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 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. 

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 ... 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 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. 

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.  

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. 

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!

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.

Our First Date: When I accidentally forgot about Ben being a creepy Facebook stalker and fell in love with him instead.

After the night that Benjamin and I met (http://lovegogglesbc.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-first-spark-between-benjamin-and-me.html), I might have fallen in love with him. I might have, except for the fact that he turned into a creeper.

I'm not kidding.

He looked through all my pictures on Facebook. ALL of them.
All the way back to the ones from seventh grade.
And I knew about it, because he commented on half of them.
He liked everything I posted on Facebook. Everything. 
And then he would he would comment on it.
And try to start conversations about his mission and his family in the comments.
Ben was all over my Facebook.
He even friended my mom.
I was just like, Who are you? I don't even know you. 

Ben says he was being subtle.

Then came the time that he asked for my number. Ben didn't ask for it on Facebook, despite the fact that we were apparently best friends on there. Nope, he told my cousin (our mutual best friend) Jeremy to get it for him.

Jeremy called me up. He said, and I quote, "Hey, Ben wants to know if he can have your number, but he can't tell you why yet." He can't tell you why yet? What, is this some sort of mystery story? Like I don't already know why he wants my number.

Turns out, his "secret" reason for wanting my number was so he could text me on my birthday.

The week after Christmas break, I was back at work, vacuuming classrooms after school, when Jeremy called me. Our conversation went something like this:

"What're you doing on Friday?" Jeremy asked.

"Mmm ... Maybe babysitting. I don't have anything planned yet. Why?" I said.

"Just wondering." Jeremy said.

I waited, but Jeremy didn't elaborate. "What do you mean, just wondering?"

"Nothing. I was just wondering."

I didn't buy it. People don't just call other people up and ask what they're doing on a certain day simply because their curious. Especially when those people are me and Jeremy.

Before I could question him further, however, Jeremy hung up the phone. I was pretty sure I knew why he'd called. My suspicions were confirmed when, five minutes later, Ben called me.

He asked me to go with him on a date Friday night. I said yes, because I was trying to date a hundred guys and, creeper though he was, he did seem nice. I hung up thinking, We could probably end up pretty good friends.

Ben was late picking me up. When he came to the door, I was struck again with just how cute he was. I didn't let it get to me, however. There are plenty of attractive men in this world, but that doesn't mean you have to fall in love with them all.

For the date, we made sock puppets together. We had yarn and buttons, along with a package of new socks. At first, it was a little bit awkward. I didn't know what to say and Ben was (what I now know to be uncharacteristically) quiet. The awkwardness helped remind me that I did not want anything at all to happen between Ben and I.

Then Brynndi got home from school. Brynndi is Jeremy's little sister. She absolutely adores Benjamin, and Ben adores her right back. Brynndi walked through the door, saw Ben, and ran towards him. Ben held arms out for her and picked her up, swinging her. Both of them were laughing.

I watched and my heart melted to my toes. I had never seen anything more adorable in my life.

Soon after that, Ben and I started laughing together. We found food coloring and started dying our sock puppets. We spilled it all over the counter and couldn't get it to come off. For some reason, that was absolutely hilarious to us. Ben and I were laughing so hard together.

The boys had put together a little puppet show of Green Eggs and Ham for the girls. They performed it for us after we'd finished our sock puppets. It was very cute and they had us laughing our heads off.

We played a game, still laughing together, until Jeremy's date had to go home. We all loaded into the car. Because they had just picked up Brynndi, her car seat was still in the back. I climbed in, sitting in the middle seat. Ben slid in next to me, close enough that our arms touched.

I don't even know how to describe what happened. It felt like ... like when we kiss.

I know, I know, our arms touched. How romantic. Except, that it really was. It was like magic.

It was only ten o'clock and I didn't have a curfew, so I went back to Jeremy's house with the boys. We watched Psych until midnight, when they finally took me home.

I went home feeling on top of the world.

The First Spark Between Benjamin and Me

Jeremy's birthday is on November 19th. He held his eighteenth birthday party the next day, a Saturday. Aaaaaand, because he's Jeremy, he didn't tell me about his party until after I had already committed to babysit. 

