First Christmas Together

This was our first Christmas together and wespent it together in Logan since I worked Christmas day. Wendy's family has always had Christmas stockings and my family have always had Christmas boots. Fortunately both types of containers hold candy brought by "Santa" just as well as the other. I am impressed by Wendy's ability to extemporize for a Christmas boot.

We had a Christmas tree with Christmas presents. It's small, but at least it's a tree. There was even a fair number of presents for us underneath it.

Of course, we all know that presents are made to be admired...and poked and prodded until you know what they are.

Any tree is improved with a wife in front of it. No matter how small the tree.

Learning how to surf!

During our recent vacation to the Oregon coast we saw a lot of people out in the waves surfing. I made an offhand comment to Wendy that I've always wanted to learn how to surf. I should know better than that. She spent the next thirty minutes finding a place that teaches surfing and making an appointment for me there. Isn't she great? I had a blast. I even was able to get up a couple of times.

Swim Ben Swim!

I'm up!

Not up.

Carrying the board

Making Cream Puffs

There are few things as delectable as cream puffs. They have a good pastry, soft gooey filling, and chocolate on the outside.  Something for everyone! We decided to make some.

Making the filling

Finishing up the pastries

More filling

Frosting

 

Eating!

 All I can say is...YUMMMMM!!!!!

Frightmares

Last year Wendy and I went to Frightmares as one of our earlier dates. It was a landmark date because it was when we both first realized: hey, this person actually is interested in me and isn’t just going through the motions. We remembered having a lot of fun at the amusement park last year. We decided that we would go again this year. Once again, it was fun.

We do have the strategy down a little bit better this time.  Last year we were still trying to get on rides when it started to get cold. This year we managed to get all the rides finished just in time to watch all of the Halloween shows and to go through all four of the haunted houses. (On that note, Time Warp passes for the haunted houses SO worth the extra $15)

Ben is Wicked

Wendy and lots of webs

Ben in Haunted Junkyard

Halloween Performances

Alimony

 

Wendy and a Big Creepy Crawly

Wendy and Pumpkin Stack

Ben and Pumpkin Stack

Fall leaves in Logan Canyon

We’ve gone up Logan Canyon several times this year. We haven’t been able to quite hit the fall leaves perfectly. Wendy has had more luck in seeing good fall leaves because she travels back and forth through Sardine Canyon several times a week.

Last week The Herald Journal, the Logan newspaper, published an article that stated that the fall leaves at Tony’s Grove in Logan Canyon were perfect. We thought we would test it out. The leaves were nice; not quite perfect but nice.

Wendy and Logan Canyon

Ben and Logan Canyon

Ben and Wendy at Tony's Grove Lake

Wendy at Tony's Grove Lake

Bountiful Basket

Last month the relief society in our ward had a couponing and money pinching seminar for their enrichment. We’ve started to test out the waters for a couple of the different strategies. The one that Wendy was most excited about was a food cooperative that buys fruit and vegetable baskets. We picked up our first basket today. I have to be honest I wasn’t sure that the basket thing was worth the effort; it appears that I may have been mistaken. There seems to be a large amount of food in the basket.

Happy Birthday Ben

Growing up we never had elaborate birthday parties. We got to choose a birthday dinner and dessert. My birthday also was a little more complicated because it falls on General Conference weekend so large fun activities were not usually possible.

This year my birthday being on general conference weekend actually made my birthday celebration larger. We spent the day at the Ashton's house watching the conference sessions.  All of Wendy's family were also there. At some point Wendy decided that she was going to make a cake for me. I saw her puttering around in the kitchen and assumed that I was going to get a sheet cake with candles in it. Wendy had larger ideas. She made a two tiered cake with frosting drippings. Looked great for being a randomly thrown together cake.

Birthday Cake

Birthday Ben with Cake-maker Wendy

Singing Happy Birthday to Ben

Blowing Out Candles

The cake tasted pretty good as an added bonus.

It appears that Apple isn't everywhere...yet

Dad and I had an interesting experience yesterday when we went to the General Conference priesthood session. I decided to try out the iPAD for taking notes during the priesthood session. It actually worked fairly well.  For the first time in a long time I think I was able completely awake during a general conference session while paying attention to what was said.

During the singing break a gentleman sitting by Dad leaned over and asked me what kind of computer I was using because he was intrigued by it. I was mildly shocked because i thought that by now most people knew what an iPAD was. I figured that maybe he just hadn’t seen one so I told him that it was an iPAD.  His blank look made it obvious that he not only hadn’t seen an iPAD he hadn’t even heard of an iPAD.  Surprising.

The session ended and the gentleman once again leaned over and asked me a question, “That’s a nice computer. Who makes it?”  I figured that was an easy answer; even if he didn’t know what the iPAD was he would have to know who the creating company was.

“Apple”

***Blank Look***

It appears that there are actually people in the world still who not only don’t know what an iPAD is but also do not know who Apple is. Steve Jobs needs to come back to work.

