The Mickey Mouse Cake

Charly and I had a group date the other night. It was Disney themed and so Charly decided to bake a cake and two cupcakes and put them together to make a Mickey Mouse cake.

Obviously the cupcakes finished baking first but because we were all busy with the date we took the cake out as well... It wasn't done yet.

"Charly, this cake isn't done yet," I said. Charly gave me a concerned look.

"Oh no," She said.

"Let's put it back in," I replied.

We put the cake back in and went downstairs to play games. We played a name game. At the end of the game I realized that we had left the cake in the oven for the ENTIRE time.

"Charly!" I exclaimed. "We left the cake in."

She gave me that same look and we both ran upstairs.

"It's not burt," Charly said. "It's not moist either though."

Charly got the cake and the cupcakes and put them together.

"That looks like Winnie the Pooh not Mickey Mouse," I said.

Charly gave me a fake hurt look, "How could you say that she said."

I smiled back at her.

I did not burn the cake ...

Friday night, Ben and I planned a group date with some of our friends. We decided it would be fun to theme the evening around Disney. We listened to Disney music, played Disney board games, had Lady and the Tramp Spaghetti and Meatballs for dinner, and I wanted a Mickey Mouse shaped cake for dessert. 

Ben and Jon and I made dinner and the cake right before everyone else arrived. I was therefore putting the cake into the oven right as the last couple arrived. To make the cake the correct shape, I put part of the batter into two cupcakes and the rest into a circular cake pan. I wasn't really paying attention, however, and set the timer for a cake made in a rectangular pan. 

We finished getting the dinner ready and everyone started dishing up. The cake had been in for almost fifteen minutes. I checked on it and both the cupcakes and the cake in the pan were looking very golden on top. There was still almost fifteen more minutes on the timer, however, so I let them be. In the middle of everyone dishing up, all of them gathered around the counter and stove, I realized my mistake and decided to pull the cake out of the oven. In the midst of the chaos, I didn't check it with a toothpick. 

After dinner, Ben and I were doing the dishes when he noticed that my cake did not look done, and mentioned it to me. There was nothing to be done except put it back in the oven and hope it cooked right. After we put it back in, we went downstairs with our group to play games. 

Not our smartest move, I'll admit. 

We played a game called the Name Game, Disney style. That's when Ben gave me a look. 

"Oh no, Charly," he said, his eyes a little wide. 

"What?" 

"The cake." Ben said. 

My stomach dropped. I felt like crying. How could I forget the stupid cake? I ran upstairs as fast as I could, Ben following me. 

We pulled it out and, miraculously, it wasn't burned. It was definitely well done, but not burned. We let it cool off with a sigh of relief and served it to everyone. They all said it was fine, but I could tell the extra cooking time had taken its toll. Plus, Ben said it looked more like Winnie the Pooh than Mickey Mouse. Meanie. 

But, after all, I didn't burn the cake. 

Vegan Chili with Beaf

So a few days ago Charly and I decided to have chili for dinner. I was excited because I like chili. This time was different though. Charly and I had some canned chili and I wanted to add some vegetables to it so I looked up a recipe online and completely ignored the instructions, using the picture as a reference.

"Charly do you want some vegetables in your chili?" I asked as I chopped up the sweet peppers and spinach. She looked over at my preparations and gave me her look.

"No thanks," She said.

"Come on!" I insisted.

"Nope," She answered again.

"Just try some," I said, holding out a chip with some chili on it.

"Ok," She said." Charly ate the chip with my chili on it.

"It's pretty good actually," She said with a smile.

"I know!" I answered excitedly. "I didn't make this one up like the corn soup Charly. I found a real vegan chili recipe online."

The excitement left my voice as I looked down into my bowl.

"Oh no! There is beef in this chili!" I exclaimed. "I made vegan chili with beef in it!"

Charly just laughed.

Ben's Version of Vegetarian Chili

This past week was finals, so I didn't make any elaborate dinners. When Ben got home from work and school on Tuesday, I had a can of Chili on the counter ready to make for dinner. Ben got really excited when he saw it. 

"I really want Chili for dinner," He said in the kitchen, I was putting something in the spare room. 

"Okay," I said. 

"Is that why you have the Chilli on the counter?"

"Yes," I said, walking back into the kitchen with a smile on my face. I sat down on the couch, opening my computer while Ben got the Chilli cooking. 

"Can I put peppers in it?" He asked. 

"No." 

"What?" Ben protested. "Why not? I found a real recipe, online. We could probably add spinach and it wouldn't make a difference."

I thought about spinach and peppers in the Chili and made a face. "How about you put them in your half and I'll just have normal Chili?" 

Ben pulled out the peppers and spinach, dicing them up. "I am so good at this," he said. "Chopping vegetables up really small." He scooped the vegetables into his Chili, ignoring the face I was giving him. 

"Want to try some?" He held out a chip loaded with Chili from his bowl. 

"No."

"Come on! Vegan Chili!" 

"Ben," I laughed. "This Chili has meat in it. You know that, right?" 

Ben shook his head and held out his chip again. "Vegan Chili ... with meat in it." 

I ate it. It actually tasted pretty good. 

Starving for a Sandwich

Last night, I got onto my email account and lo and behold I have an email. It says, "Charly has invited you to contribute to a blog". I know Charly minimally ... as in, I have seen her twice and gone on a double date with her once, so to say that I was confused is an understatement. I considered writing something yesterday, just for the heck of it; it was my birthday, after all, and I obviously can get away with anything and everything on my birthday--even if it was potentially causing havoc and ruin on the blog of someone who I barely know who, without meaning to, allowed me to contribute to it. My more charitable side decided that was a poor decision, so I didn't. Then I get home today and I bring it up to my wife, thinking she will be just as confused as I am. She wasn't. Turns out she had roped me into being part of this blog then forgot to tell me that I was being roped into it. I will have you know I am coming into this kicking and screaming, or at very least pretending that I am. 

Anyways apparently I am supposed to respond to the stories that my wife tells about us, so you can get both sides of the story. So I shall.

I was at work, and I had no idea what was going on. But that is not the true tragedy of this story. I went into work at 11 in the morning, and I, foolishly, had not taken food to eat while at work. Add in the fact that I had two "midterms" (two weeks before finals) the next day and several person (or personal if you want to read it that way--I personally like both) issues at the time and you can imagine my mood going into work. I had pointed out the aforementioned shirt to my coworker because it is gorgeous and the only really red shirt that we sell there. Then I had pushed through the day like a trooper.

