Birthday Amazingness! annnnnd.....

So I know a lot of people are curious as to how Ben and I met and well ya you know our story:) I also know that my birthday was awesome and the best one yet!!! Well it was so fun!!!! We went to the Suns game this last saturday and got 3rd row seats! It was pretty dang cool to be so close you could see the sweat droplets forming on those basketball players! Hahaha a little nasty I guess but still! that is close!!!! I will be putting some pictures on here for sure of that! Maybe also telling a little more about it also!

I have REALLLY been wanting to write about how I met my baby though! It was really fast, met at 10:00 p.m. on memorial day(the 25th of may, a few days after his birthday and a week and a half after a good friends wedding I was in and caught the boquet!), went out spotlighting and falling in love until 6:00 a.m. with his sister and a good friend of ours, Getting engaged almost exactly a month later and then getting married almost exactly 2 moths after that!! So a lot of people have been curious as to where he even came from!! Well he came from a lovely place called Cornville, Arizona! Doesn't that sound cute??? Hehe it is cute and so is he! He moved up to Flafstaff again after his mission, he returned in July of 2008. Apparently he had been scoping me out for a while but thought I was a city slicker and I thought he was kind of a cocky and arrogant pretty city boy! Haha I was wrong!!!!!!! and so was he!

March 2009: I see Ben with his at the time girlfriend at institute vollyball night leaving the building behind his girlfriend, you can tell she is mad at something, I notice he is very respectful toward her and very nice, sadly though... She doesn't seem to appreciate it very much and doesn't really acknowledge he is being so sweet to her and continues to stomp out the door. I have a lot of sympathy for him because that was pretty much how any relationship I had ever been in was... the I realize I was actually having sympathy for ths guy that I had been told was a huge jerk! It made me think for a second but then forget it soon after.


April 2009: I see Ben yet again at another Institute activity.... Soccer! I was of course whoopin on the boys and having quite a bit of fun, Ben says I was flirting with everyone but I say I wasn't!! I was pretty bitter toward boys in general at the point in time so itwas nice to take out some anger out on some of them... ha! Ben got his share trust me! although I seemed to actually not want to hurt him... I wanted to spare him I guess... besides... his girlfriend was there again giving me the STTTINK eye!

1 week before meeting: I kept telling my mom how "that Ben Sandall guy" keeps popping into my head for some reason and I keep thinking maybe he isn't the guy I have heard that he is.

May: I finally have a day off of work and want to do something ALL day but everyone is busy and can't when I can, during this time my friend Ryan Jones sends a friendly text saying he is in cottonwood... hanging out with my favorite person.. Ben Sandall, He knew what I thought about Ben before and that my feelings toward him weren't necessarily pleasant one's. I let him know I actually had maybe been having a change of heart.... we talked for most of he day , while he was with Ben!, about how Ben was actually a really cool guy! This was even more interesting to me so then I presented a challenge.. almost like a little test for Ben, If he texted me, I'd give it a shot... maybe... if not well then I guess we never would have known! I wasn't really looking for anything, I hadn't really dated at all in over a year so I was definately not thinking about what anything could turn in to. Anyway! I told Ryan I had kicked Ben's bootay at soccer a few weeks prior and well he told Ben... Ben started talking back, I said well if he's gonna talk the talk then he needs to be a real man and say it to my face! Haha I'm such a little stinker....I know:) Well 2 minutes later I get a text from a random number.... guess who it was?? Ben! We ended up talking the rest of the afternoon.. texting I know... a tiny bit pathetic but it's okay! He sent me a picture of the sunset and well that was a big clue! If anyone knows me well they know that my phone is full! I mean packed, we are talking 300 pictures of nothing but sunsets! and this one was a very good one!! Ben, Ryan and Ben's sister Megan ended up coming to Flagstaff at 10 o' clock at night. We decided to go mud bogging/spotlighting. This was definately not something I was expecting out of this perfect clean looking man! I was so excited and ready!! I went with Ben in his truck which he opened the door for me!(1st plus!!) and Ryan and Megan went in Ryan's. We talked the whole time and I noticed that he seemed SOOO nervous and shy and that he was stumbling over his words! He could barely speak! He kept staring at me also so I of course was feeling even more shy! I felt like maybe there was something on my face? This was the first time I really got to see how truly amazing and sweet this guy was. He was nothing at all like what I had assumed and like what other people had said. It made me feel very bad because I have always been one to get to know someone or something for myself before making judgements with other's opinion's. During this time in the truck, I had the most powerful comforting and safe feeling, My husband was sitting right next to me. After talking and spotlighting for a while we went to Jack in the box and got smoothies and shakes, I love smoothies! (p.s!) after this (we did not want the night to end) we went to my parents house, where I was living at the time, and started to watch Get Smart. I fell asleep about 15 minutes into it and apparently everyone else had at some ppoint also. I noticed this at 4 a.m. when I woke up with mine and Ben's heads very gently resting on eachother's! Hahaha! We had been sitting by eachother but not touching, I think it startled Ben when I woke up, He noticed we had been that close and said," I' so sorry! I'm so so sorry, I'm so sorry. IT WAS SO FLIPPING CUTE!! and funny! hehe I said it was just fine!!! I promise! and he then asked me If I would go to dinner with him tomorrow... I mean tonight? I said yes and then we woke up Megan and Ryan and decided to go watch the sunrise. I led us to a property up on a hill I had found a fews earlier. We all sat up there and watched the sun come up over the mountain and took lot's of pictures. Megan is quite the picture taker;) Ben and I walked over to the edge of the hill for a little bit. This is the first time he said to me very sincerely.... "you... you are just... Incredible. :) I had never had someone be so nice and I could tell he meant that with all his heart.

