Busy Busy Busy Lives!

I know it has been OVER A YEAR since I have written on our blog, I know, I am terrible! But life gets so busy. When I stopped updating posts, it was because I got a new job at a marketing company which has taken up most of my life. I am really enjoying it though. It's a good stable job to help us get Ben through school. Speaking of which, he only has about a year an a half left at UVU, and when he is finished we finally get to move to California! What a relief it is to see light at the end of the tunnel. But we are doing well :) Here are just a few of the many pictures we have taken within the last few months or so!

Our pride and joy, Hurley! We got her about a year ago. She has been great training before we have kids!!


Ben's 3 year mission reunion.

My week with Tara, Tiffany and Cy when I babysat them for the week. So much fun!

My little munchkin niece and nephew! I love these kids!

On our way to Disneyland :)

Me and Ben rock climbing, what a work out!

I will try to do better with updating you with our lives. It's crazy how fast time goes by and you tell yourself that you will get around to posting, but I finally have. And hopefully it won't be long before I give another update!

Our baby!

Well...not a REAL baby, but our puppy Hurley is our baby! In case you were wondering, we got the name Hurley obviously from the skate brand. Before we got her when we were thinking about getting puppy we thought how funny it would be to name a pet after a brand as a total joke! We started naming off Volcom, Rusty, Billabong, and then we said Hurley and just fell in love with it!

She is just barely 3 months old and we have absolutely LOVED having her as a part of our family. She is a pure bread border collie and they are known to be the smartest dogs in the world. Anyways...we have started to train her to do some tricks and I am shocked at how fast she picks up on learning them! For only being 3 months old, she already knows how to sit, shake, lay down and come when we call her name! Here is a video that I took of her learning how to shake after a few hours!

Full time jobs

Well I feel like I am not a "true blogger" because I have been awful at updating our blog. You should know that convention season is starting at my work, which means 10-12 hour work days will be normal during the summer. Kind of stinks but thats what happens when you grow up, right? Well for those of you who don't know, I am a project manager at a marketing company called Vox. I have decided to go through step by step in each job that I am in charge of.

1. Make a presentation of items that a customer is looking for and present it to them.
2. Figure in embroidery or screen printing if a logo is being labeled on their product
3. Order samples if requested, then send it to the customer
4. If they love the items, then mock up a proposal with the items requested
5. Create purchase order requests to each vendor under the job, including a PO for printing/embroidery
6. Fax over/email PO's to each vendor
7. Call and confirm that all PO's were received
8. Email the art (logo) to vendors explaining where it will be placed
9. Receive a mock up proof of what the product will look like once finished
10. Forward that mock up proof to the customer and wait for approval
11. Once approved from customer, email vendors and give approval to proceed with production
12. After a few days call each vendor and get tracking information for items
13. Create a delivery receipt for customer when delivering/shipping items
14. Follow up once product is received to make sure all is correct
15. Fill out cover sheet and turn job into the Accounting Department

I wish I were exaggerating, but that really is just the icing on the cake of each job that I take care of. On average I have about 15-20 different jobs going on at once. This is no excuse to not blog, I will try to do better! It is crazy how busy life can get once you are married! But it's a good feeling knowing you end the day accomplishing a lot and actually working hard for your money! :)

1 Year Anniversary!

Yesterday, May 21st Ben and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary! We have had so many good memories and learning experiences this last year. It has definitely made our marriage stronger and has given us the smallest glimps of what our future has in store for us. This past WONDERFUL year we have experienced:

1. Our first Christmas spending it together
2. Getting our cat Chess 1 month after being married
3. Going to Colorado to watch his sister perform in Mama Mia
4. Many California road trips
5. Camping up in AF canyon
6. Staying over night at the cabin
7. Moved into our first home in Provo
8. Lake Powell with my family
9. Me getting a full time job
10. Driving up to Idaho to get our puppy Hurley for our anniversary
11. Me chopping off my hair for my husband because he likes short hair
12. Spending numerous nights outside watching movies on a laptop
13. Going to Knotts Scary Farm for Halloween (Ben's FAVORITE time of year!)
14. Tasting Indian food for the first time and falling absolutely in love with it
15. Going to Vegas and playing the penny machines

That is just a small portion of this past year and our memories that we have created from what people would call "the hardest year of marriage," but what I would consider THE BEST!