About four in the afternoon, who should come to visit me but my dear wife. She is so very sweet but I am a self proclaimed trooper and, having to live up to that fact, I was busy working, helping out as many customers as I could feasibly help while giving my wife as much attention I could give her, which was very little. Next thing I know, she is being sent to go get us sandwiches. Now remember who has not eaten since that morning; yes, I am talking about poor, starving me. So the guys give my wife money to go down the street and get sandwiches from probably the BEST sandwich shop in Salt Lake (the Gandolfos on main street). She wanders off and I continue troopering on. She comes back, and this is when her story takes place. (Insert wife's story here)

Now back to my story. She had gotten sandwiches for the guys, including a foot-long for her and me, buy I didn't have a lot of time to sit down and actually eat it. The problem is that it was connected to hers and if you read her story you can guess where that sandwich went. That's right, while she was being mischievous and conniving, she took my half of the sandwich and walked RIGHT OUT THE FRONT DOOR. There it is right there. The fact that because my loving beautiful wife wanted to surprise me with something for my birthday, I had to starve....

So it really wasn't that tragic and let's be honest, I look dang good in that shirt, but WHO DOES THAT!?!?! Oh, wait, my wife.

Surprise Presents

KC loves clothes. He likes to look good, to put it more accurately. Most of the time he uses that to get me nice clothes, but that's not what this story is about. It's about his surprise birthday present.
We usually get KC's clothes from Jos A Bank, since he works there. Unfortunately, that makes it very difficult to surprise him since he's always there when I am. His birthday was coming up, and I wanted to surprise him with something. I'd gotten him lots of clothes for birthday and Christmas, but he knew about all of them. (I almost surprised him with some vests, but the store called his phone to tell him they had come in. Ugh. Thwarted again.)

One day, I went to Jos A Bank to visit KC. They were very busy and we only had a few minutes to talk. I waited a couple hours. While KC helped a customer, I talked to Richard, who wasn't busy at the moment. Richard mentioned a burgundy sport shirt that KC liked. I brightened up. 

"Is that the same one he showed me the other day?" I asked. 

Richard shrugged. "I don't know. Let me show you which one it is." 

We walked to the sport shirts. He grabbed the burgundy shirt and showed it to me. I grinned. 
"That's the one." I had a mischievous look on my face. "KC thinks we don't have any money for any more presents. But I still have plenty saved up. Could you ring me up while he's distracted?" 

Richard looked back at KC. He was still helping the customer in the back, out of sight from the register. He nodded. "Yeah, not a problem!" 

I handed him my debit card and walked away so that if KC glanced over, he wouldn't be suspicious. Richard quickly rang the shirt up and paid for it with my card. While he put it in a bag, I walked back to KC. I had realized that if I waited around any longer, he'd see me with a bag and he'd know what I'd done. I'd already been there for a couple hours, so it was time to leave anyways. He looked disappointed that I was leaving, but we said goodbye and I walked to the front of the store. Richard handed me the bag and I left.

KC didn't have a clue. 

I'm Picked On

So Charly and I are trying our best to save money. There are lots of things we are doing to save money but one of the things we do is we make sure to turn the thermostat off when we don't need it. It's great and we are pretty good at it. Our electric bill has only gone up a few extra dollars since winter.

One of the drawbacks though is that every morning when we wake up it is freezing in our apartment and so neither of us (actually mostly just me) don't want to get out of bed. The other problem is that my hands and feet are almost always cold... like so cold that Charly won't want to hold my hand.

Now in my mind, the solution is simple, I just turn the thermostat to 90 degrees every morning while I shower. It works great! When I get out of the shower the apartment is nice and warm, my feet are nice and warm, and my hands are nice and warm. Perfect right? I thought so.

However, for some reason Charly always turns the thermostat down to like 70 degrees... freezing... Does she not want to hold my hand? I'm not sure. It doesn't really matter though because I usually just sneak it back up to 90. Don't tell Charly I said that though.

90 Degrees

"Benjamin!" I called out from the bedroom. It was starting to get really warm in here. Ben was working on homework in the kitchen. "What do you have the thermostat on?" 

"Wha-at?" Benjamin asked in his I'm-picked-on-I-would-never-do-what-you-think-I-did voice. "I don't know." 

"Benjamin," I said again, this time with a laugh in my voice. "Is it on ninety?" 

"Of course not ..." Ben said, using the same voice. Not exactly reassuring. I jumped up and came into the living room to check. Ben has a habit of turning the thermostat on really high to warm the apartment up fast. Sometimes he turns it up without even looking to see what temperature it's at. 

It was at 75 degrees. I turned it down a little. 

"Was it on ninety?" Ben asked. 

"No," I said, ignoring his triumphant grin and "told you so" as I walked back to what I was doing before. 

The Christmas Present

"I bought some Christmas decorations from Wal-Mart," Charly said as I got home from work.

"Really?" I asked skeptically.

"Yup," she said, "Come look."

I followed Charly over into the living room. She was practically glowing with excitement.

"I bought these candles, and these window decorations, and these lights, oh, and look. I bought two kinds of wrapping. One color is for you and the other is for me. What one do you like the most?"

I looked down at the two colors. "I like the silver one," I said.

"Good, I like the white one more," she replied with a grin.

A week later and after Thanksgiving day, Charly and I were in the house. We had aquired a small Christmas tree from Charly's mom and decorated it. The tree looked really good. Charly had hand made a ton of small paper snowflakes, we had borrowed some hand made ornaments, and even made some on a date together. Charly walked over to the tree. She was holding a large box. To this day I'm still not sure what was in it.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It's a Christmas gift," She answered.

"Is it for me?" I asked again.

"No silly, it's for both of us." She replied smiling.

At that moment I was struck with the realization that our brilliant plan in having two colors of wrapping paper, one for each of us, was flawed. My face fell and I looked at Charly with an expression of grave concern on my face, "If it's for both of us how are we suppose to wrap it?"

She just laughed at me.

A Christmas Present to Us

My mom has a Christmas tradition with Christmas presents that I love--every year, instead of writing the person's name on every single one of their presents, she has a specific wrapping paper for each individual person. It's really fun, because in the weeks leading up to Christmas, you can try to figure out which wrapping paper is yours. This is a tradition I wanted to continue in my own family, so I bought two different rolls of wrapping paper at Wal Mart. 

While I was Black Friday shopping, one of the few purchases I made was a ten dollar griddle. I decided to wrap it, so our cute little tree would have plenty of presents underneath it. This week, Ben grabbed the griddle and went to open it. 

