a beautiful sunday afternoon...

One of our fun, new traditions as the "Bennett Family" has been to go on a bike ride on Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon. Now these rides are nothing like our mountain biking expeditions, but instead a leisurely ride down the Provo River trail. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that we are still in Provo because the river is so pretty with the trees growing tall on either side. My favorite spot is a small clearing off the main trail where we are right next to the river and a single swing hangs down off a large sweeping branch. It really is beautiful. Even though I'm no fan of the heat, when winter comes I will definately miss our the sunny, beautiful bike rides of Sunday morning.

Vegas Weekend

Happy Birthday Kaitlin! Kaitlin's birthday was July 19th, so we celebrated part of her birthday in the hospital so Courtney, John, and the baby could be a part of the celebration! We took pizza, drinks, and a "Nothing Bundt Cake" up to Courtney's room and ate away.

Seeing as we were eating birthday cake in the hospital, we couldn't light any candles, but Johnny and Kaitlin had fun pretending to blow out the candles.

Kaitlin was very excited about her new jumper cables that Chad and i got her for her birthday!
This was the license plate of a random car we parked next to at the hospital... turns out there is another "Chady" out there!

After visiting at the hospital, we all jumped in our suits and went swimming for the afternoon in the pool at Courtney and John's complex. With it being approximately 106 degrees outside, the pool felt great!

This is Kenzie after her mommy took her pigtails out. Gotta love the hair.

Johnny got some good height on this one.
As if Chad and I didn't know how white we were already, this picture makes it very clear next to the very tan Kaitlin and Danny. Chicken Fight!!!
They're pretty thug.
After a long day of errands, hospital visiting, swimming, and seeing Dark Knight, everyone was pretty exhausted:

On Sunday, Johnny convinced Chad that they should have a silly string battle... I'm not sure Johnny knew what he was getting in to. Notice the expression on Chad's face as he is pelting Johnny with silly string. I think he got a little to involved.

Picnic on the front lawn with Grandma!

Another one of Chad's suggestions for activities for the weekend included a "marshmallow eating contest".... They both look like they are going to explode. Almost immediately following this picture, Johnny threw up all the marshmallows he had in him. What are we going to do with you two?
Right before we got back in the car to drive back to Utah, we made a quick stop at the Brown's house to say hello to Kory. Chad gave him a huge bag of ties (some of the ugliest ties I've ever seen) that he wore on his mission so that Kory will be sufficiently stocked when he leaves for Chile on August 13th. Way to go Kory!
It was a quick trip to Vegas... almost exactly 2 days since the time we left Utah to the time we returned, but we had a blast. Even though it was way more hot that I'm used to in Vegas (and I'm not the kind of person to deal well with extreme heat), I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. People always say that you never love and appreciate your family so much as when you can't be around them all the time anymore. Turns out... it's true!

Baby Luke Pickrell

On Thursday, July 17th, the Pickrell family welcomed the newest member of their family: baby Luke Pickrell! Anxious to meet our new nephew, we drove down to Las Vegas Friday night after work with my sister-in-law Kimber and my neice Kenzie. Lucky for us, Kenzie slept most of the way there, and we had a very enjoyable ride down. Saturday morning, we jumped in the cars and headed for the hospital to meet baby Luke.

Pickrell family picture

Mom and baby...
Luke Pickrell
Uncle Chad and Aunt Alyse

Big brother Johnny

Luke is a cute kid with a full head of hair and a healthy set of lungs. Johnny promptly informed us that he didn't like to hear it when baby Luke was crying so he put both hands over his ears and wanted to leave as soon as Luke started to yell. It's going to be a big adjustment for johnny to be a big brother. One time while Johnny was holding Luke, Luke started to cry and Courtney asked Johnny what he should do to help him stop crying. Johnny said, "he might want to eat, or watch TV, or he probably just wants to play videogames."

Playing house in Provo

We've almost been married for 2 months now, and pretty much up to this point I feel like we are just playing house. We both decided that it would be a good idea to take a break for summer semester to get situated, save up some money, and establish routines for when we do start school again. In the meantime, we both work 40 hours a week and then play in our extra time!

