Hospital Visit

I know it has been a really long time since I posted, and a lot has been going on! Most recently, Ben was in the hospital for a surgery-Appendicitis! He got a really bad stomach ache about 10 days ago and called into work and took a sick day. The first time he has done that in over 2 years! The pain gradually subsided a little, enough to work. He thought it was either something he ate or a little bit of a stomach bug. But, those were actually the first signs of his appendicitis! He went for 9 days with the pain before we got some pretty strong promptings to go to the doctor. Well, the doctor didn't think it was appendicitis, and even tried to talk us out of getting a CT scan that day. Ben insisted that we schedule the CT scan immediantly. So, we went straight to the hospital and had the CT scan and sure enough, it was appendicitis. By this time, it was around 1:00 AM Sunday morning. They took us to the ER to talk to the surgeon and get checked in. While we were there one of the staff had to inform a woman that her brother/husband (we weren't sure which) had died and she started hysterically screaming his name and crying. It was horrible! I almost lost it, I HATE doctors and hospitals anyway, and I was about to send the love of my life in for surgery, and that happened! It was awful! Anyway, they told us the surgery would be at 8:00AM and so they got Ben hooked up to an IV, and put him in a room until then. He was able to get a litttle sleep, but I wasn't. :( They came and got him and did the surgery, which went well. They couldn't find his appendix at first so they had to "fish" for it, so one of his incisions is about an inch and a half long. We stayed in the hospital until abourn 9:00PM Sunday night. I was able to take him home and he is doing pretty good. Sore, but good. I hadn't slept for over 36 hours, so it was nice for me to come home too! I left out a lot of the story so I wouldn't bore anyone, but needless to say we were at the hospital from 7:00 PM Saturday until 9:00 PM Sunday, but we were so blessed that it hadn't ruptured or anything like that. We are so grateful that we listened to the prompting to get it taken care of when we did. Please keep Ben in your prayers and in your thoughts, we would appreciate it! He is able to walk around pretty well and able to eat things, but he is pretty sore and probably will be for a little while. And I promise I will post again soon, Ben has actually been working a day shift the last month or so and so I have had him home in the evenings which is awesome, and which is also why I haven't been blogging! :) I will post pictures soon of our Oklahoma trip and give a general update. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!

BIG news!!!

So, I got a promotion at work! I am going to be "graduating" from the mangement training position and I am becoming a full-blown mananger! I am going to be managing my own store in Salt Lake City (I know, commuting again! Yuck!) But it is a fairly substantial pay increase (always a good thing!) and I will be in charge of my very own store! I am SO excited, but I am also really nervous. I start at my new store on Wednesday, and then on Tuesday is my yearly inventory! YIKES! It is going to be insane, but I guess I would rather jump in with both feet. The day after my inventory we are leaving for Oklahoma for 5 days, so that will be crazy too! We are going to Oklahoma because Ben's buddy Rob is getting married and Ben is a best man. We are flying standby out, so wish us luck! I had a dream that Ben and I had to take seperate flights and my flight went to Oklahoma by way of Hawaii! Weird, I know. Anyway, so wish me luck on my "new" job, I have a feeling that I am going to need it!

So Proud!

Can I just say that I am so proud of myself? I just finished some major spring cleaning! I scrubbed my floors on hands and knees before mopping it to make sure I got it really squeaky clean, I dusted and washed all the pictures in my house, I took out four garbage bags full of garbage from de-junking and cleaning out my fridge and pantry, I organized my pantry, I put together four bags for DI of old clothes and shoes, and got my laundry and grocery shopping done, all in about 4 hours! I am so good...:)

Snow, Snow, Go AWAY!

I am SO ready for spring! I am saying this as there is about a mountian of snow falling outside my apartment! I wore capris and sandals earlier this month, and now I am wearing sweaters and my winter coat again! Typical Utah weather I guess...but I am ready for Spring! So, everyone, think flowers and sunshine and BBQs and maybe we can turn the weather around by sheer will! I am having a "spring and summer day in my heart" day today, otherwise known as early spring fever! I am so done with winter! Although, I have been loving the fabulous strawberries I have been getting lately, I love fresh fruit! I am getting excited for peaches! Ben's grandpa has peach trees and we always get more than we can eat (which is saying a lot, since I LOVE good peaches) and I am also getting excited to have BBQs. I love burned hot dogs cooked on a grill. (Yes, I said burned, that is the very bestest way to eat them!) I am also excited to go to Logan canyon and have tin foil dinners and make s'mores. (Jen and Tristan, we will have to meet you there!) I can't wait to be able to wear flip flops and feel warm sun. Heck, I wouldn't even mind a good sunburn right now! I am excited for it to stay light late in the evening, and I am excited to play frisbee in the park with Ben's family, and in the backyard with my family. I can't wait to be able to drive with my windows down too! Sigh, if only the snow would stay in the mountains where it belongs! Well, oddly enough, my little I-want-it-to-be-spring therapy session worked, I feel much better! What are you looking forward to doing in the Spring and Summer seasons? Think Spring!

