Merry Christmas!

Our first family Christmas card photo

We got nearly all of our shopping done in ONE day

We bought a new snow shovel for our new house, let the shoveling begin.


Treats!

Candy making with my mom, we were too busy to take pictures!

Fudge :)





We received some great gifts from others and gave ourselves some great gifts as well!

Wow!

Ben told me that we were going on date yesterday but he wouldn't tell me where. He told me to dress warm, so I thought we were probably going to see the lights downtown. We parked near the library though so I was clueless until we got closer to the library and I saw the "body worlds" sign. Duh! So I excitedly asked if thats where we were going and he excitedly told me YES! We jumped up and down for a second because we are spaz's like that, and then headed in. I've been wanting to see the exhibit ever since my family went to one in New York. It was amazing! I left thinking that Heavenly Father is the smartest guy ever to make our bodies so intricately as he did. Amazing. And the art of the preservation was pretty cool too. All in all, I was very impressed and enjoyed sharing a fun date night with my husband. He told me I could pick dinner too but after knowing how much the exhibit was, I thought we should probably do a little crown burger instead of the fancy shmancy stuff. Ben even cleaned up the kitchen later when we got home. Today he suggested we go to Cafe Rio after doing some grocery shopping. Ben gets so sick of Cafe Rio but i always love it. What a nice guy he is? Could he be buttering me up for some reason? :)

What a Man

I have classes Friday mornings and Ben has Friday's off of work so he usually enjoys having that day pretty much to himself. This last Friday I had a presentation in one of my classes that i considered quite a pain, I don't really enjoy public speaking. So after I had finished my presentation I was relieved and didn't really want to be at school anymore, so I ditched my last class half way through. Needless to say this really put a damper on Ben's day. I ride trax usually but he picks me up from the station. So I called him to pick me up and he was not a happy camper. This made me irritated because I was thinking he would be excited to have me home early! So I was then grumpy with him in turn. Well...when I walked into the house I walked into the middle of a suprise for me. He had flowers for me on the counter and was in the process of baking brownies for me. What a sweet guy. He said he planned on writing me a note to say how much he loved me too but I was too early! He told me what he would have said in the note though so I guess it was just as good. So grateful for a husband who loves me and spends time doing things for his wife on his day off. :)

HALLOWEEN!

We've become one of those boring married couples. For Halloween we didn't have any desire to go to any parties or even dress up. We just wanted to stay home and pass out candy to the trick or treaters. We were told by our neighbors that we don't usually get many kids coming around so since we had already bought so much candy we decided to head over to our wards "trunk or treat". We got rid of half of our load and then suprisingly we had about 20 kids come to the house as well. We were secretly hoping we'd have a lot leftover to eat ourselves, but i guess its for the best! We still do have quite a bit though to keep our own sweet tooths happy :)
We had fun carving pumpkins. I had a feeling Bens Pumpkins would be amazing and mine would be LAME-o. He did the skeleton and the haunted house, mine are the pumpkins with faces. He is definitely the artist in our family.





Growing up my mom always made us pizza rolls that looked like pumpkins for dinner on Halloween. I've decided to carry on the tradition. Although mine are not quite the same. My mom made the pepperoni into pumpkin faces. I guess mine are gourmet pumpkins :)

Fabulous Weekend

I have had the last two weeks off from school for "Fall Break". It has been so relaxing and its hard to get going again. Last weekend Ben and I made a trip to St George. It was really nice to get away for a few days. We took off Friday morning and as soon as we got there headed to the treatment facility where Ben has a client. He has to see him every month so we made this trip a vacation for us. I waited in the car and studied while he visited with his client. This was the only studying I did all weekend thankfully.
After Ben got his work taken care of we checked into our hotel and hit the exercise room for a bit. What can I say, we're health buffs ;) We then got ready to go to the St George temple to do some sealings. I had never been to the temple and hadn't done any sealings since we got married. The temple is beautiful and it was a wonderful experience. We got to explore a little bit of the temple which we thought was pretty neat.
Saturday we went rock climbing. Ben is very good and I am still a beginner. I do pretty well though for only having been a few times. Ben taught how to belay(which means to hold the rope while someone is climbing). He was pretty nervous about this since HE was the one I was belaying, but I am happy to report that I did great and we are both still alive! We didn't get any pics of us climbing because it was just the two of us but it was fun.