"No, no!" I shouted, in my typical panicky voice. Ben says we have a good chance statistically of dying at the same time, since he's older and a guy but never stressed, while I'm younger and a girl but always stressed out. 

"What?" Ben asked in sincere innocence, not letting go of the griddle. 

"The griddle," I said, walking over and taking it away from him. "I'm going to wrap it."

"Oh," Ben said, giving me a puzzled look. "Who's it going to be for?"

"Us, of course," I laughed. 

"Both of us?" Ben asked. 

"Yes ..." I said, looking for the trick in the question. 

"But ..." Ben grinned his teasing-Charly smile. "What wrapping paper are you going to use?" 

I just rolled my eyes, though I couldn't help grinning along with Ben. 

Locking the Door

Tuesday morning Charly got up to get ready for school and found the bathroom door locked from the inside. I have a funny habit of locking doors, almost an obsession with it actually. I guess I locked the door while leaving the bathroom.

We didn't have a key for the door.

"You must have locked the bathroom door," Charly said to me. I was still in bed and was planning on sleeping in just a little because I had been up late the night before working on an assignment.

"Try the little wire," I replied sleepily from the bed.

We have a wire we use to open our front door sometimes. We only have one key but the wire lets us lock the door and then open it no matter who gets home first or who has the key. I could hear Charly fiddling around with the door but she couldn't seem to get it open so I got out of bed and walked over.

"The wire won't open it," She said. I tried it anyway, like most stubborn husbands would. Sure enough, it didn't fit.

I was fully awake now and for some strange reason I was enjoying this ridiculous challenge. I grabbed a screw driver from a kitchen drawer and started taking the door knob off. I had replaced door knobs before so I knew what I was doing. I was able to remove the door knob and then unlock the door. Afterwards I put the knob back on, vowing to never lock the bathroom door like that again.

I think I might have gone back to bed but I don't remember... I felt silly for locking the door but I'm pretty sure Charly was impressed with my amazing door knob hacking skills.

The day my husband locked me out of the bathroom ...

After Ben and I got married, I learned that Ben always locks the door. Always. Normally, this is fine. This week, it proved to be slightly problematic. 

Tuesday morning I woke up very groggy. Ben and I had had a very late night Monday and I did not want to get up early to catch the bus. While I was at dance the night before, Ben had fixed our car and it was very tempting to sleep an extra hour and simply drive. 

"Ben," I asked, leaning across the bed. 

"Hmmm?" Benjamin asked, his eyebrows pinching together. That's his I'm-tired-why-are-you-talking face. He doesn't know he makes it. 

"Can I drive today?" 

"Why?" Ben didn't even open his eyes. 

"So I can sleep in a little." I said, a little impatiently. 

"Oh. Yeah, that's fine." Ben rolled over and fell back to sleep quickly. I rolled over too, but didn't find sleep as fast. I needed to go to the bathroom. 

With a sigh, I got up and found my way through our maze of clean and dirty clothes strewn around the room (I hate putting away laundry ...) and found the bathroom door shut. Ben likes to keep the doors closed in our apartment so it looks nicer. I turned the knob only ... it didn't turn. I turned it again, no luck. I fumbled back into the bedroom. 

Uh-oh, I thought. I went outside to get a broken piece of hanger, attempting to use it as a lock pick. No luck. 

I fumbled back into the room and said in a loud, half whisper, "Ben!" 

"What?" he asked, his voice slurring sleepily. 

As I answered, I knelt down next to the alarm we had set the night before. It was supposed to go off at 6:30. It was 6:23. "The bathroom door is locked." 

"Turn it really hard, sometimes it just gets jammed." At this point, Ben was probably mostly asleep still.

"Okay," I said, doubting it would work even as I agreed to it. "I'll try it, but I turned it hard before." 

After shutting off the alarm so it wouldn't wake Ben up, I went back to the door. and twisted the knob with all my strength. Once, twice, three times. It still wouldn't budge; I could tell it was locked. I knew I needed to get the door open so I could go to school ... I'm not the kind of girl who spends a ton of time in the bathroom, but there was no way I would go out in public without at least doing my hair first. I decided to take advice from Ever After and got a screwdriver out. 

I was trying to get the screws off, but it was tricky with how they were positioned when Ben came out of the bedroom, still half asleep. He must have heard my clumsy attempts with the screwdriver. He took over and had the door handle off and the door unlocked in less than five minutes. 

"Thanks Ben," I said, rewarding his efforts with a kiss. "And now that I'm awake, I can take the bus!" Ben just laughed and went back to bed. 

Soap in a Bottle

The other day Charly bought some soap that was... inexpensive. She bought it because I told her that I wasn't picky about my soap. Well, when I started using the soap I learned that I actually was kind of picky, at least I learned that I didn't like this soap.

It made my skin feel like rubber...

So I did what any other husband would do in this situation, I started using Charly's soap. Of course I was only going to use it until I could get some good soap for me to use. 

One day however. While I was using the soap I knocked it down into the tub. The was in a bottle and I noticed a price tag on the bottom of the bottle. The soap was like $12! For a tiny little bottle of soap! What does it have gold in it? Needless to say I started using the rubbery soap again.

Charly has since bought me soap that I like that wasn't $12.

11 Dollar Soap

Ben and I were in the bathroom one day when Benjamin grabbed my bottle of body wash out of the shower.

Holding it up to show me, he asked, "Was this really eleven dollars?" 

"What?" I asked. 

"I was using is before, until I saw this--" Ben pointed to the price tag on the back of the bottle, clearly labeled $11. 

I laughed. "Yes, it was eleven dollars, at Bath and Body Works. It was probably on some sort of sale though." 

Ben thought for a moment. "I'll just use the other soap." 

New Family Goals

Eat Healthy 
No eating refined sugars
Drink enough water for the day
Eat fruits and vegetables for the day

Budget Money 
No spending money without consulting the other person (excepting necessities)
No eating out, even when traveling
Plan date night expenses in advance

Exercise 
Exercise every day ... even if it's Just Dance together.

Drive-Thru Reception

This week my cousin Gavin got married in the temple. It was really cool and I was super excited that Charly and I got to drive to Vernal to see it. Out of all of my cousins I probably spent the most time with Gavin growing up.

Well, so on to the story. Charly and I also went to the reception. Before we went we were talking about how long we would be there and I said, "In and out." I mean, Gavin is a really close cousin to me but nobody likes receptions... I'm pretty sure Gavin doesn't anyway.

"I love receptions," Charly said.
"Of course she does." I thought to myself.

You see, my idea of a perfect reception is a drive-thru reception. I tried to get Charly to do this for our wedding but to no avail.

