Utah Jazz & Jerry Sloan

I love the Utah Jazz and go to as many games as I can, but this season I haven't been able to go to as many because of work and school. Thankfully my parents love me and so for Christmas they gave Ben and I tickets to see the Jazz play the Chicago Bulls this last Wednesday. It was such a good game!

 The score was pretty close up until the last quarter then some stupid moves gave the Bulls more of a lead, well there had been some stupid moves throughout the whole game but you don't really pay attention to them until the last quarter. We enjoyed watching how the fans reacted to Carlos Boozer and screaming "Booz" everytime he got the ball and cheers erupting when he missed a shot or got fouled.

It was fun to see Kyle Korver and Ronnie Brewer back again and they were two of the players that had some good plays against the Jazz. However the fans didn't give them a hard time for leaving the team. The Jazz bear was up to his usual tricks spraying confetti over fans and acting like he was going to pants the referees and camera men. During half time he came out on stilts with giant golf clubs and hit balls into the audience. Ben also got to see the mini "1/2" Jazz bear for the first time. Overall it was a great date night and counted as our Valentines Date!

Yesterday when I got to work I was in the break room and the TV was on Fox Sports (as it always is because I work with so many sports fanatics) but what surprised me was what was happening, Jerry Sloan announcing his resignment. I stood there in unbelief. It was only the night before that Ben and I had watched him coach. I still can't believe that he isn't going to finish the season. I have decided he was forced into resigning because of all the losses this season. Its the end of a Jazz era. Jerry is the only Jazz coach I have ever known and he did so many great things during his career. I remember going to his 1,000th win in 2008 with Danielle and now I can say I was at the last game he coached. I will miss watching him on the sidelines!

What a deal!

 Ben and I are all about good deals and saving money. I used to tease my mom for saving random coupons from the mail or taking ads to Walmart to have them price match Harmons to save a dime on grapes or something equally ridiculous, but now I am doing the same thing! I go through all the coupons that come in the mail and check every ad.  Since there is just two of us we don't have to go shopping much so most of the time we wait until the WinCo coupons come. (I just read this to Ben and  he rolled his eyes at me)

 I think I'll move on since Ben thinks I'm lame. Another awesome deal that we ran into this week was getting a $700 High Definition Canon Camcorder for... $200!! What a steal! I work at Best Buy and when a product reaches the end of its life and we'll no longer carry the product we sell our shelf display for 10% off. So I sold the shelf display of this camcorder and the guy returned it the next day because he decided he wanted a sony instead. Well since we had closed out the license for the product we couldn't put it back on display or send it to the service center so my management was going to lose money every day the camcorder was there so I asked my manager what he would sell it for if I wanted to buy it. After much bargaining I finally talked him down to $200 which was well below what I thought I would get it for. I love good deals!

Life continues

So Ben and I have been super busy lately! We didn't even kiss at midnight on New Years because Ben was working. Some of the highlights of the past month were:
- Ben shoveling the snow from our house to the church at 8 am so I didn't get any snow in my high heels because we walk to church each sunday
- We went down to Price and stayed with Papa Del & Rusty. It was a lot of fun and we learned some new card games.
-We visited Ammy in Ephraim and tried Whips (snowcone/ice cream) in Mount Pleasant.
- I was the "WOW" employee of December at my work
- We had dinner at the Van Wagoner's with Grandma Bolton and got to hear a lot of neat stories about her
- We invited Ben's family and went and saw the pop sensation Walker Brothers perform in Midvale (they're my uncles if anyone didn't know) :D

A lowlight of the month is both Ben and I got sick and spent a couple days at home which wasn't any fun. We are anticipating a much better February though!

Christmas Fun continues

Its crazy that there are only 5 more days until Christmas!! I can hardly wait to give Ben his big present and I'm so afraid that he is a snooper like me (he claims he isn't) that I have hidden his present in a different location every day. It has gone from behind our dresser, to under the sink in our bedroom, to under the blankets in the office, to the storage room, to inside the dryer downstairs, to my car trunk, and to many other ridiculous locations for 2 weeks. Today though I finally wrapped it, partly because I was running out of places to hide it and partly because it was making me nervous at work thinking he might find it and ruin Christmas!

