Happy Anniversary (A Day Late!)

Ben and I started dating four years ago yesterday. 

I believe this photo was taken on October 23, 2006

I would have wrote yesterday but unfortunately we were both sick. 


I found myself in bed in between classes yesterday and Ben came home from work and missed class because he also wasn't feeling well. 


So Ben and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary by resting on the couch (thankfully we could both fit!) and drinking a lot of water and tea. 


We watched P.S. I Love You together and I HIGHLY recommend that everyone sees this movie! Ben and I both really enjoyed the movie and the special story that it tells. 


Really, you need to rent it!!!

Disclaimer: Make sure you have a box of tissues next to you. You'll need it! 


Good news: We are both feeling much better today. The restful evening really helped. 


And more good news:

IT IS SNOWING!!!!!!! 

Tired...

The last few days have been rough in terms of sleep. Theoretically I should be getting enough sleep but I toss and turn throughout the night and when the alarm goes off I feel like I haven't slept at all. I'm usually the type of person who hops out of bed when the alarm goes off and jumps right in the shower, eager to start the day. Well, not lately. Ben puts the alarm on snooze and we fall back into half sleep/half awake mode for another 10 minutes... or sometimes 20. Today was no exception. We spent 20 minutes refusing to leave the comfort of our warm bed. Finally I nudged Ben awake and told him we needed to get up because he had to work in 40 minutes. We spend a few minutes stretching, talking and slowing waking up. The light is turned on and we begin our morning routine. UNTIL we notice the clock. It is 7:14am and we don't need to be up until 8am. Whoops, Ben set the alarm for 6:50am instead of 8am. At this point I'm far too awake and here I am, working on homework before 8am. 


Good times.... good times... 
Oh, and where is Ben? Sleeping... haha

70 Days Until....

Christmas!! 

Can you already feel the excitement in the air? 


I've already noticed some Christmas decorations at various stores and when I leave our apartment in the morning, there is the faintest smell of Winter. Christmas will be here before we know it!


I wanted to be super prepared this year but here we are about 10 weeks away and I really haven't started, until... TODAY! 


I had a running list of ideas for crafty gifts and I finally sat down this morning to make a supply list. Ben and I spent some time at Micheal's pricing some items and then buying a few things. 


So far I've got 2 big projects to work on. I'm super stoked. I'll be working with a medium I often don't use, paint. Wish me luck!


I'll be sure to take lots of pictures that I will share after Christmas.. until then, I'll have to leave you in the dark. :) 

4 Months

We've been married four months as of today! 

Ben and I went past our reception location this weekend and memories of our wedding day came flooding back to us. The day just flew by so I'm so thankful there are so many pictures from our wedding. I will eventually get them all up on Facebook but here are a few that make me smile a lot! 

I love this one. 

The way Ben's hand rests on my hip makes me break out into a big smile. I also love the fireplace in the background and our initials on the mantle.

One of my favorite parts of our wedding day was playing Ninja with all of our family and friends!

And one picture to make you smile! 

My mom asked me to smile and this is what I gave her.. haha

This was taken about 45 minutes before I married Ben! 

SF Student Teaching Application

I received a phone call today from the woman who is making the Student Teaching arrangements. I have to fill out some additional paperwork. I now am in the process of filling out fourteen questions that will convince them to find a placement for me. Talk about pressure! The questions are not easy and I have to complete them tonight so I can turn them in tomorrow to keep this process rolling. Even though I'm doing my part to get everything in as quickly as possible I found out today they won't make any decisions until early December. My chances are good but this causes quite the wrench in our plans. Ben is heading to Sioux Falls on November 12th to sign a lease and we won't know if we are going to be actually living there until December. We have to continue with our plans even though we aren't exactly sure what will happen. The woman assured me that everything looks good but she also said they can't make any promises and something could change. I know everything will work out yet I am worried. This will be a good lesson in patience. Wish us luck... 


We are now under the 2-month mark until our expected moving date. Our spare bedroom has a collection of boxes and empty totes. The packing process will begin this weekend. Ben works all weekend so I'll be home working on homework and packing.

10.10.10

Happy 10-10-10.


October. 10. 2010. 


I was going to wait and post this at 10:10pm. Wouldn't that be crazy? 

Big Wedding News!!

This is HUGE news for me!
I have slowly been going through all our wedding stuff and organizing it all. Filing what I could, downsizing what we had left, and finding a way to get everything into only two boxes. Well I am FINALLY done! I've worked on getting this done a little bit each week and it is finally complete. 


