Extended Family!

Peter has a new family member to play with. My mom and dad got a new dog, and we decided to name him Uncle Charlie. Charlie is such a cute, loving boy. Peter loves Charlie and once he realized that Charlie wasn't going to share our house they got along famously. I picked him up from Salt Lake County Shelter and we drove him down to Nephi to meet my dad. I was very nervous about what kind of travler he would be (Joe isn't as patient as I am with our canine friends)but he was so great. He just wanted to be a part of the fun. Once he realized that Peter was allowed to sit up front on my lap (for anyone wanting to lecture me, I KNOW it's not safe. Don't judge me!) he of course wanted to sit there too. This is how we rode to Nephi.






Welcome to the family Charlie!!!

The m stands for mud.

My dad had a birthday on Tuesday and I am just getting around to posting about it. Shame on me. I don't love him any less because of the delay I just couldn't find my photos. My dad's name is Nyle M. Bennett. The m doesn't stand for anything, it's just an initial. My dad always told me that it stood for mud. I still remember Mrs. Hurst telling me she highly doubted that my dad's middle name was mud and me telling her that she could think what she wanted, I was right. I think the stubborn gene was passed down from Mr. Mud himself. My dad can be quite stubborn and is very set in his ways but he is an incredibly great man. I learned the true meaning of giving service from my dad. He is always so willing to do anything for anybody without ever being asked. Just this last weekend he and my mom came up to stay with us and celebrate my dad's birthday and he spent a good chunk of his time helping (and by helping I mean Joe watched and handed my dad things) Joe fix all of our sprinklers. It's almost impossible to describe my dad to somebody who has never met him. I think the best I can do is by saying he's a little bit country, and a little bit rock 'n roll. He's also just the best. Sure do love you pops, happy birthday!!!

Easter Weekend

We had a delightful weekend. We went to my mission reunion on Friday (which confirmed to me that sometimes the past should stay in the past) and did some Easter celebrating on Saturday. I guess the Easter Bunny remembered that he always delivered my baskets on Saturday (Sunday was always for the important part of Easter)because we woke up to find our baskets filled with goodies.


As you can see, the Easter Bunny was very good to us this year. I got a new bottle of my favorite perfume (I've been rationing what's left of my old bottle) and Joe received Season 1 of Arrested Development, and a subscription to Golf Digest. The Easter Bunny would like to ask all of you to refrain from judging the homemade gift certificate for Golf Digest. With all that the Bunny had to do this last week a trip to the store to buy the actual magazine just didn't happen.

We got to play with cute Krewser Bruiser for a couple of hour in the afternoon. Such a happy little baby, and as you'll see in the picture below he is already a big fan of General Conference. Whenever the choir would sing he'd go right next to the tv.



Next it was time to color eggs. I don't know how excited Joe was to do it but he was a good sport and played along. No matter how old I am I still love to do one egg in all of the colors. It never ends up pretty.


On Sunday we slept late, made waffles, and watched Conference. I don't have any pictures of this day because showering wasn't on my "to do" list until after the day was pretty much over. All in all our weekend was fairly quiet, and VERY enjoyable.

Basically nothing.

I have a few things that I wanted to share that aren't important in any way. I'll just make my way down the list.
1. I think I might actually be growing up. I purchased Easter and Spring decorations for my house, and spent most of Saturday working in the yard. Don't those things make me some sort of an adult?
2. He went to Jared. It's true, Joe purchased my ring at Jared, the Galleria of Jewelry. Yes they have AWFUL commercials, but they do have beautiful jewelry. Judge all you want, I'm very happy with my ring.
3. God works in mysterious ways. I think that our friend Angie got called to be a Sunday School teacher to ensure that we were attending Sunday School at least every other week (which is how often she teaches) instead of at home eating cereal.
4. We are TRULY in the final countdown. Joe has 5 weeks of school left, FIVE!!! Are you serious? That is NOTHING! Last week was spring break and I got a taste of what it will be like to have him home every night. Pure Heaven.
5. I have no doubt in my mind that the people that rented our house before we bought it were great, loving, caring people. Unfortunately, it has also come to my attention after nearly six months of living in this house that they were also very (VERY) dirty people. Many things have made me a little sick to my stomach. I'm just thankful that my momma taught me better than that.
That is all.