But Jeremy's my best friend. In the whole world. I couldn't not go to his 18th birthday party. 

So, I told him I would be there late. And I was. I was there very late. 

It seemed that the forces were against me that night ... 
The couple I was babysitting for stayed out late. They didn't get home until after ten. 
When they did finally get home, we had to shovel my car out of the snow. Literally. 
I had to get gas. And almost crashed my car into a tree on the way. 
I hadn't wrapped Jeremy's present yet. So, I had to stop at home to do that. 
And I ended up battling a snow storm in the dark to get actually get to the party. I was terrified.

Before I left my house to drive to the party, I glanced in the bathroom mirror. My hair was in a falling-out, frazzled ponytail after my long, busy day. I had very little (as in, only mascara) make up on. I was wearing jeans and a green t-shirt I'd owned since seventh grade. It was one of my typical babysitting outfits. I thought, before rushing out the door, It's fine, my friends have all seen me worse than this. 

I got to the party, but the blizzard had scared away most of Jeremy's guests (meaning his friends, the ones who were also my friends) away. All that remained was his family and three people I had never met before. One was a girl, Jeremy's latest crush. One was Alex Hill, a junior in Jeremy's seminary class. And one was Benjamin Anderson. 

How in the world does Jeremy have a friend that attractive and I don't know him? I thought, when I first saw him. I didn't say anything, though; the combination of my shy nature and Ben's good looks was too much for words. 

The group was already playing a game when I got there. I quietly sat and watched, content simply that I had made it to the party. The game they were playing required three people to stand in the front of the room at a time. Ben was up when it happened. 

I looked up at Ben just as he glanced over at me. 
Our eyes caught. 
And, I felt it.
The spark. The one that everyone talks about. 
I felt it. 
And blushed, of course. 
And quickly dropped my gaze. 

We didn't talk that night, not really. But that night, I went home with a head full of Benjamin, dreaming. 

Dreaming of a love story with Benjamin Anderson. 

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words (My Favorite Picture of Ben and Me)

Ben and I decided we wanted to do a short and sweet post this week, since nothing particularly exciting or funny happened to us since we last posted (unless you count Benjamin pretending to be a dinosaur as he ate his broccoli at the restaurant on date night ...). 

This is my favorite picture of Benjamin and I.

I know, I know, it has someone else in it. But here's the thing. This is one of the first pictures Ben and I took together, back before we were even dating for the first time. Also, the guy on the left is my very best friend Jeremy, who is currently on a mission. 

After Jeremy left on his mission and while I was long-distance-dating Ben, I would look at this picture and it would break my heart, I missed them both so much.

But looking at this picture, that's when I knew where I always wanted to stay.

Right there, between Jeremy and Benjamin. Forever. 

Understanding Women 101

This is a story that demonstrates my progress with understand women. I feel like I'm coming along quite well compared to most men but I also know that I still have a ton to learn.

Saturday was Brynndi's baptism and it was super cool. I love going to baptisms because the Spirit is always very strong. After the baptism Charly and I went over to Brynndi's grandparent's house for some food. They had a chicken salad with tons of fruits.

I. Love. Fruit. Especially strawberries and they had all kinds of fruits including strawberries.

On my first helping of food Charly turned to me and asked, "Can we could eat dinner with my mom, Jon, and Luke at Olive Garden?"

"Sure," I said. I was actually pretty excited. I like spending time with Charly's family.

After finishing our first helpings Jon and I went to get more fruit. We both piled mounds of our favorite food onto our plates and walked back over to Charly.

Now at this point of the story we need to jump into Charly's mind. She is thinking, "I just told Ben that we are going to Olive Garden right after this. He needs to save some room for that." 

But what she said was,

"You know were going to Olive Garden right after this?"

Now lets look at my mind. I'm thinking, "Charly just barely told me that we are going to Olive Garden. Why is she telling me again? Oh well."

And what I say is,

"Yup. You told me that."

After this statement Charly just kind of laughed at me and went back to talking with some family. I, on the other hand kept wondering why she had told me we where going to Olive Garden when she knew that I already knew.

