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. 

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.  

My Favorite Picture of Benjamin

Adorable. My husband is adorable.