Post-Wedding To Do List:
* Print pictures for picture frames
* Put pictures up on Facebook
* Gather more photos from a few more people


That's it! The end is in sight! :) 

What a beautiful sight! 

On the left: Pictures, Pictures Discs, 

Files of cards, bridal showers, from my wedding binder, etc.

On the right: larger wedding keepsakes

Check out that organization! Hard work, but I'm so happy with it!

This was a MESS until recently. ALL organized now. 

This was a BIG project for me. 

This is all that remains of our wedding. 

Bittersweet. 

Weekend Update

Today was a busy day.

I spent three hours teaching about heat energy to 16 2nd and 3rd graders. It was a great learning experience!


We got some sad news earlier this week. My cousin's grandma passed away. Although it was something that they knew was coming, having a family member pass away never is easy. The funeral was here in Marquette so a large portion of my family were here today. I got to spend some time hanging out with my family before we went to pay our respects to Helen Tramp.


After the funeral service my parents, Aunty Wendy and cousin Mikayla spent some time catching up at our apartment. We had a nice time celebrating my birthday, talking about healthy living, playing with Mikayla's Halloween costume and Mikayla had a blast hanging out with her buddy Ben. They went to the garden and spent some time harvesting. We also went for a car ride up to a beautiful mountain and were in awe of the beautiful colors!! We stopped at a local pizza shop and they gave us a bunch of free pizza. Yum!


Now Ben and I are taking some time to relax this evening. It is something we haven't done often enough. I feel like we are running from one thing to another and hardly to have time to just sit and relax. We are so exhausted from the day that we figured now is a good time to relax. Mos of you know that I can't do that... so here I am! :)


Overall, it was a nice day. I enjoyed seeing so much of my family but unfortunately it wasn't for a happy occasion. Please pray for peace and comfort for all of those who mourn.


Now for some pictures...

My mom and Mikayla

Mikayla had to show us her awesome Halloween costume

and my mom had to try on Mikayla's wig! 

 My dad tried it on too. So did Ben... but I don't think he wants his picture on here. :)

Beautiful witch! 

 The beautiful fall colors! I will miss this!

Can life really get better than this? 

Mikayla and I! 

Mikayla LOVES Ben! He does silly things with her. 

Like having a pepper eating contest. 

Followers

I know I have been absent from the blogging world but I am trying to catch up on life a bit and needed to take a break. I'm hoping to write more as things seem to be slowing down a bit (hopefully I didn't just jinx myself!). I know some people who check the blog every day so to make things a bit easier you can become a follower of the blog. To do this click follow on the right side of the blog. When I created a new entry you will be alerted. This way you don't have to check it every day. :) 

10 Weeks and Counting

10 weeks until..

Ben graduates

I am done with methods

we move to Sioux Falls

our best friends welcome their second child

We are already in week 6 out of 18!

THIS IS CRAZY!!!

Life is CRAZY!

We are trying to take a step back and really enjoy where we are right now. Newly married, taking in all the beautiful colors and smells of our last fall in Marquette, learning all we can in our classes before we find big kids jobs, saving what we can for our big move..

All I want to do now is pack... I feel like we'll be moving before we know it and we won't be ready!!

Anyone want to help me pack?

Preparing to Hibernate

We haven't broke 60 degrees in the last few days and our garden is dwindling. So we began to prepare to hibernate.

Our tea supply is stocked and freezer is full of frozen goodness. We wanted to make sure we had some "fresh" food in the freezer so we can enjoy our garden long after our season has ended.

Here is a behind the scenes look at....

Our Freezer!

A visitor!

Ben and I have a visitor!

Our visitor arrived last Sunday and will be leaving tomorrow.

Raena came up to visit!!!

We kept her busy by various activities.

The first few days of the week were HOT!!!!!

So of course we took Raena cliff jumping!

We went to the garden and picked lots of veggies, including some HUGE zucchinis. We peeled them, shredded them and prepared to make something delicious out of all that zucchini. (see below!)

We had a surprise visitor while Raena was here. Our best friend Rich surprised us and came up to Marquette. We spent Saturday night with Rich and our friend Andy. We went to Aubree's then came back to our apartment for some fun.

Raena, Ben and Andy preparing to take part in a mystery pepper eating contest.

Andy, Raena and Rich ate a jalepeno but apparently it wasn't at all hot.

Here is what we did with ALL that zucchini. So far we've made 10 loaves and will be making more today. We have plain zucchini bread, some with blueberries and some with pineapples. YUM! It was a chilly day and the apartment was cold but after baking and cooking dinner with the oven on for six hours, it was nice and toasty!

