Dear Benjamin,

I hope you know that you are my whole world; you mean everything to me. I am so glad to be married to you. 

Thank you for doing the dishes when I don't. 

Thank you for driving me to dance when I didn't have my glasses. 

Thank you for making such an effort to make date night special. 

Thank you for getting Subway for me that one day. 

Thank you for making me oatmeal in the mornings. 

I know I don't always do the best at showing you that I notice and appreciate the effort you put into our marriage. I want you to know that I do notice. I know that you are committed to us and I want to show you always that I am too. I will love you forever. 

Thank you for being so patient with me, all the time. You always treat me like I'm the best thing that ever happened to you. I love you so much for it. 

Love Eternally, 
Charly 

Benjamin's Birthday Cake. Ahem. Sort of.

Every year for Ben's birthday, he has his mom make Angel Food Cake. It's his favorite cake. This last week, I was asking him what he wanted me to make for his birthday dinner. 

"I don't care what we have for dinner," Ben said. "But I do love Angel Food cake ..." It was not a subtle hint at all. If you have any background knowledge of my cooking skills, you'll know why I was more than a little nervous for that particular request. 

The morning of his birthday, we both had to leave for class around the same time. I got home around eleven in the morning, the house empty. I pulled out my mom's recipe for the first time and felt my stomach sink. 

I didn't have cake flour. 

Or cream of tartar. 

Or a tube pan. 

I thought maybe I could do it without those, but I wanted to wait and ask my mom. I decorated our kitchen with streamers and blew up 174 balloons (hours of entertainment for Benjamin) until my mom was home from work. I called her and told her my dilemma. 

"So, can I make it without those?" I asked. 

"Well, I'm afraid not," she said. "Definitely not without the right pan, or cream of tartar. You might be able to get away with using something other than cake flour, but it just won't work as well." 

"Okay," I said, my heart sinking. What was I going to do? I really wanted to make the cake, since it was Benjamin's favorite. Plus, I'd already bought candles for it. "I'll see what I can do." 

After my mom wished me luck, I hung up and decided to head to Wal Mart--despite my time limitations and the floods of rain that were coming down outside. 

I went to the pan section first. I found a round pan, with a bottom that came out. I wasn't sure if it was the right one, but I couldn't see any others that might work. Unfortunately, I had left my phone at home so I couldn't call my mom to make sure i was right. If you know anything about Angel Food cakes, you know how this is going to end. 

I finished my shopping and hurried home. I started mixing the cake, following the recipe exactly. I was very worried I was going to mess something up and was being very careful not to do so. There was one part of the recipe I wasn't quite sure of, so I called my mom. While I already had her on the phone, I told her the kind of pan I had gotten. 

"That'll work, right?" I said. I expected her to assure me it would. 

She told me it wouldn't. I guess because the cake batter is made up primarily of egg whites and sugar, the cake can't support itself in the middle while it's baking. That's why angel food cake pans have a smooth tube in the center and the batter cooks itself around it. 

Well, I was determined to make this cake, especially since I'd already started to. Realizing that Wal Mart hadn't had what I needed, I decided to go door to door on our street trying to find a pan I could borrow. We have plenty of older ladies in the ward and I figured somebody had to have them. I went to four different houses with no luck; the fourth house, though, the lady introduced herself as Shelby. She told me that she did not have one, but she knew her mother, the bishop's wife, had one. 

It was a miracle. Except that her mother wasn't home; she was at parent-teacher-conferences, as a teacher. Shelby took me over there and looked everywhere she could think. Her 8-year-old son was with us and was convinced that "Papa" would know where to look. He ran and got the Bishop, who had no idea what a tube pan even was. 

To make a long story short, I went home without a pan, my time before Benjamin got home dwindling. Still wondering what in the world I was going to do, I looked up online if there were ways to make an angel food cake in a different pan. And I found one! 

Following the instructions, I emptied a can of peaches and washed it out. Then I took some shortening and spread it on the bottom of the can to seal it to the middle of my pan. It made an interesting makeshift pan. I then poured the batter into the pan and put it in the oven with a sigh of relief. I thought my cake nightmare was over. 

THEN, about five minutes after putting it in the oven, I smell burning. I open the oven and the cake batter is DRIPPING OUT OF THE BOTTOM OF MY BRAND NEW PAN. I wanted to cry. I pulled the pan out and tried to scrape the burnt cake off the bottom of my oven. It was too late, of course, to stop the burnt smell from filling my entire house. 

I didn't really know how to fix the pan, so I set it on a cookie sheet and put the cake back into the oven to finish cooking. When it was done, I took it out and flipped the whole pan upside down (exactly how you are supposed to). As soon as it was upside down, the entire bottom of the pan decided to come apart from the rest of the pan and flop onto the counter, cake first. 

At this point, I was so done with the cake. I didn't even try to get the bottom (which, by the way, was covered in melted shortening from my "sealed can") of the cake off the pan. I set the entire pan bottom on a plate and stuck the candles in that. 

Ben got home and the first words out of my mouth were, "You do not know what I went through to make you this cake today."

It was worth it. We ate the entire top of the cake off. And it was delicious. 

"Welcome to Aeropostale!"

About a month before Ben and I started to officially and exclusively date each other, we met up at the Gateway to spend the day together. We spent the first part of the date playing silly games and eating lunch at Tucanos. Then we started going store to store, talking and laughing and having fun doing absolutely nothing. 

We were in Hollister, sitting in the big, poufy arm chairs in the front of thei store when Ben had the brilliant idea to start welcoming people as they entered. I agreed, though I was more self-conscious about it than he was. 

Then Ben had even more of a brilliant idea. 

"Charly, let's walk down and find another store to do this at!" He was very excited. 

"Okay," I agreed, more because of the funny looks we were getting at Hollister than out of actual desire to do it. 

As we walked along the stores, looking for the perfect one, Ben got me more excited about the idea. We decided on Aeropostale, but we wanted to be more legit than before. We walked into the store, right up to the cashier. 

"We were wondering if we could talk to your manager?" Benjamin asked, in his most polite voice. The cashier disappeared for a moment, then reappeared with a professional looking lady close behind her. 

I tried to keep a straight face as Ben explained to the manager what it was we wanted to do. "We are here today doing service, for the Christmas season, as we were wondering if we could stand in front of your store as volunteer door greeters?" I wondered if he had thought this speech out beforehand or if he was just making it up on the spot. I couldn't tell. 

The manager got almost as excited about it as Benjamin, after her initial surprise. She was happy to let us do it. 

We stood there for probably half hour. Every customer who came in recieved a "Welcome to Aeropostale!" from either Ben or I, and everyone who went out left with "Happy holidays!" or "Thanks for coming in!" trailing behind them. 

We were so legit, too. There were customers passing by who asked us about sales going on or if the store carried certain items. It was a fun activity to do together; we still look back at it with laughter. 

I can always count on Benjamin to come up with an activity that I am both embarrassed by and love at the same time. That's what husbands are for, I suppose. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.