Chad is working as a salesman at Mr. Mac in University Mall which means he works 5 days a week (he ALWAYS works on Saturdays) , either the 9:30 am- 6 pm shift or the 12:00pm- 9:00 pm shift . He's been working at Mr. Mac since he moved down to Provo in January and is really starting to get good at selling suits. In a weekly review meeting last saturday, a manager told him that he was a "darn good salesman" except he didn't use the word "darn"! Probably the weirdest part about him working there is that we'll be doing something... grocery shopping, mountain biking, at the mall, walking through Target... and he will see someone that he has helped before and then I get the full run down of their shopping experience complete with funny stories, embarassing moments, and a full running commentary.

I have been working full time as a receptionist for a fencing company in Orem, UT called Simtek Fence. I have more regular hours working 8 am-5 pm Monday through Friday and I love the people I work with. My normal responsibilities include: answering phones, helping with payroll, packaging marketing information, and other general office administrative duties. The company I work for is fairly new and is marketing a new type of fence made of a polyethylene plastic material. Basically, the fence looks like rock but is made of plastic. It's an exciting new development because it is much stronger than any vinyl fence, but also much cheaper (about 1/3 the price ) than a concrete stone fence. I know officially know more about fencing than I ever thought I would.

We've also taken this opportunity to have some extra free time to have an active summer. One of our first large purchases as a married couple was a 24 Hour Fitness Gym Membership which has been great! Chad goes mountain biking a couple of times a week and then goes to the gym to lift weights. I enjoy going to 24 to use the big room of cardio equipment and can zone out for large periods at a time with my head phones plugged in, watching TV on the big TVs mounted to the wall. Since we don't have cable, it's the only time I watch TV... but it's great! I've also started taking the yoga class that is offered there a couple of times a week and I love it!

Last Friday night, instead of going to the gym, we headed up to Hobble Creek Canyon with a friend of Chad's from work to hang out in the mountains. Unfortunately, the person in charge of hamburgers forgot the patties, so we were a bit hungry, but being out in the middle of nowhere was awesome! Probably the best part of the evening was the chance we had to go shooting with our friends.

In the meantime, I've also had the opportunity to be able to cook dinner at least 4 or 5 times a week. Last Sunday, Chad and I made the most delicious chicken. It was chicken breast stuffed with blue cheese and arugula, wrapped in bacon, and then baked in the oven. Absolutely delicious!

Alright, that's it for our Provo update.

Don't Let me Forget

Okay, so funny story of the day. I have been meaning to pick up another CD with a few extra pictures on it from our photographer. It has probably been 1 1/2 weeks since I asked Scott Jarvie to just leave the CD out on his front porch so that I could just swing by and pick it up. Every day since then, things just seemed to come up and I consistentnly forgot to go by and pick it up or I remembered I needed to do it while I was at work and forgot again by the end of the day. Finally, I called home from work on Wednesday and told Chad that no matter what, he could not forget to remind me to go pick up the CD.

When I got home from work there was a post-it note on the front door that said "Scott Jarvie" on it. I smiled a little bit to myself that he would remember my request, and then continued to unlock the door. When I walked inside the house, I was greeted with this sight:

Everywhere I looked, there was a post-it note that said "Scott Jarvie" on it. Sure enough, I remembered and finally went by and picked up the CD. Way to go Chad! There were probably 10-12 post-it notes in all. In this picture, there are 6 post-it notes all around the kitchen. Can you find them all?

Sick!

For the past couple of days, Chad has been really sick and nobody can tell him what's wrong with him! On Saturday afternoon, Chad called me at around 3:00 p.m. and said he was coming home because he had a terrible stomach ache. I think the exact phrase he used was, "It feels like there is a knife in my stomach... sharp, shooting pain". I was suprised, Chad is not the kind of guy to just ditch work for fun, or even for a little pain, so I knew he meant business. He came home, took some pepto bismol, curled up in a ball, and then slept for an hour. He woke up fine, and didn't feel bad again until sunday.

On Sunday the pain came back, but he was teaching Sunday School so he couldn't really ditch out on church. Luckily, it only hurt for a couple of hours and then went away again. Sunday night, we did some online investigating to see what his illness could be, and narrowed it down to: food poisoning, pancreas trouble, gallstones, appendicitis, or diverticulitis. We hoped it would just kind of go away, but it decided to come back with a vengeance. Monday morning it got to the point that it was time to visit the BYU Health Center. The doctor's diagnosis was a possible stomach ulcer and gave him some medication to take.