The weather was really cold, windy and rainy for most of the week so we spent our time watching movies, playing games, taking naps, and having some wonderful conversations. We did manage to get out on a "less rainy" day for a hike and to introduce Raena to the world of geocaching.

Tomorrow we are leaving at 5:30am to meet up with the rest of the family to walk the Mackinac Bridge for Labor Day. We'll say goodbye to Raena at that time before heading back home for a night of homework.

It has been so nice to spend some time with Raena and Ben's side of the family. Life is going to getting pretty busy in the next few weeks so it was so necessary to take some time to enjoy each other's company this week while having some fun!

2 Months!!

I'm still working my way through some wedding keepsakes but due to training things have slowed down a lot!

I did find Ben's wedding gift today and took a few pictures. I made this photo book and filled it with photos from before we were dating until the day Ben proposed. Ben's best man, Eric, gave it to him before the ceremony.

I also got a free 30 page, hardcover, 8x8 photo book from David's Bridal. We will be getting a hardcover book with pictures from our photographer so I made one to include photos from our reception. I LOVE how it turned out!!

50 Days!

Can you believe it!?!?!

We got married 50 days ago. Has it really been that long?

This time 50 days ago I looked like this....

Thankfully it wasn't long and I was ready to get married...

Now 50 days later, we are still finishing up post-wedding things. :)

New Look....

I played around on a computer program I have called paint.net to make a new banner found at the top of the page.

Life is so hectic now and my last day of summer is tonight. I'm hoping we start getting into more a routine around here soon so I can catch up with the blog. Bear with me I promise I haven't forgotten you all!

Life Update!

Ben and I have been enjoying all there is to summer. Taking time out to geocache, hike, spend time with friends and experiment with food! Here is a series of photos to give you a behind the scenes glimpse into our first two months of marriage!

Our garden grows MORE and MORE every day. We go out every day to pick peas (above) and green beans. The community garden is also filling our fridge with zucchini, lettuce and the occasional tomato. Our grocery bill is getting smaller and we are enjoying some time together in the garden picking lots of weeds!

Community Adviser training starts August 1st and I'm trying to get ahead of the game by completing all that I can before training. These are the door decs (name tags) that are put on each apartment door for each tenant. I did sea animals. This is half of the ones I made. The other half were finished a few days later. Over 140 total!

We've been trying out new recipes and foods too! Ben made this meal complete with a Portabella mushroom with melted cheese, a tomato sauce filled with basil that we grew, all on top of noodles. Something I would have never tried before but it was yummy!

Ben likes playing around with food for dinner, while I prefer dessert! Here are some peanut butter honey balls I made. A healthy snack that still satisfied my sweet craving!

This weekend we are traveling back to Ben's hometown for our best friend's daughter's first birthday party! We are very excited to be there to celebrate with little Addie. Ben took off half a day of work so we can get there late Friday night. We'll spend the evening with family and then Saturday we are going to the zoo, Addison's birthday party then having a slumber party at her house! We can't wait!!!! Our last "mini" vacation before training begins and Ben leaves for his canoeing class (August 8th).

Wedding Details

I wasn't sure where to start with this post-wedding blog so I figured I'd start with something I"m familiar with, writing about the wedding!

Here are the details of our wedding, in no particular order!

I made this board to put our place cards on.

Eric's gift: Xbox Live points and beef jerky that Ben made

Justin's Gift: Flask and beef jerky

The rest of the guys got a water bottle and beef jerky

The lanterns we hung above the head table. Inside were battery powered candles.

Our table markers made with pictures taken by Cheyenne!

The back of the table marker had a question about us with the answer in the inside.

Pinwheels for the kids found on the kid's table and bubble were used after the ceremony.

All the gifts for the kids and bridesmaids.

The ladies got Lemongrass goodies: body polish, lotion and chapstick and homemade bracelets made with the help of Raena.

The kids got bubbles, Play-Doh, juice box, fruit snacks, a bag with their name on it and the girls got a bracelet and the boys got a keychain.

The assembly line.

The programs.

Raena and I did some damage at a craft store!

We spent an evening putting together all the bracelets.

The finished product!

I ordered these napkins on ebay and LOVE them!

http://stores.ebay.com/memorablewedding

The five pound bag of Andes mints that found themselves scattered throughout the reception.

There are many more photos to be shared from our big day. I'm getting a photo CD of most of the pictures soon so I'll be putting things up in the next few weeks as I get them all organized! Until then keep checking for random posts about our lives as newly weds! :)