The Moment I Decided to Marry Charly

I remember exactly what I was doing the day I decided to marry Charly.

Charly and I had been talking again through Facebook, texting, and even Skype. She had sent me a book that told the story of the things she had been doing since our breakup.

I was at my sister Melissa's house and I was reading the book she sent me. Something about the book captivated me. I couldn't put it down. I read it from start to finish with almost no interruptions. The book made me realize how much I missed Charly and even how much she had grown. I felt the Spirit very strongly and I knew that I wanted to marry her.

That night I prayed about it.

"Dear Father in Heaven," I started, "I want to marry Charly. What do ya say?"

After asking the question I was filled with a sense of peace and I knew that Charly was a great choice for me and that God approved. I could almost imagine Him saying, "Go for it Ben!"

It was a special moment for me and I will never forget it. I know without a shadow of a doubt that Charly and I will have a happy marriage and that I made the right choice when I decided to marry her. It won't always be easy but it will always be worth it and I know that as long as we choose, God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost will help us in our lives and marriage.

Half an Angel Food Cake and Balloon Surfing

My favorite dessert? desert?.. is angel food cake. I usually ask for it for my birthday.

Charly has never made an angel food cake before and she decided to make it for me for my birthday. Now if you want to hear the more interesting side of this story you better go read Charly's blog because she had quite the adventure.

Now my side of the story is that when I got home from doing eight hours of physics homework there was angel food cake, and a super cute wife waiting for me.

The cake was a little interesting to look at. There was a little bit of candle wax melted into it, and the entire bottom half of the cake was... unique... BUT the top part of the cake tasted great and I loved it. It was perfect for me. I am super thankful to have a wife that thinks of me so much and works so hard to make me happy. I have so much to learn still and I have a good example to learn from.

One of the other things that I got to do was balloon surf. There were enough balloons to cover the entire floor and so I got on top of them. They held up my weight just fine. Charly thought I was crazy I'm sure but I loved it. Balloon surfing is fun.

Favorite Parts of Disneyland/California!

(These are not necessarily in order)

Charly and I were lucky enough to be able to spend the night in St. George with Quinn Balhorn's aunt and uncle. Their names are brother and sister Calder. We originally met them when our car broke down on our St. George trip to see the St. George temple. They are awesome people and it was fun to see them again and have breakfast with them.

Swimming in the ocean has got to be one of my favorites as well. The water was pretty cold but that made it fun walking out into the deeper water. I was nervous for sure the deeper we got... I have this issue with swimming in water that has creatures larger than me that can eat me... I did fine though and now I really want to try surfing.

I loved being able to stay with Kim and Dan's family. I know for a fact that Charly and I wouldn't have gone if it wasn't with them... in fact we probably shouldn't have gone anyway but we did and we had a blast!

The rides were great! Some of my favorites to go on were Soaring, Tower of Terror, Screaming, Indiana Jones, and Radiator Springs Racers. I also really enjoyed World of Color and the Aladdin show.

The last thing that I thought was really fun was the Animation Academy. It was just a simple little "how to draw" with some Disney characters but Charly really loved it and of course I loved it because I love art. I guess it was just really cool for me to see Charly take an interest in art because art is such a major part of my life. Charly did really well too! Here is a picture she drew of Mickey Mouse.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.