What a Hottie

Gearing up for the Climb

We actually climbed the same wall that Ben got his leg cut up on a couple of years ago. He said it was kind of freaking him out to be climbing there again but he did fine. I will include some pics of his leg later in this post.

I got a little owie of my own. Ben says the rock the I was standing on broke off from the wall when I was climbing. I actually didn't even notice I got scraped until I was down on the ground again. Battle scars :)

After our climbing we went to a popular spot among the cliffs in St George. Two years ago when Ben and I were engaged we went on a trip to St George with Ben's brother and his wife. Ben carved our names in the rock and we went back last weekend and found it. He did such a good job that it doesn't even looks like its really that faded.

We also went to what is called the narrows in St George. My sister says they call it the crack so I guess thats still up for debate. I am so claustrophobic. I think this happened to me when I was younger and my brothers would put me in the sleeping bag and not let me out. So I don't like the idea of the narrows because you slide through about 200 feet of rock with barely enough room to turn your head from side to side. Somehow I let Ben convince me that I should go through, and I made it! It was actually quite a rush because I really thought I would freak out half way through. It was a pretty tight fit so upon entering Ben decided he didn't want to attempt it. If you haven't seen him lately he is pretty buff and there was a chance his chest wouldn't quite make it through. You have to laugh though because as he was getting out of the narrows another family was getting ready to come in. One of the younger boys pointed out very loudly for everyone to hear, " he couldn't make it through". Ben felt a little disheartened but I assured him that he is a brave strong boy anyway.

The Beginning of the "narrows"

Top view of the Narrows after I finished

We went back to the hotel and took a dip in the outdoor pool, yes it was that warm outside, we loved it. Then we got ready for the main event. We got tickets to see the play Les Miserables at the Tuacahn Theater. I had been there once when I was younger but I forgot how beautiful it is with the cliffs of St. George as backdrop for the stage. Ben loves Les Miserables and I wasn't actually very familiar with it so on our drive up to St. George Ben told me the story and we listened to the Sound track. They did a great job and it was fun to be there. We obeyed the rules and didn't take a camera in but we got some pictures from the outside looking in.

This is taken from the left side of the stage


Sunday we packed up and headed back home but stopped at the Bush House for a Ben/Aaron Birthday dinner. Thanks again ma familia!

Here's Ben's Boo Boo from a few years ago. Sorry if it makes you a little queasy! He says he was on his way down the mountain and there was a sharp ledge sticking out that sliced into his leg.

This was taken right before he headed down the wall



The white you can see in there is his bone!
Don't worry though, his leg has healed like a champ and he is as good as new. Just has a super cool scar to show for it :)

Happy Birthday Benjo!

BIRTHDAY BOY BEN

Last week we celebrated Ben's special day. Ben actually has a lot of special days but this one was actually is BIRTHDAY. We both had the day off and enjoyed spending time together. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday breakfast and surprisingly enough he wanted to go to "Dees Restaurant" and get the "lumber jack breakfast". So we woke up and headed out in our PJ's, it was fun. The rest of the morning we just lounged around and planned our trip to St. George that was coming up in a few days. Ben has a client he has to see in St. George for work every month so we decided to get tickets to see a show at the Tuachan and make a vacation out of it. We found a great hotel through hot wire. We will definitely try that website again. They had Bath and Body works shampoo and soap, that was enough to impress me :) More to come on our vacation in the next post...back to Ben's birthday.
Ben wanted to workout in the afternoon so we went to the gym. After we got cleaned up we headed out to the movies and then to the Training Table for dinner. Again, Ben's choice, but it was good. Ben's birthday's wouldn't be complete without cheesecake.  Ben loves Cheesecake. I am getting pretty good at making them too even though I don't even like cheesecake. I think this is only my third cheesecake but Ben says I have now perfected it. I am always glad to see my man happy. I love you Ben! Happy Birthday!


