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!

Super Exciting News!!!!! and a shout out to my honey

I have very exciting news for everyone! My little brother is going to be performing at the Dancing With the Stars show at the E Center! He audtioned and was chosen to be in the top ten local performers to perform before and during the show! They are even going to do a contest with an audience cheer-o-meter to pick the winner of those top ten! So, to anyone attending the show-cheer for Mr. Ryan Roberts! He is going to be the super awesome one...I am so proud of my brother, I told him all the time that he would love dancing if he gave it a shot and sure enough, I was right! He is very talented and he and his partner are awesome! They will be performing a Cha Cha and a Jive-I know that he gets his awesome Latin moves from me. He is so handsome in his ballroom clothes to with that dark skin, he will probably just woo all the women in the audience into voting for him whether he dances good or not! Congrats, Ryan! I am so excited for you, and I think you are the best little brother I have! :) (Well, I should say younger brother, since you are taller than me!) Go, Ryan! Also, I would like to say a big fat thank you to my husband. I went out to my car today and found a bouquet of flowers on the passenger seat! Thank you, Ben, for loving me so much and for always finding the time to show it. Thank you for making me feel like a princess and for treating me with such love and respect. Thank you for always being there for me, whether it is to let me cry or to make me laugh. I admire and respect you so much. Thank you for putting some magic into the Christmas season for me, I love you with all my heart!

You want pictures, I'll give you pictures!

So, I have finally found time to post some pictures! Work has been incredibly busy, which is exactly how you want it to be when you are in retail, so I guess I can't complain! Ben and I went to REI on Satuday to spend our dividend. We had $300.00 to spend! We got Ben a really nice snowboarding helmet with an upgrade to have an audio kit in it, meaning he can listen to music while he snowboards! It makes me feel better to have his handsome head safe! And, BREAKING NEWS! I am going to learn to snowboard! I am going on my first excursion in January-I will be sure to blog about the experience! I am a little nervous and I fully expect to fall getting on AND off the ski lift-I am super coordinated like that! :) Hopefully I won't break anything or die or something, wish me luck! I even got me a supre cute beanie at REI for when I hit the slopes. I am still not sure I like how I look in a beanie, I will have to put on a picture and get some opinions...Anyway, on to the picturesOn Sunday we went down to Alpine for my sister Brittney's birthday, she is a whopping 15! I can't believe that Bean is that old! :) Happy B-Day Brit, I love you!
Ben and I gave Britt some lotion as part of her present and my nephew just had to try some on! Those lines on his forehead are finger marks from applying the lotion!

Here he is rubbing the lotion on his cheeks for that "baby soft" feeling! :)

My cute neice didn't want to miss a camera op, she is posing for me!

My dad's parents were able to come out for the big birthday dinner, it was really nice to have them over, we hadn't seen them for a long time! Dad snuck into the picture behind Ben right as I took it, so I figured it would serve him right to have it posted on the Internet! Ha ha, Dad, jokes on you! :)

The whole fam

As part of Christmas this year, we are tying these fleece blankets to give to the homeless shelter as a family. The ends are cut into strips, and then you tie little knots in them to make it decorative! They look great when they are done and it was a lot of fun to sit together as a family and work on these blankets.

The family working on our blankets, doesn't my mom's decorating look cute? The rest of the house looks like something from Better Homes and Gardens, I should have taken some pictures of the rest of the house, just to make everyone else jealous that their house doesn't look this good! (And that includes my apartment!)

My amazing mom, the mastermind behind all the charity! She also put together a 12 days of Christmas for each family-the one still at home, Ben and I, and my brother's family. Each day has a story that we read out loud and then a little gift with a rhyme. My mom is so creative, it has been a lot of fun! We are loving reading Christmas stories each night as a couple when Ben gets home from work, it has really made our season more meaningful. Thank you, Mom! You are the best! We love you!

Us, tying our blanket

Better view of the blanket, with the edges tied and ready to go!

We went to the Festival of Trees in Sandy with my family at the beginning on the month. I got so involved looking at all the beautiful trees, I forgot to take any pictures until we were leaving! So, I took one of Ben, and he took one of me! I wish I had pictures of some of the trees there, it was beautiful! I would totally reccommend it next year to anyone who hasn't been before. Even if you have been before, it is different every year! All the proceeds go to Primary Children's Hospital too, so it is a great cause and a lot of fun!

I am only posting the picture of me so that Ben won't tease me about only posting the picture of him! :)

This picture begins some of our Grand America stay pictures. I have more that I will post later. I have to find them...Whenever I have stayed in a hotel I have discovered that I like to open all the cupboards and drawers in all the pieces of furniture. Just for fun. I don't think I am ever looking for anything, but I found something this time! One of the nightstands was actually a little goodie station! Of course, it was $3.00 just for a bag of Skittles, so we didn't eat anything, but it was a cool find anyway! We went to the grocery store and bought a few yogurts and some juice since we would be checking out on a Sunday, and that way we could have breakfast without spending money! We just took all their stuff out of the fridge and put ours in, and then switched it back before checkout. Genius!

This is the sitting area, I am looking through a dining guide trying to decide where to go for dinner. The room was actually huge, but you can't really tell...guess you had to be there!

This is us trying really hard to get a good picture in the mirror in the bathroom, I think we succeeded given the circumstances! :)

This is actually the courtyard, really far below us! I just thought it looked cool. The view was spectacular, I will find the night pictures and post them too, because they were breathtaking!