Goodbye Apartments!

Wow it has been such crazy past few weeks! I recently got a full time job at a marketing company and I am a project manager there. Things are BUSY BUSY BUSY! It is nice being able to have a steady job that is consistent! I am always on my toes and there is never a dull moment working there. I love it though!

Aside from my new job, we have been in the process of moving! Ben's parents own a second home above the Provo Temple and for the past while he and his dad have been working so hard on clearing out the house and cleaning it up for us to be ready to move in to. It has been a lot of work considering that Ben's dad used it as a storage room!

So after all of the hard work clearing out the house, we FINALLY moved in last weekend. We aren't completely unpacked, but we are in! It will take a little while to get everything unpacked, it's exhausting!!! Anyways, we are so excited about this new adventure. Especially being in a house! We are loving it already! We are hoping to get a dog soon and I can't wait for that!

Dreaming BIG (probably too big!)

I'm obsessed with looking at model homes, interior design and finding ideas for my "dream home" I guess you would say. Well i saw these fun rooms and LOVE them! ENJOY! :)

I love these black staircases and the black wood floor. And this bathroom...ugh, I would DIE if I could have something close to this!

Another bathroom I would love to have some day! And this booth for a kitchen table is SO cool!

I love the idea of the black kitchen floor. It's classy!

Ben would never let me have a kitchen like this but I just think it is so cute!! I'm OBSESSED!

Why I hate Monopoly

I had always LOVED playing board games when I was younger. LIFE, Candy Land, pictionary, and others were all among some of the games every kid grows up with. Monopoly was one of them! Ben, Kyle, his little shoulder monkey (our cat Chess) and I played The Beatles Monopoly last night and I had played it a few times just with Ben recently as well, AND I AM HORRIBLE! I don't know if it is just luck, but I was just doing awful! I was trying to be good with my money and buy the good property, and invest into things, but Ben just kept winning! He owned all of the orange property and if we landed on it we owed $800. I swear, every time I rolled onto his property and he took ALL my money. I felt bad because I was getting SO mad (I apologized after of course) so I decided that I wouldn't play Monopoly again because of how upset I get. Anyways, the game is fun...I'm just not good at it. But it was definitely a fun night with my two favorite people!

Chess would NOT leave his shoulders! She was laying there forever! It was cute :)

Ben dominating at Monopoly (He is so smart when it comes to business and money!)

A tribute to my hero

I thought about how much I love my grandpa and thought that I would make something for him and for all that he has done for our country. He served in the Air Force during WWII and I have been so close to him throughout my life. So I made this shadow box for him and thought I would give it to him to show how much I appreciate and love him! Thanks to not only him, but to all those who serve, and have served our blessed country!

Isn't he so handsome!?

Poker, Craps, and Yahtzee?

Last night Ben and I decided to turn the TV off and play some good quality games together! We first started off with Ben's all time favorite...poker of course. We played a bunch of rounds and I was losing so I made him keep playing me until we got tied up again (which took maybe an hour!). After that we looked up on the internet how to play Craps. I quickly learned that I have the worst luck rolling dice. AT ALL! I lost EVERYTHING! I told Ben "I have such bad luck with dice! I want to play Yahtzee!" Uh, Yahtzee is all about rolling dice and Ben started busting up. I totally forgot how much fun Yahtzee was! Although I wasn't too lucky in Yahtzee, I still had a lot of fun playing it and screaming when one of us got a good roll. I lost twice out of our three games that we played, but it was a ball! Not to mention that eating cookie dough while playing topped it off. It was such a fun Sunday playing games with my man all night!

One Month of Us: Day ELEVEN

Day 11: The people you spend most of your time with

Although we do spend most of our time with our families, we have a close group of friends that we hang out with. Ben has grown up with a group of friends since high school, and some even before then. It is SO much fun when we all get together with them because almost all of them have girlfriends or are married now. It is fun because we all get along too. I always look forward to when we get together!