The ideas is that you have three tables... like this
 ___   ___   ___
|      |  |      | |      |

Impressive graphics right? Anyway... The first table will have a picture of you and your spouse... that way you don't have to be there, the second table will have a book for the family and friends to sign, and the last will be a nice big table for everyone to leave the gifts on. Each person will simply drive their car up and stop at each table for each action... It's perfect!

I guess most women don't like the idea though and I'm not sure why... Every guy that I have ever told this too has thought it was brilliant.

Aaaaand back to the original story. Charly and I teased back and forth a little about how long we would stay. We went to the reception and stayed for a little while. It was nice. I was able to visit with some family I hadn't seen in a while. Receptions aren't all that bad I guess. Maybe I'll even learn to like them being around Charly all the time.... I doubt it though.

Girls love weddings; boys don't.

That means that I, as a girl, love weddings, and Ben, as a boy, doesn't.

This weekend, we came to Vernal for Benjamin's cousin's wedding. It started off with the temple sealing, in the morning. That was beautiful and the one part of the day which Ben didn't grumble about. Pictures afterwards were not too long, either, since we we're just cousins. 

While we were standing outside, waiting for pictures to start, Benjamin said to me, "I am never getting a divorce ... Weddings are such a pain. I do not want to have to get married again." 

He got whacked for that one.

Then we went to the luncheon. After the luncheon, Ben took a three hour nap. When it was time to go to the reception, Ben was dismayed. He had forgotten there was a reception. 

"How did you forget?" I asked with a laugh. 

"I thought the luncheon was the reception ..." 

After we finished getting ready for the reception--Ben had to change back into his nice clothes after forgetting about the reception--Ben said to me, "So we're in and out, right?" 

"What? No," I said. 

After a lengthy discussion on why (or why not in Ben's case) we should stay at least for a decent amount of time, we discovered the problem.

"Why not? They don't even want us to stay long anyways," Ben said.

"That's not true," I said. "Have you ever been a girl at her wedding reception?"

Ben gave me a look. We both laughed. "I think we're just looking at this from different perspectives," Ben said. "You are thinking of this from a girl's mind, I'm thinking of this from the guy's side of things."

We ended up staying a little longer than Ben would have liked, but leaving earlier than I normally would have. It turned out to be a fun night though, and we were both glad to be there for Gavin's wedding.

Fast Sunday Breakfast!

Charly and I missed fast Sunday last month. We forgot it was fast Sunday and ate. In order to make sure that didn't happen again we reminded each other constantly over the course of this last week. Charly really wanted to remember and reminded me quite a bit.

When I woke up this morning (Fast Sunday) Charly was already awake. I was a little sleepy still and so I sort of stumbled out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

To my surprise Charly was standing there beaming, and pointing and the wonderful breakfast she had made for me. It looked amazing and she had made my two favorite things to have for breakfast, German Pancakes and Fruit/Veggie Smoothies! Right when I saw it I remembered that it was fast Sunday...

"Oh boy," I thought.

I walked up to Charly and just hugged her. She of course wasn't sure how to take that because it was an odd time for a hug.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm giving you comfort." I said. "It's fast Sunday."

"Dang it!" Charly exclaimed.

I just kept hugging her and then we started laughing about it.

"I guess we'll just have to fast next Sunday," She said through the laughing.

Fast Sunday ... Oops.

I woke up this morning at 6:30, due to daylight savings. I thought I'd get up and surprise Ben with a clean kitchen and delicious breakfast. 

About an hour later, I came to wake Ben up. "Ben," I said, "Wanna get up now?" 

"No," he said. Of course. 

"Why not? You've slept plenty long." I wanted him to get up and come see my surprise. 

"My alarm hasn't gone off," Ben said. It was 7:19, his alarm was set for 7:30. He seemed perfectly awake to me, so I jumped off the bed and set the alarm for 7:20. 

"No fair," he said, as I came back to snuggle with him until the alarm went off. "You changed my alarm." 

"How do you know?" I asked in my most innocent tone of voice. 

"Because you went over there ..." He said in his I'm-picked-on voice. 

"I could have had many reasons to go over there." 

"Yeah," he agreed. "To change my alarm." 

"That is one reason I could have for going over there," I agreed, still claiming innocence. Just then, his alarm went off. "Oh, that's your alarm. Better get that." 

"Will you get that alarm for me?" Ben asked me, grinning. 

"No," I laughed, pulling his blanket off. "Come on, come see!" 

"Come see what?" 

"Just," I said, jumping off the bed and turning off the alarm. "Just come see." 

I took him by the hand and led him to the kitchen, where I had his favorite breakfast of fruit smoothies and German pancakes set out and ready to eat. 

"Ta da!" 

Ben looked at me with a funny look on his face. Then he moved towards me, pulling me into a hug. 

"Charly," he said. "Do you remember that it's Fast Sunday?" 

I slumped, dropping my arms to my side. Somehow I had totally forgotten Fast Sunday. I don't know how; I'd been reminding Ben all week. Literally. "No ....." 

I tried to pull away from Ben, but he kept a tight hold on me. 

"I knew you'd need a hug when you found that out," Ben said. 

I guess we'll be fasting next week. As long as I don't make breakfast, that is. 

A List of Charly's Gifts and Talents

Charly and I are taking a marriage class at Church. It's really fun. This week we decided to take some advice from the class and list each others talents and gifts. We are starting off with 5. We will update this as we go.

1. Charly is supportive. This is something I learned about her just recently and I love it about her.

2. Charly is great at dance and great at teaching it.

3. Charly is an amazing writer. I love everything she has ever written.

4. Charly is loving. Not just with me but with everyone she knows. She cares about people.

5. Charly is a great wife! I'm serious. Other men should be really jealous of me.

A List of Ben's Gifts and Talents

This will not be comprehensive or the list will never end. I'm serious; my husband does EVERYTHING. I've never met anyone so talented. 

1. Patience. Benjamin has this gift as no one else I know. There have been many times since we've gotten married when Ben has needed to patient with me. Those times come mostly when things don't go according to my plan and I get grumpy. Those are the times when, even though I don't show it, that I am most grateful for Ben and his patience with me. Our relationship thrives on his patience. 

2. Believing. Ben has a talent for helping others believe in themselves.  

3. Learning. Ben has the gift of learning. I attribute this in part to his home schooling and the way his mother taught him to learn. He isn't afraid to try new things, he is observant enough to pick up the tricks of how to do things, and he is just naturally good at new things. 