Cheesecake Attempt #1 Ben says NO chocolate.


Cheesecake Attempt # 2 Not enough blueberries.


Cheesecake Attempt #3 .....

My sisters reminded me today that I forgot to blog about our fun conference weekend! My parents were out of town over conference weekend so my two little sisters came to my house to hang out. We did the traditional shopping during the priesthood session and then when Ben got back we went out for pizza. No gathering would be complete for us girls unless there was chocolate so we also made muddy buddies, gotta love whoever thought to put chocolate and peanut butter together! We also played a game of "ticket to ride", which Ben won. He always wins!



Becca went home that night but Emilee and I had a little sleepover. We watched a chik flik til we fell asleep and then in the morning made delicious crepes! Our family loves those, especially with the right kind of fruit. Then we watched conference. Emilee brought with her the Bingo cards that we played with when we were younger during conference. I bought some M&Ms the night before so we would have plenty of game pieces. The rule is that you can't eat them until you get Bingo, but Ben kept cheating! We all went for a walk around our neighborhood in between sessions. It was so much fun to have Emilee with us, sometimes Ben and I get bored with just each other :) After conference was all over we drove Emilee back to Highland and my brother Aaron and Becca had dinner ready for us. It was a wonderful weekend. Thanks Becca, Aaron, and Emilee. We sure do love you!

Best Friends

I've been pretty busy lately with school and work so that leaves Ben with some time on his hands. Last week I was going to be out late so Ben asked if he could have a friend over. When I got home this is what I found...
Ben has all the old Nintendo games on his computer and so they had hooked his computer up to our TV. My guess is that they played Nintendo all evening long. I came home at the point where they were eating Oreo s and playing "chip n dale, rescue rangers". Interesting the things that Men(boys) do in their free time and the things that women might choose to do.

Cute boys regardless!

Picture Day!

Turns out there are some perks to doing my practicum at an Elementary school, haha! My supervisor insisted that I get my picture taken on school picture day a few weeks ago. Well I just got a huge folder back with tons of pictures of me in it. They did some in black and white, some with fancy borders around them, and these ones are stickers! All for free, can you imagine!? :) If you'd like a wallet size picture, please don't hesitate to ask!

Handy Man Ben

Every time I say I want something Ben tells me that he can make it for me...
And I'll admit that I always cringe because I'd rather just buy what someone else has already made because then I can see the finished product before I buy it and know that I like it. Well this time I decided to let Ben prove to me that he really can "make" things. He built this frame for our bed. He started building it in our garage and then realized it was going to be too big to fit through the door. So he took it apart and then built it in the bedroom. So, when we sell this house, we are going to have to include the bed frame in the sale. I don't have very many pictures from when Ben first started this project because I kinda just wanted to let him do his thing. Yes I was pretty skeptical that this project was even going to turn out :0 But Ben did some great work don't you think!?

"Say What You Need To Say"

We went to see John Mayer this last week. We bought tickets forever ago because we were super excited about it. Ben and I think it was good, but not AWESOME. He went last year and he said it was much better then. Colbie Caillat opened up for him this year and last year it was Maroon 5 so Ben liked that better, but I enjoyed listening to Colbie Callait. I've actually never been to a concert before, unless you count Collin Raye up at BYU-I, good times! So it was fun if you forget how hot it was sitting out there waiting for it to start, how annoying the drunk people were behind us, and how freakin long it took us to get out of the parking lot after it was over. Guess we are just not the partying concert people we thought we could be :)
 

SO fun

This afternoon we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner. I was really looking forward to seeing them because they were gone for SO long in New York. When we pulled into the cul de sac we saw Bryan and Camille's car in the driveway so i was even MORE excited. Bryan and Camille and their two kids are in town for a few weeks for Bryan's internship so its been nice to spend some time with them. They live too far away from us so we don't get to see them a whole lot.





My parents brought me back this T-shirt. No, Ive never been to New York but at least I fit in with the girls :)