The next night, Tuesday: The next night after a very anxioussssss day at work Ben picked me up and took me on our very first "official" date. We ate dinner at Oregano's. Ben showed me a song in the truck, one that I listened to very often that he thought I probably hadn't heard yet. he played "Unbelievable" by Josh Gracin. This is one of my absolute favorite songs!!!!! I started singing along and he was shocked that I knew it! After dinner we went to the bowling alley and bowled it up! I of course didn't do as good as I usually do! Dang it! But if I remember correctly... I still did better than Ben! haha! After this, we went down to sedona! During the drive down my ears kept getting plugged up, I was still trying to get over a very bad cold... or something and Ben showed me a cool trick! I couldn't do it to myself so, for the first time, Ben touched me! haha sounds bad but it's not, He just put his hands on the sides of my face, then suctioned(sp? that doesn't look right) his hands on my ears and released the pressure, Yes I loved that relieving of pain but I LOVED that he was touching my face! He took me on an airport road where when I got out could literally see the WHOLE Verde Valley! It was so beautiful! I hadn't brought a jacket unfortunately, and not intentionallly but was a little worried I would get even more sick if I stayed out there for to long. We went and sat on a bench at the edge of the cliff and looked at all the sparkling lights. Ben could tell I was cold so he put his arm around me! First move!! On the way back to Flagstaff he grabbed my hand. He took me home, we hugged, I went inside, waited in bed for him to tell me he was home and went to sleep.

The next few days were also just as amazing, Wednesday we went to Sedona again and saw a movie with Megan and her date, We saw The Night at the Museum 2. Ben went to te bathroom and came back with a coke for him and lemonade for me, he had remembered I had ordered it a few times before that. Afterward we went to a park in cottonwood and played on the playground. Megan and her date left and Ben and I sat and swung and talked for a long time, just about life and the future and our fears, dreams, all that good old beginning of love stuff:) On the way home we stopped at the top of the switch backs to look at the perfect starry night sky, we talked about the unknown and the things so much greater than our comprehension. This was a "deep talk" night! ;) We once again hugged, I went to bed and waited for him to let me know he was safe at home.

