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.

Soap in a Bottle

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

It made my skin feel like rubber...

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

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

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

Drive-Thru Reception

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Girls love weddings; boys don't.

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

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

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

He got whacked for that one.

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

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

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

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

"What? No," I said. 

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

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

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

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

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