Tyler's B-Day, Anniversary, Crazy Eyes!

So, I have realized that I haven't been as diligent in posting pictures as I would like to be, so I am going to fix that right now! We are going back to February with my nephew's thrid birthday party and will work forward from there!

We did a make-your-own-pizza night, it was a lot of fun! We got to roll our our own dough and everything!

Tyler got a dinosaur for one of his gifts, it makes sounds and he loves it! He is really into dinos.
Opening gifts

More gifts!

Here is where our anniversary pictures start. I forgot to take any pictures at the theater where we saw Phantom, but take my word for it, it was AMAZING! We loved it! I also forgot to take any pictures of the hotel room and newly remodeled lobby, sorry! I was so excited to look at everything that was new myself that I forgot about the camera! But, it was all beautiful and it was really fun to stay in the Presidential suite! Ben took me to the Melting Pot for our anniversary, it is an all-fondue restaurant and it was really yummy! I think that if we ever go back though we will just do dessert. It was not too expensive to just get dessert for a couple and it was by far the best part of the meal!

This is the cheese. The way the restaurant works is there are four courses, you start with a chesse, then get a salad, then your main course, then your dessert. We chose the Mexican cheese, without knowing it had beer in it! (Not fully cooked out, either!) It was dang good though! It had lots of salsa and jalapenos in it. I would have like it a little spicier, but it was good. They bring chips, different types of breads, veggies, and apples to dip. I didn't dip any apples, but I ate them plain! :)

Close up of the cheese

Main Course! This platter was loaded! It came with lobster, shrimp, chicken, steak, filet mignon, artichoke/spinach ravioli, and veggies. Ben discovered that he doesn't really like lobster. I think the smells of all the raw meats got to him a little and that might have affected his experience. It was kind of weird to just have a big ole plate of raw meats!

Main course again, there was like 10 different dipping sauces and butters for all the meats and stuff, it was hard to keep it all straight!

Main course again

Ben, after the main course, and ALMOST too full for dessert. Almost.

I, on the other hand, had been looking forward to dessert from the minute I walked in the restaurant! I am ready, bring it on! Please notice that I am wearing a hoodie with a three on it to symbolize how many years it has been...

DESSERT! This all the stuff we got to dip in the chocolate! There is cheesecake, pound cake, strawberries, bananas, marshmallows rolled in both graham crackers crumbs and oreo crumbs, brownies and rice krispies. Can you blame me for being so excited about it now?!?!

This is the chocolate that we chose, it was a blend of dark chocolate and white chocolate, but there are lots of different ones that I want to try, there was like 12 options of chocolate! YUMMY!

Sorry this is blurry, we are laughing! (Probably cause we are a little tipsy from the beer in our cheese! :) )

The glare from the sun reflecting off the windows of the building across the street was a little blinding, but we did the best we could! I love you, Ben!

And last, but not least, (these are from Sunday) I have always had what my hubby calls "crazy eyes", where I can cross one eye but not the other. I can do it in both directions, and I can even move them independent of one another! So, I discovered on Sunday that my mom and my little sister Emily can do it to! They are beginners so it is a little harder to see their eyes doing it, but one look at the following pictures should help show everyone why my husband married me. I am so hot right now...

There you go! Crazy eyes! I made this face at Ben the first time we met and he was a goner. (Just kidding, he probably would have run screaming the other direction!)

Aren't we all SO cute?!

Just a picture of my gorgeous mom to prove that, even if she can do crazy eyes, she is still beautiful!