A few minutes later I realized what she was actually trying to tell me and I just started laughing. I don't even think that Charly realized, at the time, that I didn't know what she was saying.

If there is one thing I've learned about women it's that they don't always say what they mean. They sometimes say something else and hope that you'll catch the message.

It's really funny how different we are. Men and women are so different. We can sometimes act the same but we just aren't built the same but that is what makes marriage so much fun and so rewarding.

The Loaded Plates

On Saturday, Benjamin and I went to my cousin's baptism. My mom wanted to take us, along with my brother Jon, to Olive Garden for dinner while we were in town. I talked to Ben and Jon about the plan while we ate outside, making sure it was okay. Then I called my mother while the boys both disappeared into the house. 

"Hey mom," I said. "Do you still want to go to Olive Garden?" 

"Can Jon make it?" She asked. 

"Yeah, he says he doesn't have other plans." 

"What time would we be going?" My mom went to bed pretty early. I checked my iPod; it was a little before four. 

"We're leaving in just a minute, and then we can go. Does that work for you?" 

"Yeah, we'll see you in a bit." 

Just as I was hanging up the phone, Ben was coming out of the house, carrying a plate loaded with food. I gave him a look. 

"What?" he asked, popping a strawberry into his mouth. 

I gave him another look. "Did you know we're going to Olive Garden after this?

"Yep," he said, "I remember you saying something about going Olive Garden." He picked up a piece of watermelon and put it in his mouth. I rolled my eyes.

That's when I saw Jon coming towards us, also carrying a plate. It was loaded with chicken salad. 

I sighed. "I give up." 

My 10 Favorite Things About Benjamin

1. He loves me. And I thank Heavenly Father for him everyday.

2. He tries so hard to be a good husband, especially with the little things. For example, while both of us like our house to be clean, I'm the type of person who likes everything to have a spot, a place where it "goes." Ben isn't really like that at all. When we first got married, I would joke with Benjamin because he would forever be leaving his shoes all over the place. So, I would pick them up and put them in their "spot" in the spare room. When I joked with him, I was only kidding; it didn't actually bother me at all. I've caught him several times now, though, taking off his shoes and putting them in their "spot." He such a sweet husband because he does little things like that everyday.

3. Ben loves to just be close to me. The first few times Ben came over to give me a hug for no reason, I asked him "What? What do you want?" My family just isn't as touchy (if you want proof of that, go try to give my brother Jon a hug). It makes me feel so loved that Ben comes over to cuddle with me for a minute or to give me a hug, or just scoots closer so that our arms are touching before we fall asleep.

4. He lets me cry. I know this one may sound weird. It's not that I'm sad all the time, I just cry a lot. I am a very emotional person. I cry when I'm happy, I cry when I'm frustrated, I cry when I'm upset, I cry when I'm angry, I cry when I feel the spirit, I cry when I feel particularly blessed and thankful.  But Ben, as the sweet and caring husband he is, will just hold me until I'm done and then make me laugh. I cannot even tell you how much this means to me.

5. He takes people as they are. This is something that I noticed (and admired) right away in him, and I've always admired him for it. He doesn't judge people or criticize them for their differences and their flaws. He sees those things as them being them. He knows they can change, and helps them do so, but in the meantime, he simply lets them be themselves.

6. He works on improving his many talents. Do you understand how talented my husband is? He does everything--art, guitar, singing, violin, piano, programming, reading, writing, dancing, the Pokemon card game, riding a unicycle. Seriously. He does everything and I love that about him.

7. His jokes. They're ridiculous, every time. But everyday, without fail, he makes me laugh. Every single day.

8. He believes in people, but more importantly, he believes in me. And when you have someone believing in you in every day, it doesn't take long for you to start believing in yourself.

9. He serves others. He is better than me at seeing other people's needs and meeting them. He's such an example to me in this. It's one of the reasons I fell for him. I knew I was looking for something special in my (at the time, future) husband.This attitude that Ben possesses was one of those things.

10. All of these are just pieces of what makes Ben such a wonderful person and such a great husband. And I love all of that. But do you know what my absolute favorite thing about Benjamin is? He's my husband.