing them away, so just another typical day for him, we got to walk around UT and see what will assumedly be "the big man's" campus.

Us in front of the famous UT Bell Tower

Our photographer failed to capture one vital part of the longhorn behind us, the horns.