Hello from Texas!

Well, we're in Texas now and loving it. Ben is loving his work, something I am so grateful for, and I have been keeping busy exercising in our apartment complex gym, cleaning house, making dinners from the Lion House Cook Book, going to the temple, and apply for multiple jobs (I have an internet interview this evening for a job I would love, so keep your fingers crossed!). This Saturday evening we are going to the Maverick's game (compliments of Frito Lay), so that should be a lot of fun.

Thank you so much to all of those who cooked us dinners, breakfast, brought us farewell tokens, and took the time to come and say farewell. We are both so grateful for all of you and your friendship, we really miss all of you; there's nothing like going away that makes you grateful for the people in your life.



A HUGE thank you to my Dad and Mom who came down to help us move. There is no way we would have been able to get everything into that UHaul truck without my Dad's mad skills, and my Mom saved my bacon helping me clean the house so that we could get out of there when we did.


This is what we had to look forward to when we got it all off of the truck and into our apartment. A HUGE thanks to Sarah (my cousin) for coming to help us move in and also to the guys in our new ward who showed up just in time to help Ben carry all of the heavy stuff up to our 2nd floor apartment.


Our living room.




One of my favorite parts of our apartment, our walk in closet. Love it!

Ben in front of the building where JFK was shot. The top right window is where the gunman was found.

This is a cool museum in Dallas, we didn't go in but it looked cool from the outside! :)

TEXAS HERE WE COME!!

Well it is finally official, Ben and I are moving to Dallas. Frito Lay flew Ben out to Dallas this past Monday, interviewed him Tuesday, flew him home Tuesday night, and e-mail him Wednesday morning for the good news. The past few days have been exciting, stressful, sad, and hectic as we began packing up our apartment, searching online for an apartment, meeting with and saying goodbye to good friends, and making final preparations to leave Cedar City. We both gave our 2 weeks notices, which was one of the happiest days of my life, and began collecting boxes from our work places. They told Ben they want us out there as soon as possible so we are planning on hitting the pavement in 2 1/2 weeks or so. I guess Ben will be managing the guys who deliver the chips and their truck routes. The first 3 months of his training he will be in the trucks with them in order to gain an appreciation and understanding for what they do, this means he may be up at 3 a.m. or so to begin work; luckily that part is only 3 months long. We are so excited for this opportunity and extremely grateful for the blessings we have received these past few months. We are going to miss all of you here in Cedar and, of course, our families and being so far away from you all, but this will be a good change, at least that's what I keep telling myself to keep from being homesick and sad already. But anyway, kind of a long post, and without pictures (that's always my favorite part of all your posts') but I was excited so I thought I'd write. Texas! Yay! (never thought I'd live in Texas, I absolutely hate the Dallas Cowboys so this should be interesting!)

Winter Updates

Well, since I have slacked off the last few months you're gonna get an overload of updates, but here goes. Ben and I went to Vegas this past month. It was the perfect vacation.
This was cool, we went to the new City Center, it is massive! They had this cool waterfall that surrounds the roundabout where cars come and go.
This was in the new mall at the City Center. They had the coolest displays, that building is beautiful, it's not finished yet so I'm sure it'll be that much cooler when they finish it up.
Okay, so we found a stellar deal for a one night stay at the Palms and they just so happened to update us to a suite overlooking the entire valley, the strip included, for free! It was AMAZING!! 3 flat screen tv's, as if you need that, a full kitchen, living area with couches and chiars, king size bed, and the sweetest bathroom. Ben and I took millions of pictures with the hope that maybe some day we could build a home and design our bathroom the exact same way.

The shower was awesome cause it had nozzles hitting you at all angles. It also had a full jacuzzi tub right next to it.
Christmas was nice, short but nice. Ben and I were able to go up to Santaquin for 2 nights. Ben surprised me with a touch iPod, big shocker. I love it.
My parents surprised Ben with his favorite gift, a Payten Manning jersey. Later, when we were in Vegas, we found one for me. Of course we sported those for all of the Colts games, including the unfortunate loss during the Super Bowl. Sad :(

This was our costumes for Halloween. We were Big Smurf and Lil' Smurf. I covered every visible part of my body in blue, Ben stopped at his face, neck and arms, something I wished I had done since I couldn't sit on anything without leaving a trail of blue. We had fun with it.