4. Love. Ben has the gift of love. He is always serving, always looking for ways to help others. There are so many times when I catch him thinking of others, especially his family, before himself and I don't think he even realizes it. 

5. Everything. This one might be cheating, but Ben seems to have the talent of being talented at everything. This probably is due to his ability to learn and his fearlessness in trying new things. If you know Ben, you know that Ben also really gets into things. He goes through phases, but during his "piano phase," he does piano all the time. When he goes through his "art phase," art is all he does. 

Two Dates for Me, One Date for Charly

Just kidding. It was really only one date but it was almost two. Here's the story:

"Thanks bishop!" I said as Charly and I walked back towards our apartment. The day hadn't been going so well even with the bishop's help. Charly had bought tickets to an improve show at BYU but we had missed it because our car Toothless had broken down. The bishop had gotten Toothless started, and back to our apartment, but it took quite a while.

"Well that was an interesting date," I said to Charly. I knew she didn't consider it a date and I was just joking when I said it.

"That wasn't a date," She said gloomily. We entered the apartment.

I knew Charly was frustrated because I can always tell. She was mad that she had paid for the tickets and we couldn't go, she was mad that we hadn't really had a date, and she was frustrated with the car.

You have to understand. Dating is REALLY important to Charly. She hates not having a real date on date night. A couple weeks ago I had been sick and so we hadn't gone on a date. We hadn't been on very many "actual" dates in a while. When Charly gets frustrated like this sometimes it just makes me want to leave the room, or just listen to music, or do something where we don't really have contact. I know she isn't mad at me but I don't like to see her frustrated and sometimes, I don't know what to do. I really just wanted to go lay down in bed, and go to sleep.

At that moment I knew that I needed to talk with her though. I don't know if it was the Spirit that told me, but I knew. I didn't want to. I still wanted to go to bed. But in my mind I thought, "Am I going to invest into this relationship or walk away? If I choose to walk away and avoid the tension now, how many other times will that happen?" I walked up to Charly, sat down, faced her, and said, "Talk to me."

She turned to me, lip quivering, and let everything out. She told me all of her frustrations of the day, how she felt about each one, how hard it was for her to not be able to go on an actual date.

I just listened.

Somewhere along the conversation we both ended up crying and hugging each other. It was a very spiritual moment. We both told each other how important the other was to us. I felt so good and I could tell Charly felt better as well. We ended up going to get some ice cream and seeing a movie together after, so we still got to have our date.

This is a very special story for me and the reason I'm sharing it is because I want everyone to know that in every relationship, you have to make a choice of whether or not you are going to invest in that relationship. If that person is your spouse you should always invest, whatever it takes. It might not be what you want to do at the time but you need to do it. I'm not perfect, not by a long shot, but I am 100% invested in my relationship with Charly. I will always choose to invest in her. I know because I chose to now.

This is Not a Date.

Friday night is my favorite, because it is date night.And I am very pro-dating. 

Now, if you know me, you know that my definition of dating is different than most anyone else. It has to fit all the criteria for a date--planned for as a date, paid for by one person, and paired off.  On top of that, though, a date is only a date if it feels like a date. 

Lately, because of school and being sick and other obstacles, our date nights haven't exactly met my "date criteria." Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with Ben and, since we pretty much everything together just as a couple, we go on a lot of dates, in Ben's definition of a date. I was excited for our date this week, though, and had it planned out flawlessly. 

While I was at school in the morning, I stopped to buy tickets for BYU's Humor U performance that night. That's when everything started going wrong. 

Our one and only car wouldn't start for me after class. I just walked the hour and a half home. Then Ben got home late from work. That, on top of our need to figure out the car (as well as a paper that Ben needed to write for school) meant that we missed our already-paid-for-show. We spent the early evening with our Bishop, trying to get the car to start. 

We finally got it to start and drove home. On the way, Ben remarked, "Well, this was an interesting date." 

"This isn't a date." It had been a hard, stressful day for me and I was very disappointed that our date was, once again, turning into what I considered to not be a date. 

Luckily, we had a gift card to Coldstones Creamery. When we got home, I asked Ben if we could go  out for ice cream. He, of course, agreed. The Coldstones we ended up going to was in the same parking lot as the Provo dollar theater. Before we went inside, we noticed that Monster University was playing in the dollar theater. Neither of us had seen it yet, but we both wanted to, so we went to the 10:30 showing, getting a discount with our student ID's.

It started off as a really awful date for me. Nothing had been gong the way I had planned and I was frustrated. Things turned out perfectly, though, and it was a really great date night. I love my husband. He's not a huge planner and he and I might not agree on the definition of a date. When it's really important, though, Benjamin is so sweet. 

When I got married, I thought it was important to have a husband who would take me dancing and sing me songs on the guitar and plan romantic, fun dates. Those things are nice. I still enjoy listening to Ben play guitar, I love dancing whit him, and I wouldn't mind if he planned more dates. That's not what actually matters, though. 

It matters when I'm upset and he just holds me. 
It's important to me that he takes the lead in finding a way to fix, say, the car. 
I'm so grateful for his patience with me when I'm grumpy that something didn't work out. 
It is perfect that he doesn't get frustrated or stressed like I do. 
It's the little moments in everyday life that are important. And let me tell you, singing romantic songs on the guitar isn't what it's all about.  

My Favorite Picture of Charly

This is my favorite picture of Charly because it reminds me of before Charly and I were even dating. I remember looking at this picture and just thinking how beautiful Charly is. I wanted so bad to go on a date with her.

I'm such a lucky guy.

My Favorite Picture of Benjamin

Adorable. My husband is adorable. 

When I Was Oblivious to Charly's Signals that She Wanted Me to Hold Her Hand.

I'm just an oblivious sort of guy. I know there were many times where Charly wanted me to hold her hand but I didn't. She probably gave me some sort of signal as well. I know all the signals now because she has told them to me. Before though, I had no clue.

I remember one night when we were at Charly's house and we were watching Robin Hood. During the movie I really wanted to kiss her. I don't think we were even dating at the time yet but I sure wanted to kiss her. I didn't though.

I remember another time when Charly and I were at the temple and I was showing her something on my iPod. She was holding the iPod so I used that as an excuse to put my hand under the hand she was using to hold the iPod. It was a small moment to everyone else but it was huge for me.

You see, I take any sort of physical statement very seriously. I feel that holding hands is something you should only do if you really like somebody. I know everyone will have different views on this but the fact is that most girls take physical attention as a sign of love and guys don't usually see it the same. There are exceptions to this but many times this is true. I think that men need to be careful. They might lead a girl on without even meaning to just because they don't see things the same way.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm actually a very physical person once I feel like I'm committed to a relationship but before that I'm very careful. I don't know if this is the best way to be while dating but it's the way I chose to be.