I love this picture, Ben was trying to help Brittney with some of her math (which is harder than anything I ever did in college!) and her face is exactly how I would feel about math homework! :)

10 Cow Woman

So I have recently been called to my Relief Society presidency and part of my job is to document the events, such as Enrichment, in pictures. Our theme was "How to Be a 10 Cow Woman", from the old movie Johnny Lingo. (If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it if you want to have a feel good moment!) We had a Hawaiian Luau potluck dinner and then a little presentation including a singing of a song called "Count Your Many Wrinkles", which was really cute. Here are a few pictures of the event! We decorated it like a luau, but yes, those are cow balloons tied to the chairs...I thought it turned out really cute, myself! I am going to be posting some pictures and stuff from our anniversary sometime next week...

Anniversary!

So, our three year anniversary is on Monday, we are going on a romantic long weekend together to celebrate! I got a free two night stay at the Sheraton hotel in SLC (yes, the hotel I used to work at, it's a long story!) and we are checking in tomorrow! We are staying in a large suite on Saturday, and then we are upgrading to the PRESIDENTIAL suite on Sunday and we have a late check out on Monday! We are very excited, and since it is free that makes it all the better! It even comes with free breakfast, which I am really excited about since I love breakfast food a lot...We will be seeing Phantom at the Hale Center Theater Saturday evening as well, which will be great I am sure. I am so excited to have a long weekend with my hubby, we don't get to spend enough time together during the week! Curse working opposite shifts! So, it will be nice to have the chance to just spend some time together. It might snow on Sunday night, I hope it does, becuase I would love to snuggle up together and watch the snow fall outside our balcony! I will post pictures as soon as I can afterwards of our gorgeous rooms. To my husband, Happy Anniversary! I love you Ben, and I so glad that we are married!

Happy Valentine's Day!

To the love of my life:
Happy Valentine's Day! I love you very much, you are an amazing husband and I am so lucky to be your wife. I have never been so happy as I have been the last three years! I get butterflies around you still, and you still make my knees weak. I am so in love with you and I appreciate you more than you will ever know. Thank you for being the wonderful, dedicated, sweet husband that you are, I am trying to keep up! Happy Valentine's Day to my knight in shining armor, my best friend, and the love of my life! I love you!

With a twist...

So, I thought that I would put a twist on the "25 things" post, and do 25 random facts about Ben! After all, my blog is supposed to be SOME Ben...:) So, here goes!

1. Ben knows more about cars than I ever thought possible!
2. Ben loves computers and knows more about them than I ever thought possible too!
3. Ben hates nuts, but loves peanut butter.
4. Ben made a cutting board for his future wife in his woodshop class in high school, and it is so pretty that I have never used it, because I don't want to mark it!
5. Ben is very good with kids, I tease him that our kids are going to like him better.
6. Ben can play the trumpet, piano, and guitar.
7. Ben loves the outdoors, he does everything from rock climbing to snow boarding.
8. Ben doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, a good dessert for him after dinner is a glass of juice. He keeps my sweet tooth in line, thank goodness!
9. Ben enjoys playing computer games, he really likes to play World of Warcraft and Playstation games, but always puts his wife first!
10. Ben is going to school at Weber University to earn a dual degree in business and computer programming.
11. Ben is extremely thoughtful and romantic, which I love!
12. Ben is a very loyal person, once you are included in his circle of friends you are there for life.
13. Ben loves Kit Kats and Twix candy bars.
14. Ben enjoys a good action film, and so do I so we never argue over what movie to see.
15. Ben is a very good cook, he makes especially killer omlets.
16. Ben is currently working as a trainer for Dell and he loves teaching!
17. Ben served an LDS mission in Baguio, Philippines and learned to speak Tagalog and Ilukno. He is still fairly fluet in Tagalog-his main language.
18. My family absolutely loves Ben, and they are always very excited to see him when we come visit. (Sometimes they are more excited about him than me I think!)
19. Ben is the second of 6 children in his family, just like me!
20. Ben is very much a night person and really struggles with mornings, but he still diligently gets up and goes to school very early. His job right now actually works really well for his biological clock-the 3-midnight shift!
21. Ben can tell you the date he proposed, which I think is pretty impressive!
22. He also came up with a very elaborate, romantic proposal that made me cry a few times! It's a really long story, but it involved lots of flowers, a CD of love songs, 4 love letters, and a romantic dinner-all over the span of about 3 hours!
23. Ben is very close to his family and they all love him enough to put up with his crazy wife!
24. Ben is very spiritually grounded, he has a beautiful testimony and is constantly reminding me of what is important in life.
25. Ben is the best husband I could have asked for, he is patient and loving and caring and kind and sweet and strong and romantic and can fix anything and everything and will take good care of me and our children his whole life. Ben is the love of my life and I am so grateful for him. He is very complex and has so many aspects to him, everything from fixing cars to fixing computers to playing "nerdy" games to rock climbing and snowboarding to fixing my vacuum and showerhead to leaving a single long stem rose and a love letter on my pillow for when I get home from work. Our three year anniversary is coming up next month and it has gone by so fast! Good thing we have eternity or I would feel really ripped off! Love you, Ben!

