Cars- Planes- Hospital- and the Good Life

First off-We are both alive and well and still have all of our limbs. Phew! We just celebrated our 2 month anniversary, and what better way to celebrate then to spend 6 hours test driving cars! Which- we bought a car! But- we'll stay in order.

We spent several hours in the ER two-ish weeks ago. Super random. It was something small & silly. Painful- but silly.

Ben got an A on his accounting test- woohoo! BUT- wants to make it clear- he does not want to be an accountant, haha. He was also feelin' wild one day and decided to give away some of his beloved Nikes. So there's that.

Friday I flew out to Orange County, CA to speak at a Mid-Singles Conference with John Bytheway. It's a lot harder to leave when you're married, thats for sure. But, Ben and I both survived. John & I flew in together and sat next to eachother. We were playing games together on his iPad. When we got there we took a private propeller plane over the mountains to Temecula, CA. When they first told us about that, my very first thought was, "Oh great...perfect timing to read & finish Stephanie Neilson's book....... (a prop. plane crash survivor)" But like we said, alive, well, and all our limbs!  It was neat, John let me ride up front, and then we swopped on the way back the next day. Bright and early in the morning, I spoke first, then John. Did  you know Carl's Jr. has a food truck? Me either. But they do-and thats what was for lunch for us! I was a first-timer. It's ok. It was in the 90's out there - flew back together right after we spoke- got off the plane and it seemed ARCTIC outside here. But it was a fun, exhausting trip, met of a lot of incredible people and I came back feeling really blessed and spoiled.

I wrote a new post on my blog page, if you haven;t read it yet, read it HERE.

We're really committed to go to a pumpkin patch! We've been actively talking about it and somehow it just hasn't happened yet. Our $1 small pumpkin we got from Smith's grocery will just have to do until then.

We're both speaking in church on Sunday! They didn't give us topics, which makes things harder...for me at least. Ben picked forgiveness and I already know it's going to be absolutely incredible and powerful. I'm really excited to hear him! Me...I'm still thinking... we'll see!

We got our NY wedding reception invites designed and mailed. I am so glad we have that checked off our list of things to do. When Ben mailed them he even did little doodles to my family on the envelopes like: "Skinny Batman," the Koolaid man, and a Dinosaur....puking. He cracks me up, haha!

AND...........we bought a car!! Wahoo! And we couldn't have dreamed of a better deal. Seriously. A long series of events and a lot of hours at different dealerships, we got one! It's a 2014 VW Tigaun. (Pronounced Tih-Gwon. It makes us think of the word Iguana, so we've already nicknamed the car, The Lizard) And who knew that buying a car could lead to overwhelming feelings of our Savior's love for  us. No joke! There were so many miracles I don't think we could keep track or even begin to list them. There was even a part in this process where I almost cried because I knew, and physically could feel that this is coming directly from Heavenly Father. It was Heaven's help. There's no other way.  Us buying this car has really made me just blown away by prayer. I can't imagine living without it, I really can't. If you're praying and actually talking to Him, you'll be directed to incredible things. Sometimes, those things don't seem like the "logical" way- which makes decisions sometimes confusing and more difficult to do- but when you remember who's hands you're in and trust you are brought to things even greater than you ever knew was an option! Opportunities and miracles that would literally be impossible without God. Also, they threw in a free roof rack, Ben is still just  b e a m i n g  with excitement because of that, haha. Our salesman nickname is MagicMike also, if you were wondering.

So, there's that. And to end, here are the updates of the Ben dressing up Lucas since last post:

Intro to US!

We decided to start a blog together to keep our distant family in the loop!

We have been married for a month and a half and we love each other even more than the day we sealed the deal! If you haven't seen our wedding video yet, click HERE. Our favorite advice we've taken to heart is from our previous stake presidents. They both looked me in the eye and said, "Al, from now on, it's all about him." Then looked at Ben in the eye and said, "Ben, it is all about her." And our two other favorites are, "Do hard things together," and what my dad wrote in a card to us, "It's great to be good for each other, but it's more important to be good to each other."

I took a long break off from speaking and it's awesome to have free time with each other, and not driving literally everyday to some place new. We love our cute little home in Midvale, UT, especially the quesadilla maker, our moose bowls, and fenced in backyard! (And by backyard we mean our 20x20 foot cement backyard, complimented with a small border of dead grass.) 

We love our ward! They got us busy pretty quick: I'm in the Young Women's presidency, and Ben is in the Young Men's presidency, and we love it! We love the youth!  We are now officially ordinance workers at the Jordan River Temple, and we don't have words adequate enough to express how excited we are! They don't have us starting until the first week of November, so we'll have to make sure our excitement doesn't take over our patience, haha. 

We set goals together, and we've been able to keep all of them except one! Pretty good, eh? GOALS: Temple at least once a week. (The easiest one for us to keep!) No technology at the house until after 9 pm, (with the exception of homework for Ben), so we can have all that time to talk and do other things together, and at least 3 times a week with no technology at all, (with a few exceptions, of course).  Weekly date night. Don't eat out more than twice a week,  I have to learn how to cook sometime! Pray at least 3 times together a day. Read scriptures both morning and night together. On Sundays we have our "companion study," and have recently teamed up with our favorite married couple, The Reimann's, for a weekly FHE. And the goal we can't seem to keep that well: work out/run 4 times a week. We're working on it, haha. 

Ben has developed a daily habit of dressing Lucas up in his t-shirts, shorts and socks. Every time I hear, "Honey, call Lucas," I get excited and nervous to see what on earth he did to him, haha. It's unreal how much that dog loves him- to Lucas, I'm just the uncool mom he's embarrassed to be seen with, haha. 

Ben started school at LDS Business College, which is conveniently just right down the street from where I work at Church Headquarters. 

I finally got glasses! I didn't realize how poor my vision was until I could see everything clearly. The mountains are more beautiful than I ever knew!

I turned 25- holy cow! We went to the Manti Temple, then his parents made my favorite dinner evvveerrrrr: Tacos. And they even decorated the house like my mom used to when I was growing up, and got my favorite cake so it was super awesome. Felt like the first birthday I've had since moving to Ut over 3 years ago!

And for our month anniversary we went on a day trip to Moab- I was a first timer there- and we went rafting and off-roading in a hummer, going up things a car should not be able to do. At all. It was a blast!

We're hoping to buy a car this month before our trek across the country back to NY for our east coast wedding reception. Advice would be appreciated.

I think those are all the big updates?

Cheers To Eternity!!