I know this was very frustrating for Charly but I didn't know this at the time... well, mostly. Charly has always been very patient with me and I love that about her. I know it drives her crazy sometimes. I guess when it comes to love crazy can be a good thing.

When I Couldn't Get Ben to Hold my Hand ...

Ben and I went on our first date January 2011. 
We didn't start exclusively dating until January 2012. 
In that year, we didn't kiss. We didn't hold hands. 
The most I got out of Ben was an arm around my shoulder while we took a picture. 
It was a really long year for me. 

This is the picture with his arm around me.

In October of 2011, about eight months after our first date, I started to get a little impatient with how slowly Benjamin was moving. I liked him a lot. And I mean, A LOT. And I knew he liked me. That was about the time we both started being more obvious about our feelings for each other. But I couldn't understand, if Ben liked me as much as I knew he did, why he didn't make any moves. 

I really wanted Ben to hold my hand. I knew he was careful with his kisses and I didn't expect him to kiss me for a long time. But holding my hand, I thought that was a reasonable expectation. 

Now, normally I didn't have any qualms about holding a guy's hand first. With Ben, though, I was so nervous. I couldn't make myself do it, for whatever reason. 

So, I started hinting. At first, I was subtle. When that didn't work, my hints slowly grew more obvious. Every single time we went out, we would sit close to each other. So close that our legs would be touching. Our hands would be sitting right next to each other. 

But Ben never held my hand. I couldn't understand it. 

Then we started dating exclusively. It was wonderful and exciting and I couldn't have been happier. But he still didn't hold my hand. My family teased me mercilessly when they found that out. 

When I saw him next, we were watching a movie. We were sitting in our normal position, sitting close enough to be touching, both our hands free and sitting next to each other. I sat there, once again wanting to reach for his hand but feeling nervous. Then I thought, "This is ridiculous, we're dating. I can hold hands with my boyfriend." So I did. And later that night, he kissed me. 

It was a great weekend for me. Later, when talking about this situation, Ben told me that he hadn't held my hand because it just hadn't occurred to him. He had wanted to kiss me several times before that, but holding hands wasn't as big of a deal to him as it was to me. Now we look back and laugh at it. 

Meeting my Favorite Author with Charly

About two weeks ago Charly and I were in Barnes and Noble (surprise right?) and we notice that they had a sign up announcing a book signing with Brandon Sanderson.

Both Charly and I LOVE Brandon Sanderson and pretty much all of his books. We were bound and determined to go to the signing and meet him.

Unfortunately the night of the signing I had classes, a pretty hard assignment, and a meeting with the Dean of UVU sooooooo.... yeah. I figured that at least Charly could go and get the books signed for me. I was pretty down about it though.

That night, after my meeting with the Dean, and during my last class Charly messaged me and told me that she was still in line at the store and that she needed me to come pick her up. After reading the message I looked up at my teacher, who was going on about assembly language, and I decided that I was going to leave class early so that I could meet Brandon Sanderson.

It was pretty awesome for me actually because by the time I got there Charly was like the 8th person in line. We had gotten special bands earlier marking our spot in line so I was able to walk right up and start the line where Charly was! The first thing I noticed is that Brandon Sanderson was very polite and kind to everyone in line. The thanked them for waiting and always took time to talk with them. He would even ask them if they had any questions about any of his books. Needless to say, I was impressed.


When Charly and I got to him he signed the book that we were buying that day, and all of the other books that we had by him. He let us take a picture with him and thanked us for coming. Yeah, I know his eyes are closed. Of course he managed to blink... oh well..  Both Charly and I were super excited. It was a great night and I'm so glad I skipped class to go!

The Day We Met Brandon Sanderson (Our Favorite Author)

Once, about a month ago, Ben and I were (of course) at Barnes and Noble. While there, we saw a poster announcing a book signing with Brandon Sanderson for his newest release, Steelheart. Now, in case you don't know, Benjamin and I love Brandon Sanderson. 

We. Love. Brandon. Sanderson. 

We've read all his books.

We own almost all of his books. 

We've watched his lecture series on YouTube. 

When we were dating, his books were one of the many things that brought us together. 

We really, really love Brandon Sanderson. 

While we were at it, we had to buy a nice, hard copy of 

The Way of Kings for Brandon Sanderson to sign. 

So, we marked the day on our calendar and decided that even if we had to take work off or miss class (at the time, both our schedules were up in the air), that we would make sure we were there. 

The day approached. It was on Tuesday from 5:00 to 8:00. Sure enough, with how busy our schedules are, we both had conflicts. I had class until 5:30 and then I had work until 6:00. I was already planning on asking for work off because the SFLSA opening social was that same day from 6:00 to 7:30, which I wanted to attend. Ben had a class from 7:00-8:30. 

When I looked online to double check the time, hoping maybe we could work it out with our schedules, I saw that they were handing out wristbands on Monday morning starting at 9 AM. That was just awful timing for us, because Ben would be at work all day and I would be in class. 

We decided that night to stop by just to see if they had any wristbands left. They had plenty. We were 132 and 133 in line and we got the 94th copy of the book. 

We had decided it would be worth it to just to skip out on our other obligations to meet Brandon Sanderson. Then Ben remembered that he had a meeting with the Dean of the school as part of his responsibilities as the student rep for UVU's computer science department. It was at 6:00. Of course. 

I didn't want to miss it but I definitely did not want to go alone. I dragged my friend Janessa with me. It was crazy. There were quite a few people there and we had to wait for our number to be called out to pick up our copy of the book. Then we got to stand in line. For, practically forever. 

At 7:00, Janessa had to leave for a class. I waited in line for about an hour by myself. I made friends with the two girls in front of me--one of them is leaving in December to Charlotte, North Carolina! Ben and I were talking back and forth the whole time on Facebook and I convinced him to leave his class early to try to get to the store before I reached Brandon Sanderson. 

It was so close. I had probably five people in front of me when Ben arrived. It was close enough to make me sweat. Ben got there in time though, and we were even able to get a picture with our favorite author! 

Here we are, with Brandon Sanderson! 

Pear Picking Pair! (I'm the best at pear jokes)

Oooooh boy am I cutting this blog post close. It's 11:33 pm and I'm just starting. Luckily for you guys this one should be short and pear sweet.

Charly and I went to got pick some pears last Saturday because Charly wants to make fruit leather out of them... can you even make fruit leather out of pairs?