Saving Seats at the Movies

Ben and I went to the movies last night to see Battle: Los Angeles [which was awesome by the way] and I know that saving seats for friends early can be a difficult matter for some people. I personally don't think that it is a big deal, in fact...I do it myself sometimes. So we were in the theater and had about 45 minutes before the movie started. There was this group of people that were saving about 10 seats (fine..whatever, no big deal right?). This one random guy sits down in one of the seats that they are saving and the group starts arguing with him. He says, "You can't save seats! It's not allowed!" WHILE he sets his sweatshirt down to save a seat for his wife. The group argues, "Why can't we? We were here first, and you are doing the SAME thing for your wife!" I was afraid some sucker punches were going to be thrown. It was pretty amusing and made the 45 minute wait for the movie go by pretty fast! The guy ended up finding a different seat, but I don't think saving seats is bad. Agree?/Disagree?

One Month of us: Day TEN

Day 10: A Picture of your favorite band or artist

One of my MANY favorite bands is for sure Taking Back Sunday. I have listened to them since freshman year of high school and they are always my "go to" band if i don't know what to listen to. I'm obsessed with blasting their music in my car and singing super loud. Plus...it was the first CD Ben and I listened to when we first went out! We went to their concert when they played with Blink 182 and I just about died! (literally...)

I have already mentioned before that one of Ben's all time favorite bands is Radiohead but I know that he also loves how artistic MCR is. They are also one of my favorites too. Black Parade is, in Ben's opinion, the best album that they have made and I can second that. They are coming to concert in Utah and I am really hoping that we can go!

California: aka HEAVEN

Ben and I took a trip to California last week. We probably should have waited a little until the timing was better, but a month ago my WONDERFUL husband had promised me we could go. We had a great time and it was nice to spend some time with my family in warm weather! We spent some time at the beach, downtown Disney, we went to Santa Monica with Ben's cute pregnant sister Amy and her husband Matt, and spent a lot of time with family! It was definitely a motivation for us to work hard so we can move to California as soon as we can!

Beautiful Huntington Beach! LOOOOVE it!!

At Rainforest Cafe at Downtown Disney

Me and the best of the best best friends EVER!

1 Month of us: Day NINE

Day 9: A picture of something you love

There are TONS of things that I love, the beach (of course!), ice cream, DIET COKE, cheetos, and many many other things in the world, BUT I must choose one that may or may not be too obvious. For me......

this seriously gives me chills. I LOOOOOVE it. Ben hates that I eat it, but being the wonderful man that he is, he lets me have some every now and then! :)

Ben is passionate about music, which most of you know. One of his favorite bands is Radio head, which I would have to agree with as well. They are such a talented band and I know that Ben loves listening to them! When we drove to California, we listened to Radio head for most of the trip. It was great!

1 Month of us: Day EIGHT

Day: 8 A picture of something you hate:

Don't judge me, but I had to find cartoons of these scary creatures because I can't bear to look at them live, or in pictures whatsoever. I can handle cartoon versions :)

Ben definitely is not a fan of snakes. Neither am I, but they are not the #1 thing that I hate. I'm sure you can all probably guess what I hate...no surprise......

SPIDERS! Gross...

1 Month of us: Day SEVEN

Day 7: A picture of your most treasured item



Our rings are definitely one of our most treasured items because it is a symbol of our eternal love for each other. I always love putting my ring on and remembering the meaning of why I wear it!

1 Month of us: Day SIX

Day 6: A picture of someone you'd trade places with for a day



Ben probably wouldn't agree with me on this, but I would totally love to be this GORGEOUS couple for one day!

1 Month of us: Day FIVE

Day 5: A picture of your night

Our typical night consists of us just being us! We will watch movies, playing games, hanging out with friends...nothing out of the ordinary. We just have fun and like to make life adventurous. We are limited of what we like to do when it is snowy and cold, but during the summer, we love to camp and be outside! Just being your "typical" married couple, I suppose! :)

1 Month of us: Day FOUR

Day 4: A picture of our favorite memory

How could this not be our favorite memory! It has changed out lives and being married has made us so happy. Especially knowing that we will be married forever. Nothing is more powerful than a temple marriage!

1 Month of us: Day THREE

Day 3: A picture of the cast from our favorite show

The Office is definitely our favorite TV show. It is such an original show and the humor can [NEVER] get old! It's sad to see that Steve Carell will be leaving The Office in May, it just won't be the same! Rumors say that Will Ferrel is going to star in a few of the shows. Hopefully the show will still be able to bring as much happiness in our home as it does now :)