On Board

So, everyone else is doing the 25 random facts about themselves thing, and so I thought I would do it too...if I can think of that many!

1. I love my hubby very much, and sometimes wonder why on earth he picked me!
2. I loved loved loved my ballroom dancing days, I miss it still, and there are times when I will dance all around my apartment to some of my old music. (I know my downstairs neighbors like it...)
3. I have a typing speed of 85 wpm, and a killer fast 10 key, though I have never actually tested it.
4. I love blackberries and anything associated with them-shakes, ice cream, cheesecake, etc.
5. As you can tell from #4, dessert is my favorite meal.
6. I have so many books that I don't have enough shelf space, despite owning four bookshelves!
7. I love driving, but only if I am alone. I hate driving with anyone else in my car!
8. I secretly like rock music...a lot!
9. I am hopelessly addicted to chocolate milk, I drink it all the time and I always have!
10. To go along with #9, when I was little and I understood what it meant to breast feed your baby, I honestly thought that my breast milk would be chocolate milk because I loved it so much and because I drank it so much.
11. I LOVE to travel, I think I got that from my dad...I love even the stressful parts, like catching a plane with no ID...(Long story...)
12. I have to sleep with two extra firm cotton pillows, I have even been known to take them with me to hotels...
13. I LOVE to clean! I enjoy having my home fresh and clean and I enjoy it, it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I also deep clean when I am stressed or upset.
14. However, I absolutely hate doing the laundry.
15. I have a wonderful relationship with my family, and with my in-laws, and I am very grateful for that. I am very blessed.
16. Until last year I had never owned a straightener. I mean, have you seen my hair? Even now I still don't straighten it very often, I love my curls!
17. I am terrified of spiders, I can't kill them so I will put a cup over them and wait for Ben to get home. :) I am okay usually with other bugs, just not spiders!
18. My dreams at night are very vivid and real and I can almost always remember several different dreams every morning.
19. I am horrible at giving, receiving, or following directions and get lost very easily. I don't understand it when people say "look at the mountains" as a means of giving directions, there are mountains everywhere here, it's UTAH! What kind of sick joke is that?
20. I slept with a panda bear in my bed until my wedding night. (My mom wouldn't let me pack him for my honeymoon, I can't imagine why...)
21. My favorite flower is a tulip, in any color.
22. My birthday is in the summer, and so I always felt a little ripped off that I never got to celebrate it in school, even my "half birthday" was just never the same. Then I realized that all the school birthdays were suckers, they had to go to school on their birthdays! Ha!
23. I hate earphones, I can't stand stuff in my ears!
24. I also REALLY hate the dentist, I have a really bad gag reflex and the dentist has a certain torture aspect to me. In fact, I have a broken crown that has been broken for over 4 years now becuase I refuse to go get it fixed!
25. I absolutely love theme parks and amusement parks and anything with big roller coasters and thrill rides! I must get this from my mom, when we went to Universal Studios, my mom and I rode the Tower of Terror 12 times! In a row! It was awesome...I really enjoy the feeling of leaving my stomach behind for a second or two...:)

Quick Update

I know I know, it has been a really long time since I last posted, sorry! :) I will be putting some pictures on at the beginning of next week, I have two Temple Square trips to post, as well as Christmas at both houses, so there will be lots of stuff! As for a quick update, we are doing great, Ben is firmly entrenched in his school studies, he is taking 16 credits and working almost 50 hours a week! Yes, he is superman, in case you were wondering. :) He is working very hard and has a lot of do all the time, but we still find time to spend with each other. I am busy with work still, I absolutely LOVE my job! I have a great staff and the work is so much fun, I love sales! I love working with people as much as I do and selling them books and other products and managing payroll and orders and IBTs and RMOs and a whole bunch of other stuff that I won't try to explain! My job is very rewarding and I am so grateful to have it. We signed our apartment contract for another year so we will be staying where we are until February 2010 at least, which I was in favor of. I love my apartment, it is so cute and perfect for what we need. I will be sad when we do leave it behind. I think that is about all the updates I have for now...I will get some pictures up soon, I promise!