It's been so bizarre, he has been a lethargic zombie walking around the house and then feeling shooting pains in his abdomen off and on for the past 3 days. He's at the health center again, but this time they did some bloodwork, so now we just need to wait and see what they say. I feel so helpless... I can't even be there with him because I have to be at work. Hopefully they will figure out what's wrong with him sometime soon!

Sunday Thought

During sunday school this past week, we talked a little bit about sanctification and what it means for us in our lives. In the course of our discussion, a question was raised about whether sanctification is all one continual effort or if you become sanctified in one aspect of your life and then move on to the next. Chad pointed out that when he was 13 years old, he struggled with things totally unique from his challenges now, and was able to overcome those challenges. But even when we overcome minor hurdles, does that mean we have become sanctified in that aspect?

I tend to take a broader sense of the term "sanctified". Sanctification is a lifelong journey, kind of the whole reason we're here. However, under the umbrella of sanctification are steps that require conquering. We must become sanctified in every aspect of our life before we return home again.

I'm not sure I'm making much sense, but I guess the insight I received on Sunday was: Even though I may not notice it, I am continually growing and changing. Things that used to be a big deal to me seem so insignificant, and the introduction of new challenges, much more intricate and involved challenges, are the reason I'm here. Hard things are GOOD THINGS. Anyways, thought for the day.

Happy last week of JUNE!

I'm going to rewind to the last week of June because it was a great week for the Bennett family. First of all, June 26th was Chad's birthday... he turned 22! In honor of it being HIS birthday, Chad decided we were going to Tucanos for dinner. Neither of us has ever been there, but it was DELICIOUS. Chad loved all the meat, and made me try every different kind although I would have been content with eating just the grilled pineapple all night. I was so sick for the next 24 hours from the meat overload, but it was so good I couldn't help it.


I made Chad a spice cake for his birthday and even got to use one of my new cake plates! (hooray for wedding presents) He got caught on camera swiping a bit of the maple frosting before he blew the candles out.
Among the birthday gifts, Chad got new bike shorts (from me) and a bike jersey (from my Dad). He loved the shorts... no more monkey butt.

The second big, exciting event: I GOT ACCEPTED INTO THE BYU NURSING PROGRAM! I found out on Saturday via email that I had been accepted and then received my information packet the following tuesday or wednesday. I still can't believe I got accepted the first time (there is a legendary 25% acceptance rate) but I can't wait to start classes in the fall!

This was my face after I opened the packet and found that it is approximately 40 pages long! Apparently there is a lot to do to prepare to start classes in the fall.

Casa de Infierno

For our first 4th of July as a married couple, Chad and I spent the day with his family: Kimber, Jason, Kenzie, and Kaitlin (she drove up from Las Vegas for the weekend). After sleeping in because we BOTH had work off for the day, we went and checked out the annual Provo city parade, which turned out to be really cool. People here in Provo are kind of hardcore about it and were seen camped out as early as 3:00 pm the day before just to have their section of the street reserved. Kind of crazy, I know. We ended up just riding our bikes down to Provo High School and watching the parade from behind a waist-high fence. It was great!


Later in the day, we met up with family and headed over to Jason's old apartment complex for a nice afternoon swim. It seems like ages since the last time I was in a pool, and it felt great to get in the water when it was so hot outside. Jason and Chad amused themselves with throwing the football to each other as the other one jumped into the pool and tried to catch it. However, Kenzie was the main source of entertainment as we all watched her enjoy the water.






For those of you who haven't been in Provo for the 4th of July, I wil have to tell you that the other big event of the day is the Stadium of Fire at the Lavell Edwards Stadium at BYU. Conveniently, we happen to live across the street from the stadium and were able to enjoy the festivities. We put up a sign in our front lawn and sold parking spots for the event, raking in an awesome $90. It's quite nice that our driveway is so large and can accommodate 12 cars without breaking a sweat.

Even though we didn't have tickets to the event (side note: performers for the evening were Blue Man Group and Miley Cyrus), we put out blankets and camp chairs on our front lawn so that we could listen to all that was going on. We barbecued hamburgers (chicken for me) and had baked beans, jello, fruit salad, chips, and an all-American apple pie at the end. There was so much food I didn't know what to do with myself. Overall, it was an awesome day and a nice little break from reality.

p.s. we decided to call our gathering, the "casa de infierno"... way cooler than any of this "Stadium of Fire" business.