Mac and Ben's Birthday

 On the way home from the airport, we stopped at Costco to get a Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake for Ben's Birthday. It was delicious! Overall, his Birthday was a little lame because we were all still recovering from Cancun, but I don't feel too bad because, well, he was in Cancun. 

 
We are all incredibly lucky to have Ben in our lives! He is the best man that I know. Funny, hard working, my perfect partner and the girls' perfect dad. Not too many dads spend hours after work helping their kids with math homework, but pretty much every night you will find him at the kitchen table helping our girls. I'm grateful every day that God brought us together and for the beautiful life that we have created!

Casa Bonita

For Ben's Birthday, we went to Casa Bonita. We had a great time! We really do love this place!

                                           

Anniversary

For our 19th anniversary, Ben planned a little getaway for us. We went downtown and went to a murder mystery and stayed the night at the Embassy Suites. It was really nice. This was a different Murder Mystery troupe than we have gone to before, so it was fun to try something a little different.

We took the light rail down, which ended up being fine but it was FREEZING. Literally negative temps, so that part wasn't great. But we made it and had a fantastic time.

Here's what I wrote on FB about our anniversary:

19 years with this guy and we are still blissfully happy.

I have thought a lot about why. A happy marriage is no guarantee. My first thought was because we both are really good about wanting to be better for the other person. If one of us lovingly (sometimes not so lovingly) says, "XYZ is bothering me," we are both really good at not being offended, but rather trying to be better for each other in that area.

But then I thought about it more and realized that in reality, the secret to our happy marriage is that Ben does all the dishes. #ocdforthewin

Our code names were Hitman and Nancy Clue. We almost solved the crime!

You Better Belize It!

 Ben's favorite saying is, "You better believe it!" So when we were in Belize and saw shirts that said "Betta Belize It!" we HAD to get it for him. Unfortunately, the first time he washed it it shrunk several sizes. So it became a Claire shirt. Thankfully, I had a friend go to Belize and I asked her to get Ben another one- in an extra large size- and she did. It's perfect! I love my twins.

Mustang

Now that Audra is gearing up to get her driver's license, it was time for Ben to FINALLY get his dream car. He has talked about this endlessly for the past 8 years.  Originally he wanted the WRX, but then he changed his mind a million times, and last November he finally  decided on the Mustang Mach E and we ordered it.

And, it finally came in! Yes, it took however many months to come in. He is in heaven.  And I hope he will finally talk about something besides cars.

Ben's Birthday!

 Yay for celebrating our favorite guy!!! He sure does make our world- he is so incredibly loved by us girls!

We celebrated Mac and Ben together which was awesome. We are so blessed to have these two great men in our lives!

Ben requested my chocolate cake, and Ann brought his other favorite- Boston Cream Pie. It was all delicious.

I am pretty proud of myself for what I got Ben. I went to the Ford dealership to find something for his Mustang, and they had Mustang apparel! How cool is that? So I got him a hat and shirt, and yes- he better wear it when he is picks up his Mustang.

This is a Mach-E t-shirt. It's so awesome!

Where's Waldo

 Ben was asked to be one of the Waldo's for the annual youth Where's Waldo event. This is the costume Ben came up with, and he was convinced that he looked totally different. I told him his best disguise was that none of the kids know him. But, the leaders know him, and they kept pointing him out to the kids! So lame! So everyone (except, oddly, the Bishop) figured him out in about 5 minutes. Oh, well. He said it was still a lot of fun.

Kia EV6

 

This is a very weird time to want to purchase a car. Ben has talked about NOTHING except cars for the past year. It's very annoying. He put a deposit down on a Mach E, but he has never been able to test drive one because every car that comes in is already purchased, and the wait to get your order is a year. In a weird set of circumstances, Kia had two used EV6's, so we went and Ben test drove one.

Woah! This car is amazing! It is at times self driving. It can accelerate so fast I felt like I was on a ride at Disney. Everything about it is just incredible. So Ben ordered one of those, too. He doesn't have to decide yet- if he decides to not get one or the other, they will simply call the dozens of people on their "I want to buy one" list and they will easily resell it, so it means nothing to order it and then not actually buy it.

We don't really want to buy a car for about 5 months, once Audra gets her driver's license. But, man, after both of us driving 14 or 16 year old cars, getting both of us new cars with all of these new features (heated steering wheel!!!) is really intriguing. 

Plus, if we finally buy his car maybe Ben will finally stop talking about cars!

Ben's Birthday

 For his 40th, I rented Ben his dream car to enjoy for the weekend. I never thought I could outdo that gift, but this year I did it.

I got him the most marvelous gift of all time and solidified my status as greater-than-Giselle-Bundchen-combined-with-Martha-Stewart-and-Wonder-Woman.

Yes, I'm that amazing.

What is this make-you-weak-at-the-knees-gift?

Mud mats! Now, when we come inside, the mud mats will soak up all our wet mud and we won't spread it around the house!

And this, dear friends, is what middle age looks like.

Horseback Riding

 Since before we were married Ben has wanted to go up to the mountains to horseback ride on a guided trail. He did it once in the singles ward and has dreamed of it ever since.

So, for his Birthday I reserved us a time to go. And, today was the day!

The weather was perfect, the horses were tame, the drive was OK.

The views were gorgeous, though I was too nervous to enjoy them. I told Ben he better love every minute because I won't be doing this again. Even though these horses were amazing and we didn't even need to guide them because they knew exactly where to go, horses make me nervous- they are just so big and powerful. So I was nervous the whole time. But everyone else had a great time.

Birthdays!

Ben's Birthday celebrations last year were in complete quarantine- almost exactly a year ago it all started. This year was slightly better. Perhaps next year we can go to an actual restaurant!

We celebrated Mac and Ben's Birthdays with his family yesterday- Ann spoiled both of them and really went all out, and it was wonderful. Ben's parents got him a meat thermometer for grilling and Beth and DJ got him Community Season 2 (this is Ben's absolutely favorite show ever) and a really nice pair of wool socks.

Then today, the girls woke up early and make Ben waffles before he went downstairs to work.

The girls and I did our absolute best to make him a Baby Yoda cake. This is what it was supposed to look like:

Here is what it actually looked like:

But, we had a ton of fun making it, and in reality- that's the true goal of all of this. Who cares if we fail? We are learning and improving and having a good time with it. And, the girls get so proud and excited about their handiwork. Bonus: We learned that Baby Yoda tastes really good.

My parents got him bbq sauce and a grilling cookbook, which goes along perfectly with the gift from his parents! Time for Ben to start grilling!

I got him horseback riding- he has wanted to take us all on a guided horseback riding trip, so I bought us a package to go in June.

And then, this is funny. The Relief Society is celebrating their Birthday, and so my ward RS put together a little quiz game. I came in 2nd place, so tonight the RS President brought over my gift- Happy Birthday candles and banner! I had to laugh because Ben felt like I was trying to steal his Birthday, while I just laughed.

A Quarantined Birthday

It's pretty tough to have a Birthday during a pandemic, Ben learned. But, we tried to make his day special despite the unusual circumstances.

Mac and Ann were super kind and brought Ben over some carrot cake and to sing him Happy Birthday. The girls went and wrote on the driveway and drew a 6 ft social distancing line (which was really about 15 feet. They maybe need to work on measurements).

We had tamales and Spanish rice for dinner:

And, the girls made him a chocolate cake- YUM!

 Then we had a family game night. I noticed this on the Catch Phrase game- too bad "getting together" is now against the rules!

It's a crazy way to celebrate, but everything right now is crazy.

Happy Birthday, Ben!