Anywho, it was pretty fun adventure. When we got there most of the pears near the ground were small and not very ripe so I volunteered to climb the tree and try to grab some of the better one higher up. Have you ever climbed a pear tree? DON'T. Anyway, after getting attacked by evil branches and giant spiders I managed to escape with a few pears.

I did manage to make a funny joke though. While I was up in the tree I grabbed a two pears and handed them to Charly.

"Here is a pair," I said in my silly voice.

Charly just rolled her eyes at me but she clearly thought it was funny. I can always tell.

A Pear Picking Pair

When my grandpa first moved to Utah years and years ago, he built his house on a half acre lot. This lot is now filled with fruit trees and grape vines and berry bushes. My uncle lives there now, but he doesn't pick all of the fruit. This means that all of the relatives are welcome to pick any of the fruit they want. 

That is how Ben and I, as relatives of my uncle, ended up picking pears all of Saturday afternoon. 

I wanted to make fruit leather out of it. Ben wasn't so sure about that. This made him a little hesitant to put homework time towards picking pears. He was a good husband, though, and good-naturedly came along to help. 

Between the rotten fruit splattered on the ground, the spiders we found living on more than one pear, and the number of times Ben inadvertently dropped a pear on my head, we made out okay. We left with two bags full of pears, four peaches, and quite a few walnuts (these we gathered straight off the ground and cracked open using the inside edge of our can opener). Before we left, we found a few small handfuls of the remaining blackberries from the blackberry bush. 

It was a fun, productive day. I cannot wait until we have our own little house with a yard full of fresh produce!

Charly in One Word

Charly is determined.

"having made a firm decision and being resolved not to change it." - Google

I chose this word to describe Charly because it is the word that stands out to me most. Charly doesn't give up. She stands strong for what she believes. If there is something that needs to be done she will work until it gets done. If something isn't working out for her she will try multiple different ways of trying to get it to work. I see this as a glimpse of her faith.

One time on my mission I asked an investigator what the word "faith" meant to them. The investigator said, "faith was never giving up."

Charly is determined and she has that kind of faith.

Benjamin in Only 1 Word

Patient.

If you know Benjamin at all, you will understand why I chose this word. For Ben, being patient is more than something he simply does; patience is something he is. When he drives, when he talks, when he helps me with my math homework--Ben is patient. This is one of the biggest differences in our personalities and I am constantly striving to be more like him in this area. It's one of the first things I noticed about him and continues to be one of my favorite things about my husband.

The Things Charly Does to Keep Our Relationship Strong

I think the title explains this post pretty well. These aren't in any specific order. I just wrote each one as I thought of it.

1. Charly loves me.

I know because she tells me and  because she serves me and puts up with me.

2. She works hard.

She is always doing something whether it's school, cleaning the house, or working her part time job. She is a hard worker and she is always busy.

3. She spends as much time with me as she can.

Sometimes it's hard with school and work and all of the things we are doing but she always makes time for me. Even if all we do is watch a doctor who episode during lunch, we make sure to spend time together every day.

4. She listens to me.

Let's be honest... I talk a lot. Sometimes I talk about things that I know that Charly really isn't interested in, like math or programming, but she still listens.

5. She shares her feelings with me.

I'm very grateful that she tells me how she is feeling. I know I'm not the best yet when it comes to validating and empathizing but it makes me feel like I'm part of Charly's life when she shares her frustrations, joys, and other feelings with me.

6. She feeds me.

Yup. I'm a guy. I need food. I try to help with preparing the food, even if I just get out the dishes or clean them after but lets be honest, she is a much better cook.

7. She lets me hold her hand almost all of the time.

8. Sometimes she kisses me first.

Let me tell you. I'm pretty lucky. Sometimes I get kisses when I'm not expecting them and I love that about Charly.

9. She helps me make sure that we read our scriptures and say our prayers together every night.

10. She goes on dates with me every week.

I think this one is one of the most important ones. It's up there with spending time together. We always have fun on our dates even when they only consist of buying a couple books at Barnes and Noble.

I remember every day how lucky I am to have Charly as my wife. I'm so glad that I chose to ask her to marry me and that she chose to say yes.

How to Make a Marriage Work

My Grandma Pat died when I was very young. At her funeral, they read a few excerpts from her journal. My Grandma Sue, the woman my Grandpa ended up remarrying, was at the funeral and heard as they read the words, "Arno knew how to make a marriage work," straight from my grandmother's everyday journal.

That is my Grandpa Sue's favorite lessons for the  grandchildren--that my grandfather knows how to make a marriage work and why.

Benjamin, too, knows how to make a marriage work. This is a list of some of those ways.

1. Ben is patient with me. Even when I am grumpy or talkative or irritated or excited.

2. Ben does all the little things still--things like opening the door or putting his arm around me in church.

3. Ben does the dishes while I'm at work and offers to help with dinner.

4. Ben will do things for me even when it isn't necessarily the thing he wants to be doing. He goes grocery shopping and helps me with math homework late at night and drives me to dance.

5. Ben never treats me poorly. He never says anything to me or about me that would indicate a poor opinion of me. Ben lets me know that he thinks I am wonderful and that I can be wonderful.

6. Ben snuggles with me in the mornings when we wake up. I don't know if every healthy marriage needs this, but it sure helps ours.

7. Ben is thoughtful enough to think of my needs. He will carry heavy things, unload the car, and give up his jacket in the cold for me. I never even have to ask.

8. Ben makes me laugh. It is my personal opinion that not every person in the world needs to marry someone funny. What I think they do all need is to marry someone they can laugh with. Our marriage is so much the better for the daily laughter Benjamin brings into it.

9. Ben never lets me wonder if he loves me or misses me or thinks I am beautiful. He will text me, call me, message me on Facebook, leave me notes. It's the last thing he tells me before we fall asleep at night and often the first thing he says when he wakes up.

10. Ben loves the Lord. He makes sure we make it to church every week. He leads me in scripture study and remembers to pray more often than I do. He holds my hand every night as we kneel in couple prayer. Benjamin has a wonderful, strong testimony and that testimony makes our marriage so much the better.

I'm a Genius Math Teacher

I'm sure my family will relate well with this post... Especially Donovan. Too bad he is on his mission and won't get to read this post for a while, oh well.

Thursday I had my Computer Architecture class. During class the teacher taught us about binary math, different bases, and twos compliment.

The entire class was review for me. It was boring. So boring in fact that when I got home from class I started to rant to Charly.

Now you should know that Charly doesn't like math. She doesn't hate it, but she doesn't love it either.