We did not miss one day of seeing eachother until the day we were married and sealed together for time and all eternity in the Snowflake Temple. I Have a lot more to blog about and not enough time so... again... this post will be continued..... :)

Christmas!!!! (ish)

I am soooo excited for Christmas! This is the first year in my whole life that I do not know what I am getting!!! Usually I already know about all of my gifts being the little.... well a better term would be spy or detective... but I guess i'm a little bit of a snoop! ahh! I can't help it!!! It's so hard because I get to anxious... I think i've had a lot of other things on my mind though so I haven't really had the opportunity to think about it or do detective work... I can't lie though... I do know some of the gifts i'm getting.... BUT I have no iclue what Ben has gotten! so yes.. I am getting quite anxious:)
Last night Ben and I went out to do a little shopping and we still didn't have e tree... :( and I think Ben knew I reallly wanted one for our first christmas together... I mean isn't that just a priority??? If you can afford it?? He kept asking me if I wanted to get one but I didn't want to make him feel pressured... We really didn't NEED a tree but I would've liked to have one... So he said we would look around a little and maybe see if there was a cheap fake one at the store so we didn'y have to buy a live one that we would probably throw out at the end of the week. I liked this idea but kind of figured a tree wouldn't happen. We went to Target and made our way around the store eventually getting to the section where we had seen the fake tree's, they were 50% off! So of course we had to look around a little more and see what the best deal was that we could get. Apparently the tree's we were looking at we originally like $60.00 but they had been marked down to $30.00 and the actual display tree was 75% off! Heck ya! So we asked to have it taken down so we could buy it, we picked out some cute little ornaments that are my favorite color blue! (our wedding color) and some last minute christmas presents. We were told that the tree would just be on a large cart in the front of the store at one of the express lanes(It didn't come with a box but we didn't care!). When we got to the front we didn't have to wait in line at all, (woo hoo!) The cashier rang the tree up and it came up as the $30.00 half off price rather than the 75% off... I mentioned this to her and she went back to the tree shrugged and came back and took 75% off of the $30.00!!!!!! Hahahaha I wanted to tell her that the price of our pretty nice 5 foot tall fake "life like" spruce was ringing up as $7.50!! But the thing was is.. she knew!!! Ha! It was the collest thing it made our night! So to those of you who want a verrrry cheap christmas tree... just go a few nights before christmas... You might get lucky;) We have had so many blessings at the close of this year and we are soooo greatful for that! We also have learned the importance of paying our tithing. We hadn't payed for a few weeks so it was building up and we were stressing about it... We kept being short in the money area and it was like someone was taking money we had planned on being there. Ben missed a week of work for a hunt and it has felt like we haven't been able to catch up! I kept telling Ben we REALLLY needed to pay our tithing so finally this last sunday we did! After this lovely little shop we had at target, Ben called his account just to see how much it was saying there was and it was basiacally saying we were about to be overdrawn and we still needed groceries... We were both confused and upset because we had thought we had a few hundred more dollars. This morning he had a feeling he should call again and did, He had 300 more dollars in the account! Christmas miracle/blessing for being good??? I think so!!! We will never be not paying our tithing immediately again I can tell you right now! That was such an amazing experience! I love Ben so much and can't wait to have our first Christmas (and my birthday!!) together! Hope everyone has a very Merry and SAFE christmas!!


P.S. We WILL be getting our thankyou's out for wedding gifts soon!!:) incase people are wondering!! I'm so sorry we have RRREEEEAALLLY been slacking on that!

New Moon, Missing My Baby and an AMAZING new little snack/dessert!