Anyways, back to some fun stuff that has gone on since our last post. The biggest, most exciting thing is we got a Christmas tree, a real one not one of those ridiculous plastic ones! Ben brought it home in the Lexus while I was at work one day and set it up with the lights so when I pulled up it was lit up in our front windows. We had a cute evening putting up all the ornaments we have collected from my Aunt Sandy, his mom gave us some Hummels (sp?), all the ones my parents have given me over the years plus more, and we got two ornaments when we were in Disneyworld. When we were in Disneyworld, we found one that said Just Married with Mickey and Minnie on the top and we paid a lady to put our names and the date on the back. Its super cute, but really heavy so we had to find the strongest branch to hold it. 

I also made us stockings so Santa can come visit us. I sewed and designed them with my mom and they turned out super cute. I was trying to upload a picture of them on here but it said security error so I'll fix that later.
We hope you have a very Merry Christmas!!

 Ben and I have been having so much fun this month. Some of the fun stuff we have done is listed below:

 1)We went snowboarding last week up in Big Cottonwood. There is a hill we found before his mission that we hike around on. I love it because there aren't any other people and it is so pretty seeing the trees covered with snow and sometimes spying some animal tracks. We only went for a couple hours before we were thoroughly exhausted from climbing up and down the hill in snowboarding boots that don't allow your ankle to bend so walking becomes difficult.


2) We went downtown to see the lights on Temple Square and as usual they are amazing! We even watched the Luke 5 movie and had the theater all to ourselves. It was kinda cool that one of the missionaries that talked to us after the movie was from Mexico City South, where Ben served his mission. On our way to our car we bought two cookies from the Zion pantry booth that was outside the gates. I was telling my mom about it the next day after she had worked all night and I just said we bought cookies from some people outside the temple grounds and her eyes got big and she said "you bought cookies from homeless people!" My mom says the funniest things when she is sleep deprived.

3) We went over to my parents house to set up some outside decorations before my mom's Bunko group came over and we started goofing off in the snow. We ended up going in the back yard and building a massive igloo. It took 3 hours but was worth it in the end. Since we weren't planning on playing in the snow, we weren't properly dressed and our wet jeans ended up dying our underwear bright blue!



 4) On Tuesday neither of us had to work so we decided to make a gingerbread house from scratch. It took a lot longer than we expected but was super fun. Ben even made a little igloo out of mini marshmellows to mimic our igloo.


Well thats all the adventures for now but I am positive there will be plenty more before the month is through!!

Ben's Birthday

So obviously we haven't updated this recently since its been almost a month that Bennie has been 22, which isn't that old but he has convinced himself that now he is an old, gross man. For his birthday we invited our families over for dinner and cake. I made a lasagna, my parents brought garlic bread, and his mom brought a nice salad. It was a lot of fun having everyone over and he got some great gifts. He got money and a

Riverton City blanket from his family, a nice American Rag jacket from my family, and I gave him a razor that he picked out himself. The razor turned out to not be such a great idea because giving him a trim turned into a buzz cut, but that was another day. So after the little dinner we ate the cake that I baked and frosted because I'm trying to be a cute domestic wifey. Although the cake was made from a box but one day I'll get to the point that I make it from scratch. Overall it was a great day for my Bennie!

Halloween Fun & One Month Mark

 



So I know Halloween has already come and gone but I still want to tell everyone what Ben and I did to celebrate. We decorated our house all cutesy. My mom and I made BOO words for my entertainment center and we got a dog that sang Ghostbusters for our little table. Now for how we actually celebrated. The week before Halloween we took Jess and Josh to the crazy corn maze in west jordan. Ben and Josh thought it was funny to run ahead and scared us when we walked by. It was fun to spend time with his siblings. On the Friday before Halloween we went to my parents for the Ewell pumpkin dinner that has been a tradition since I was a baby. We eat chili out of a pumpkin. It sounds weird but it is so much fun. Ammy came up from school for it and brought her friend, Jacob. We ate great food, played games, and watched a lame movie. I love spending time with my family!! On Halloween Eve I had to work until 8 and when I got home

Ben was dressed up as a rocker and had my costume picked out. We dressed up and went and visited his parents and my parents. What a bunch of crazies we are! Halloween we went to my Grandpa and Grandma Walker's for dinner. We usually go there on Fast Sunday for dinner but my grandma moved it a week early so that the grandkids would wear their costumes. I love hanging with my extended family once a month and its good for Ben to get to know all the people who mean so much to me!

  Now for our other exciting news... We have finally finished writing our Thank you notes! Just kidding that isn't our good news altought it is exciting, the real news is we have been married for One Month! Wahoo!! The time has just flied by. I guess that's what happens when you are married to your best friend! Ben was so cute and brought me a pink rose yesterday with a cute card to celebrate. I am such a lucky girl!