Fall in Cedar City

Well I have finally figured out how to put pictures on to this laptop so I guess I might as well catch up on my blog. Lots has happened since I last posted. Ben is now working at the State Bank of Southern Utah and seems to enjoy it well enough; the 70 year old woman who sits next to him at the window seems to keep him on his toes, never know what's going to come out of her mouth or other body parts (I think she may be hard of hearing because she tends to let smells slip occasionally! I think it's hilarious!)
I am currently not in school and just working at the Sports Authority. Work is slow and boring most the time but I really can't complain, we have numerous people come in daily looking to fill out an application in desperation to be employed so it does make me grateful for the job that I have.
Below are some pictures of the past few months.


Some friends came over for some fun and Ben busted out pin the tail on the donkey! ha we had fun with it.

Karlee and Andrew were our co-champions.








Karlee and I got covered in cow crap and mud on our 4-wheeler ride up to a cabin that we stayed at with a group of friends. Karlee really got covered in the wheel flipping poop that pretty much sprinkled her body from head to toe, ha sorry Karl!

We love camping!!!

Oh the power of a Magic Eraser!!! I have scrubbed and mopped this kitchen floor a million times but could never get rid of that dirty look so I turned to another option. Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser!! I went through 7 magic erasers before I got that floor sparkling. Love those little magic squares!


I was able to go up to Santaquin and spend time with my sister and her three adorable little girls.

My Mom, sister, and her girls all met up with the Garner's for breakfast at Mimi's. Love this girl! It was fun to see Steph and my "other" family.

Oh just look at that face! Pure joy and excitement. I finally caved and got Ben a wii for his birthday. He has been begging me to let him get one since the day we got married (well, almost!). For his birthday I gave him a watch that I was able to get with my stellar discount at the Sports Authority, we went out to eat, then had friends over for cake and ice cream. It wasn't until 11 at night that I surprised him with this. He was totally surprised and said he will owe me the rest of his life.....he shouldn't have said that! I now expect back massages and foot rubs whenever I desire!





Yesterday we went up the canyon to look at the changing leaves. It was beautiful up there.

Busy Summer Times

I've been slacking. Ben and I don't have internet at our apartment anymore since our bill jumped up $25 more dollars a months and we ditched it.

This summer has been SO busy!! Ben and I are both taking a summer class which ends next week! Thank goodness!!! It has been killing me. Also, I got a job at the Sports Authority so that has been taking away any free time that I have in between studying......one more week!

In between all the busyness, we have found some time for small fun projects (I guess not so small).
First, we sanded down our table, the one that my parents gave to us. I thought it looked pretty good until one of our friends came over and asked, "oh good, you're going for the trailer house look!" So now I am second guessing our newly furnished table. Oh well, it works for me.

I'm SORRY!!!

I am terrible at April Fools jokes, or apparently I am TOO good at April fools jokes, but I am going to refrain from ever doing another April fools joke again since I feel so bad. To all of those that believed my very unkind joke, I am sorry. Whitney, I heard that you put together a gift basket and was going to send it down with Andrew and Tyler.....I'm so sorry!!! Thank you for the thought though, that was so nice of you! As pay back, when we really do get pregnant you don't have to ever give us anything, well you wouldn't have to anyway but you really shouldn't just because we are so mean.

The past two days I have been at the Utah Dietetics Association annual conference in SLC. Cache and Hailey let me crash at their house so that it was only a small drive each morning. I had a lot of fun with them, it's always nice seeing them since I hardly ever get to.
I had to present my undergraduate research and poster to several hundred people. There were several judges analyzed all of the posters (around 30 total from the U, USU, BYU, and SUU) which made me really nervous. Afterwards there was an awards luncheon at which they announce that I won the best research poster for the year and recieved a $100 check, that was exciting. It was also really nice because is set me up to meet the head director at the U who decides who is accepted into the Master's program there (which is the program I want to go to when I am done at SUU). The director told me to be sure to send a resume his way and said he looks forward to seeing me again in the near future. He also contacted my instructor and told him to be sure to get me to apply at the U. Yay! Guess we'll just see what happens.

My Eggo Is Prego!!!

So I have some exciting, scary, stressful, but happy news.......I am pregnant! Ben and I have been talking about getting pregnant since we are both graduating in 4 weeks, but we didn't expect it to happen so soon! I am a little freaked out, actually a lot freaked out, but also very excited. My first doctor appointment is in 3 weeks. Until then I don't really know what to do! Can I still work-out like I have been? I mean, I know they say to keep working out just don't do vigorous exercise, but this is all so very new to me. I can't wait to get some answers from the doctor. Mom has been helping me out a lot, with all of her experience she has been able to calm me down. Anyway, I gotta go to class. My picture uploader is taking forever so I'll have to post the picture of our pink positive pee stick later!

Love you all!!!