Manti Camping Trip

I have fond memories of camping: the dirt, the freezing cold, and the rain. I think the main reason that my dad has given up camping is that whenever he goes camping it rains. Fortunately, I was young for all the rainy camping trips so they weren't as bad for me as they were for him.  Which is good because we received a bunch of camping gear as wedding presents.

Wendy had a business trip planned to Manti so we decided to make it a camping trip also. Just to test out our items.  It will not surprise you to find out that as we drove down to Manti the sky grew progressively darker and darker. As we entered the town rain was pouring down. At which point I suddenly remembered that maybe camping out in the rain wasn't such a great idea after all. I wimped out and suggested that we spend the first night in a motel. Wendy's sigh of relief could probably have been heard 100 miles away. So the first night of our fun camping trip was spent...yep...hiding from the rain in a motel.

The next day cleared up so our tent was able to make it out of the car.

Notice the blue sky in the background

At one point during the day I kept hearing people talking in the area behind our campground. It was a little surprising to me because as far as I could tell there was just trees back there. Eventually my curiosity overcame my desire not to hike up a steep cliff. Upon clearing the top of the hill I was shocked to find...fisherpeople. A fair amount of them. It appears that camping near to water is so ingrained into me that I camp near a lake without even realizing I camped near a lake. Not one to pass up playing near water Wendy and I spent a fair amount of time sitting by the lake.

Reading by the lake

Reading by the lake

Eventually it got cold enough that we retreated back to our campsite to build a nice warm fire. There was just one small problem.  After about 10 minutes of trying Eagle Scout Benjamin completely failed at starting a fire. Yes, I'm a failure as both a scout and a man. Eventually Wendy took pity on me and showed me how it's done. A couple of minutes later a nice, merry, and thoroughly spiteful fire was blazing happily away.

Ben enjoying Wendy's fire

 Not completely content with showing up her man with her fire-building skills Wendy proceeded to take me on a survival hike through the jungle. Here she is hunting the mysterious jungle denizen known as the snape.

Hiking the jungle

Eventually we had to return to the campground and sleep. I woke up bright and early to show Wendy that I may be a wimp and not camp in the rain and I may not know how to start a fire but dang it I can cook breakfast...in a frying pan...with a gas stove.

Cooking Breakfast

After my rough camping trip Wendy was kind enough to let me go to a sports grill in order to watch what could be the final game in the BYU and Utah football rivalry. I convinced Wendy to go to the place at least 45 minutes before the game; just to make sure that we would have someplace to sit and watch. I forgot one thing. It was Manti. At kickoff there was a rip roaring party well attended by Wendy, myself, and the two employees. Worse; it wasn't even a good game and the team I cheered for got destroyed.

BYU football in a crowded sports grill

 At least we decided to end the trip on a good note. Wendy was able to go to her traditional museum and I was able to check off another temple in Utah that I've gone to.

Big Mastadon

Small Temple

Peach Days!

Wendy has jumped whole-heartedly into her job in Brigham City. Last weekend Brigham City had their peach days festivities.  As a Brigham city employee Wendy felt duty bound to participate.  Peaches were on sale; she had to support the city by buying fresh peaches. It was pure charity; it had nothing to do with the fact that Wendy loves fresh fruit…especially peaches.

We bought an entire box of peaches.  Which led to us to a conundrum. Fresh peaches are really good; overripe peaches, not so much. Wendy loves peaches, I love peaches but even together we couldn’t eat a full box of peaches fast enough.

Never fear. Wendy has experience in these things. So for the past two days, with some minor help from her husband Wendy has jammed and dryed her way into preservation nirvana.

I present to you Wendy’s work.

Kitchen during Peach Days

Peeling Peaches

Cutting Peaches

Drying Peaches

Jamming Peaches

Moving Wendy

We were able to find a seller for Wendy's Park City apartment who both met all of the city's requirements for moving in and also could secure financing (yea for rich parents!) We spent all Saturday moving Wendy's stuff from her house into a U-haul van, cleaning her house, driving to Logan, and then unpacking everything into the house.

Three of Wendy's siblings were amazing and spent their entire Saturday working with us. I can't imagine how long it would have taken without all of them helping.

Wendy's apartment is really empty without everything

Packing the U-haul tight.

First time I got to drive a U-haul. I didn't even wreck it.

Our new house is a little crowded now.

BBQ

A hallowed Saturday tradition in the Stuart household when I was growing up was the main meal of the day. We always had burgers made by my Dad. The manner in which they were made and the condiments that they were accompanied with changed as Dad became more concerned with health. One thing didn't change though. We always had hamburgers.

That ingrained in me the love of hamburgers and bbqing and grilling. I've always wanted to do some pseudo-serious bbqing but was always limited by my equipment. I only had a small camp grill; just didn't to quite as well as I would have liked.

Fortunately, my siblings knew about this. They all pooled together and gave Wendy and I a great wedding gift. A brand new BBQ.  It didn't come assembled; but that's all right. That's what I ended up doing today!

Before assembly

After Assembly