Boys. (sigh)

I am a migraine sufferer. They come out of nowhere and the only thing that brings relief is my prescription meds accompanied with complete silence in a dark room. Well this week I had a migraine but couldn't miss work so each morning I took my meds and headed to work. Wednesday was ROUGH. I didn't think I was going to make it through the day, and in fact I didn't. I left work early and went home to rest. Well one of my male friends had wanted to come by and see our house (namely Joe's big screen)but I let him know that it wasn't a good day for that because I had a migraine. Well my friend is a good friend and wanted to check up on me. It went something like this:
Friend: How are you feeling?
Me: Much better, there's light at the end of the tunnel.
Friend: Oh good, is it weird that I'm talking to you about this?
Me: About what, my headache?
Friend: Well yeah, because it's a migraine.
Me: Are those secret kinds of headaches and I didn't know it?
Friend: Well you know, because migraines are from, you know...that time of the month.
Me: Are you serious right now? Or are you kidding?
Friend: What? I just don't know if you wanted to talk about that.
Me: Wait. You really think that a migraine comes from a girl having her period?"
Friend: Shh! Don't say that loud. I'm sorry I brought it up.
The rest of the story includes me explaining what a migraine is, and that men and women get them. Oh boys, quite clueless at times aren't they?

Two quick shout outs to my peeps

Do you ever have days where you just realize how great someone/thing really is? Today is that day for me. I'm feelin the love and decided to share.
First: My parents. Oh my gosh I love my parents. I know everyone thinks that their parents are the best but I think that my parents probably really are. (Stacy's parents come in a close second.) I've never known two people that work harder than my parents. My boss calls me "Big Country" because he says I know how to work hard like a country girl. If any of that's true it's because I saw my parents work non-stop to make sure that our family was taken care of. It's such a great thing to see them be able to lounge and relax a bit now because heaven knows they didn't get a chance to do that when we were young. It's hard to explain how great my parents are, so you just have to trust me when I tell you they are amazing. Really, they are. A few weeks back Joe and I spent the weekend in Richfield and had such a great time. My parents never disappoint! My mom had great food waiting for us, we learned how to play the card game Pit (my dad and I spent most of our time laughing and passing the bad cards back and forth to each other) and of course my dad and Joe spent a good chunk of our stay playing Tiger Woods Golf on the Wii. Oh, and let me just throw this in there; we tried out Wii Fit with my mom and dad and they both killed us on the tests. Not our finest moment. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my folks and am so appreciative of all they've done and still do for me.
Second: Joseph John. We are in the final countdown folks. Six more weeks and Joe is officially done and will be a graduate of The MBA program at the U. What a giant accomplishment! I'm so proud of Joe for how hard he works and what he's been able to accomplish. This last week was AWFUL as far as his schooling goes, and he was such a trooper. There were late nights and early mornings to make sure he got all of his school work done without interfering with his job. He puts in a lot of hours for school and work and works so hard to make sure that there is a balance between his home, work, and school life. (I may have possibly had a hard time acknowledging that a time or two.) What a lucky person I am to have married such a delightful man with such high goals for himself and his family. Turns out I went from one great family just to be able to start another. As my friend Taylor would say, I'm truly blessed.

Did that really just happen?

I was talking with my boss in his office today when one of our coworkers popped in and said "Is that your client in the lobby?" My boss politely responded letting her know that we weren't expecting anyone. She continued to tell us that the man was very handsome and looked like a movie star. I confirmed that we didn't have any movie stars waiting for us in the lobby and naively believed that our conversation was over. I was sadly mistaken. Two seconds later I heard the most ridiculous, offensive words I have heard in quite some time. "I thought I would ask you about him because he is African American." Wow, wow, and WOW. For those of you who may not know, my boss is African American. So somehow this completely ignorant woman assumed that these two men were connnected. I stood there in shock for a minute. Was I dreaming? Had I slipped into another realm where we were suddenly back in 1950? Had I truly just witnessed two human beings being tied together because of the color of their skin? Sadly, I had. As I sit and write this I still can't believe the level of ignorance it requires a person to have that makes them think it's ok to say something like that. People, it is 2010!!! What have the last 50+ years been for if not to make us all equally viewed as people, not colors? Wow. What a disappointing (and slightly even disgusting) experience.