Alright well first of all... All I have to say about New Moon is this: I've liked Jacob from the beginning and STILL like him!! I have quite bitter feelings toward Edward and Bella and keep having to remind myself that these are fictional characters!! but seriously... Bella is a little player and Edward he is just... well I like him too... sometimes... but man he just looked like E.T to me.. You know when Elliot finds him down in the river? whew... and to think they almost took Taylor Lautner out of the movie because he "wasn't bulking up enough" I'm sorry but hello??? Is Edward just so popular that it doesn't matter if he's lacking in the muscle department??? I guess so... All I know is that I would've been very sad if they would've taken that Taylor out. Sorry I just had to vent... I saw the movie on saturday morning.. It was torture having to wait a few more hours. My mom, Madison and I got to the theater at about 9:00 am so that we could wait in a pretty long line(already!) for the 10:30 am showing. It really wasn't that bad but I was sooo excited and about passed out at the preview in the beginning!! I don't remember what the movie was called but it's something to do with letter's from or letter's to Juliet?? It has the girl from mama mia in it! It looks sooo cute!! Anyway.. i'll be seeing that one too;) maybe i'll convince Ben to take me! Anywho.... Long story shirt, I mean short! (wow all I think about is how much better Jacob looks than Edward without one... (haha)) Jacob is just better... ya Edward was great in the books and I like him for Bella at least... but in the movie's so far... I just like Jacob WAY better! and Bella does not deserve him. That's my 2 cents. I felt so bad for Jacob in the end of New Moon though... That poor boy would do anything for Bella and all she has to say to him is... it's Edward, It's always been Edward and it always will be or whatever she said... dang girl... she's missing out. Hahaha I'm really not all hardcore as that.. but I'd still pick Jacob over Edward pretty easily... and I can't lie I like Edward a lot... just not a huge fan of Robert Pattison....
I am a huge fan of my husband though!!! I love Ben so much. He's the perfect person for me! I miss him soooo much though! We had been together EVERY SINGLE DAY since the day we met until we got married, then he had a deer hunt in Utah that he was gone 3 days for. Now he is on another deer hunt up on the kaibab right on the border of Utah and Arizona. He has been gone for almost a full week now and I think I have talked to him on the phone about 1 hour in all! I'm going crazy here because first of all by the time he can call me, he's exhausted because he's been hiking around all day and of course he doesn't tell me what happened throughout the day in detail.. for those who know me I go into GREAT detail when i'm telling a story or about something that happened during the day and well he's a guy and... he doesn't. I just miss him so much. I don't like this business very much but at the same time I really want him to get a huge buck!(a.k.a A boy deer. Hahaha) He just told me on the phone that he wants to come home really bad but ya I won't let that happen and I don't think he would either. I don't mind to much all I want is for him to be home for our first Thanksgiving together! He'll be here though:) I can't wait to see him and hug him and kiss him and just be in his arms. I have one last thing to share... I found this new little Dessert type thing that I love! It's so good! I love tapioca, and horchata( I'm not sure how to spell that) and this is like kind of in between.. It's Rice pudding but it's kind of mexican style. It's called "Reynaldo's Traditional Rice pudding, arroz con leche" I'm pretty sure i've heard a song about arroz con leche? anyway it's this amazingly creamy vanilla pudding that is just perfect consistency, the perfect amount of rice in it and then the top is dusted with a light sprinkle of cinnamon. It is good! I highly suggest it if you want a delightful little dessert and get this... It's a pretty good sized cup and it's only 150 calories! It also comes in a sugar free one which was the one I got on accident at first and it is just as good as the one with sugar! What a great discovery... I know. I was pretty excited about it too, I'm sure you can tell:)

Until next time... when I put pic's of our cute dinky apartment up and our story which I know many still don't know!

I've been told that since I am now married and have disappeared off the face of the planet... That I need to start blogging and keeping people up to date with what Ben and I have been up to! I was home sick today so I decided what better to do with my time?? I will have to go into more detail later on about little stories of how we met and the wedding and AALLL of that other stuff. The last few weeks have been a little crazy for us... We started out with the "Swine Flu" wooo hoo! What a load of fun that was. We also had a few hunts going on, Ben had a deer hunt in Utah. He went up there with his buddy Dennis Kitchen, who, I think this is funny, was his teacher in high school haha! anyway they are good friends to this day. A few weeks later I had my deer hunt up in the kaibab. There were 700 other hunters in this one small unit and I got one! Thanks to my amazing hunter husband:) Ben is working for Gardner Interior's, he travels to the grand canyon usually monday-saturday, early in the morning and then get's back around 5 or 6 at night. I miss him when he's gone!! Fortunately I have something to keep me busy during the day now though. I started Beauty School, this week is my third week I believe. I love it! It's definately something that I was born to do. The only things I don't love about it is that I sometimes feel like it is WAY to easy! I feel like I know everything already... but most of the people in there think it's hard!? Hmmm... I won't expand on that a whole lot more but I think you get the drift. Anyway! I should have my license in about 10 months! Hopefully i'll be able to update this soon, so until then.. "To be continued....."