I love math.

When I told Charly about binary math and the different base system she was a little curious; at least, she seemed curious to me. Our conversation went something like this:

"Do you remember place value?" I asked.

"Not really," She answered.

"It's like, you have the ones place, and the tens place, and the one hundreds place, and..."

"Oh yeah, I remember now," She added quickly.

"Well our number system is in a base TEN. If you notice when we get to the number ten we actually don't have a symbol for it. We write a ONE in the tens place and then put a ZERO in the ones place. That represents TEN," I said excitedly. I'm telling you, this is going to sound very familiar to most my family.

"Wow," Charly said, "That is so cool! You should show me what it would be like if our number system was base FOUR!"

Okay, lets be honest... That's not actually what Charly said. That just must be what it sounded like to me... because I started explaining how base four worked. What she actually said was:

"Imagine if we used base four."

Anyway, to make a long story short. Charly got a very thorough math lesson on bases and binary even if she might not have actually wanted it. She will be grateful later though if she needs help in the college math class she is taking this semester.

Math for Breakfast

Thursday morning, I was minding my own business and eating waffles for breakfast. Waffles are my new favorite thing to eat. I was sitting at the counter and Ben was at the table on his computer. Ben is a computer science major and was working on homework.

He was talking out loud about what he was working on. My knowledge of computer science being basically nonexistent, I had no clue what he was talking about. I told Benjamin as much and he explained in simpler terms. I accepted his explanation without further question. Ben, however, didn't seem content with the simple fix to my ignorance on the subject.

"Do you know anything about bases?" Ben asked me, walking to join me at the counter. 

"Mmm ... I don't know," I said. 

"Do you know what place values are?" He asked. 

"Maybe," I said with a shrug. "I don't remember." 

Ben grabbed the nearest piece of paper and started writing out 1, 10, 100, 1000. "So this," he said, pointing to his paper, "would be the ones place, the tens place, the--" 

"Oh!" I said, cutting him off and feeling a little silly for not knowing what he had been talking about before. "Yeah, yeah, I know. I just didn't realize that's what you were talking about when you said it." 

Ben nodded. "So we use a base ten." He then explained what using a base ten meant. It seemed pretty familiar to me; I think we probably learned about it in math when I was in high school. After he'd finished his explanation to me, I felt very content with the extent of my math lesson. 

"Can you imagine if we had to use a base four?" I asked rhetorically. I thought it was a good comment to end with. 

"Let's try it," Ben said. Without waiting for my inevitable protest, he grabbed the piece of paper again. He wrote it out and explained how to figure everything out. We then spent a few minutes writing out different numbers with a base of four. 

Then Ben said, "Now, what if we had a base 2?" 

I groaned. Ben smiled. He wrote it all out and we figured out how you would write different numbers in this base too. 

"This is binary math," he explained excitedly. "It's what computers use." 

At the end of my math lesson, Ben said reassuringly, "Don't worry, I've done this to lots of people--my mom, Melissa, Dalin ..." The list went on and on. 

I suppose that's what I get for marrying a nerd. At least he'll be rich, right? 

Our First Date, The Spark, and Green Eggs and Ham

The short version of the back story:

As you might have read in our last post. When Charly and I went on our first date she didn't think that she would like me.

I had a huge crush on Charly and so I did what any normal person would do when they have a crush on someone. I Facebook stalked her... The only problem was I had no clue how to Facebook stalk anyone. I was just off my mission and really hadn't used Facebook before. I'm sure you will get Charly's end of that story but needless to say, I thought I was being super sneaky.

To ask Charly out I asked Jeremy (her cousin and my best friend) to get her phone number for me. I figured that would be better than asking for it on Facebook. I was living up in Ogden and didn't get a chance to see her very often.

Jeremy and I planned the date together. It was going to be a double date but Jeremy new that I liked Charly and so we were going to do something that we new she would like. We both new that she liked to write and so we wanted to do something with a story to it. We decided on a puppet show.

I'm not sure why but we decided to do Green Eggs and Ham. Yup.

For the puppets in the show we got popsicle sticks and glued pictures on them. When we were looking at buying the popsicle sticks at Wal-Mart they were super expensive.

"We should just buy some popsicles and eat them. It would be cheaper than buying the sticks," I said jokingly.

"That's a good idea," Jeremy said.

So we went and bought some popsicles. We had to eat quite a few popsicles in order to get enough sticks.

The pictures  that we put on them were just random images from Google and so the were all really different from each other, but they all went to the story.

The Date:

We picked Charly up and then went to get Jeremy's date. Charly looked super cute when we picked her up and I was already feeling nervous. I'm good at hiding my feelings though and I don't think anyone noticed.

Once everyone was loaded up we went to Jeremy's house for the show. Charly seemed quiet and, sad to say, not very interested in me at first. You can usually tell if a girl likes you if she laughs at your jokes. She wasn't really laughing at my jokes. I wasn't going to give up yet though.

Jeremy and I had set up some chairs and draped a blanket over them for the show. We sat the girls down and then went behind the blanket. I was the voice of the grumpy guy that didn't want to eat green eggs and ham and Jeremy was the voice of the other guy.

"Will you eat it on a train?" Jeremy asked.

"I will not eat it in a train." I replied in the grumpiest voice I could manage.

"Will you eat it in a car?" Jeremy asked.

I looked up to see a picture of an Ferrari, "I would in that car!" I answered. Completely ignoring my script. It worked though, everyone laughed, even Charly.

Sometime during the date Jeremy's little sister Brynndi got home and when she saw me she ran up to me and gave me a hug. I picked her up and hugged her back. I didn't know this at the time, but I found out later that that is when Charly decided I wasn't so bad.

Note to self: I soo owe Brynndi.

The rest of the date was super fun. Charly and I seemed to be getting more comfortable with each other and we were both laughing a lot.

We took pictures and made more puppets by dying socks and then putting buttons and yarn on them. Soon we had to take Jeremy's date home though so we all loaded up in the car again.

This part of the date is the part that I still think is crazy. When we got in the car Charly sat next to me in the back and I felt it for the first time. I felt that spark that everyone always talks about. It's going to sound silly to you because the only thing that was touching was OUR SHOULDERS. No big deal right? Wrong. I felt more electricity in that simple touch then I had ever felt with anyone else. Later Charly and I would talk about that moment and she would surprise me by saying that SHE FELT THE SAME. We were just touching shoulders...

Charly stayed longer after Jeremy's date had left. We watched some show at Jeremy's but all I remember was that I was sitting next to her and I didn't want her to leave.