What color is this shirt?

The class I'm currently studying for is Cultural Diversity. The section I'm currently studying is about linguistic diversity. One of the more interesting sections is about how differently men and women speak. One of the differences that they spotlighted was color. The author told the following story:

"Kottak brings an off-purple shirt to class.  Holding it up, he first asks women to say aloud what color the shirt is. the women rarely answer with a uniform voice, as they try to distinguish the actual shade (mauve, lavender, wisteria, or some other purplish hue.) He then asks the men, who consistently answer as one, "Purple." Rare is the man who on the spur of the moment can imagine the difference between fuchsia and magenta."

I had to laugh at the story because it describes my current situation so well.  Even after two months of telling everyone our colors are aqua, red, and yellow I'm still not exactly sure what color "aqua" really is.

Freedom Fire Festival

Every year BYU and Logan have stadium concerts and fireworks over the Fourth of July weekend.  I’ve had a long-standing desire to attend these concerts/fireworks shows.  The opportunity hasn’t ever arrived.  The Provo Stadium of Fire concert tends to be way out of my price range; and I’ve always had to work or had other things interfere with attending.
This year; when I saw that Diamond Rio was going to be the concert in Logan I really wanted to go. Fortunately, my future partner in life also had the day off. We made it our weekly date night. The concert was great. The company amazing. The firework show one of the best ones I’ve seen. They did a great job of fitting the show to the music. We had a good night.

Wendy and Ben's Story - Les Miserables

Les Miserables has always been my favorite musical. I have dvd’s of both concerts and the original cast and symphonic soundtrack.  Every time that Les Miserables has come through Salt Lake City I’ve tried to go to it. I failed every single time for multiple and sometimes funny reasons. Then the show stopped touring. I was devastated. My favorite Broadway play and I would never see it.  Imagine my glee when I found out they were going to do a 25th anniversary tour. I would attend this time no matter what. Fortunately Wendy didn’t mind going with me. Not only did she mind; she also arranged to get us early, cheap tickets.
Show was great. Worth every minute of the wait to see it.

Wendy and Ben's Story - Cooking

The question in our future won’t be who has to cook dinner; it will be who gets to cook dinner. Both of us enjoy cooking. One only has to look at our kitchens to realize this.  Both Ben and Wendy have lots of spices and bunches of kitchen appliances. The great thing is that not only do we enjoy cooking; we enjoy it even more when doing it together.

Wendy and Ben's Story - Snow in June

Ben’s family often goes into the mountains on drives; especially during the summer. On one of these Sunday afternoon drives we had to stop, the road was still covered over with mounds of snow. We couldn’t allow all that good snow to go to waste so we threw snowballs.

Wendy and Ben's Story - Wendy Gets her Diamond

Wendy has given me the nickname of “trouble.” The wait for her diamond ring is a prime example of why I deserve the nickname. We expected that it would take a month, or more likely two months to find an appropriate ring. It did not.  Finding, however, is not the same as receiving.
I wanted Wendy to have some enjoyment from the engagement ring. After all, we did spend more time looking for an temporary ring than the actual ring. It just felt wrong to replace the ring within a week or two. I let Wendy know, subtly of course, that the ring was bought and nothing else.  I understand at some point her family were all chiming in on when I was going to give her the ring.  A popular guess was her birthday on April 9th. Nope!
Wendy’s sister had her wedding in the SLC Temple on April 16th. In a past temple wedding I attended family and friends were allowed to mingle in the sealing room for a couple minutes after the ceremony. My grand plan was to pull Wendy aside and give her the ring while looking across the altar into the mirrors.
One minor detail derailed my plot. It appears that in the SLC temple they march everyone at as soon as the wedding is completed. I had to pinch hit; which is not a good thing because I’m not the greatest improviser.  The weird twisted trees on the north side of the temple ended up being the place.  I don’t think it mattered where I gave her the ring, she seemed to be glad just to get it….finally.

Wendy and Ben's Story - Scarda Wedding

Wendy’s sister got married on April 16th.  Both Wendy and I have been grateful that Wendy’s sister and her husband were willing to get married first.  Watching them plan and orchestrate their wedding gave us a head start. We didn’t have to start from a blank slate. It helped out a lot in our own planning.
While we were their wedding we couldn’t help taking just a couple pictures at the temple we are getting married at.

Wendy and Ben's Story - Diamond Ring Shopping

The mother of pearl ring that I proposed to Wendy with is a beautiful ring, still the traditionalist in me demanded that I should give her a ring that had a diamond. We feared that wedding ring shopping would be long and drawn out since we had so many problems finding a “nice” temporary engagement ring. Happily, we had a nice surprise when we went to S.E. Needham’s in Logan.
When we went into the store, Wendy immediately zeroed in on one counter. She walked right past the dedicated engagement ring counter, ignored the custom ring design station, and didn’t even pause as she passed all the other bling filled cabinets. Wendy had found the estate and vintage jewelry case. She was in heaven.
It took just minutes for us to find Wendy’s wedding ring. The previous owners owned a ranch in Star Valley. When they were married they could not afford a fancy ring so they were married with a wedding band. Later during the 1930′s or 1940′s the ranch made more money and they upgraded from the wedding band to a diamond ring. So 80 years later this is the ring we found in a counter. The combination of the design and the history of the ring hooked Wendy. Luckily, I was a fan of the ring myself.
Because it only took five minutes to find the ring, we had to spend another two hours checking out all the other rings in the store and weighing the pros and cons. We talked to the ring designer, looked at lots of bling filled rings, but it was useless. We had found the ring.

Wendy and Ben's Story - The Engagement

We got engaged on March 23rd 2011. 
When a couple gets engaged one of the first questions that people ask is “How did he/you ask her?” If one was to be completely honest, the first “wedding discussion” took place on a couch.  This isn’t the story that most people want; they want more of a traditional, formal “proposal.” We’re not always  hardcore traditionalists but in this case we thought we would genuflect in traditions direction.
Fortunately neither one of us are the cutesy, elaborate, or embarrassing proposal type of people. The actual proposal was simple. The engagement story is better told in person. The engagement ring is a mother-of-pearl setting.  We used this ring until we found a traditional diamond ring that we both liked.

Wendy and Ben's Story - Ogden Temple Grounds

We visited the Ogden Temple ground on March 11, 2011 shortly before they started tearing it down for it's remodel.

Wendy and Ben's Story - Ogden Dinosaur Park

We went to the Ogden dinosaur park together on March 11th, 2011

 

Wendy and Ben's Story - Scavenger Hunt

I’ve always enjoyed photo scavenger hunts. I haven’t found that many willing participants. People are camera shy I guess. They just don’t know what their missing. Clowning around in front of a camera at random locations and with random items can be a lot of fun. This scavenger hunt on February 15th 2011 definitely was.