Just our luck!

Benton scheduled an IBM training in New York City about 2 weeks ago, I decided to join him. I bought my plane ticket and had my days planned out to explore the big city. Well last week we found out that it got canceled and that his training was now in Sacramento, Ca. I was so bummed, I couldn't even call the airlines to cancel my flight. I had my co-worker Kimberli do it for me (thanks Kimberli!) I was just so stressed out. They charged us $180- to change flights from NYC to Sacramento. I was so upset, what was I suppose to do in Sacramento? So we flew to Sacramento on this past Sunday morning. We found an outlet mall not too far away from our hotel, and of course it was raining extremely hard...so we shopped in the rain. Later that day we went to downtown Sacramento and looked at the fun shops. All in all it was a fun day. This morning I took Benton to class, which was about a 25 minute drive...once I got back to our hotel, he called me. Guess what Melissa? My training has been CANCELED! I had so many mixed emotions, "Are you freaking kidding me?", "Now what are we suppose to do?", "We have the worst luck ever! This is not our year." "What about the lucky penny I found this morning, didn't that mean anything?" We had to make a decision, go back to Utah and pay a $200- fee to switch plane tickets to fly out tomorrow or stay in Cali til Saturday. Well my thinking is, no duh, let's stay here...but Benton being responsible didn't want to jeopardize his job since he has so much work to do back home. Also, we'd have to pay for the trip ourselves, we don't have money to pay for a hotel, car and food. I remembered Benton's aunt had a house in California, so I called her and asked if we could stay in her home till Saturday, and she said we could! Benton talked to his work, and they said it'd be ok if we stayed here, he'd just have to use his annual leave. YAY, so now we are here on vacation instead of Benton being here for business. I'm super excited, we're going to go explore San Fransisco, we leave Sacramento tomorrow. Maybe our luck is turning around! (I'll post pics when we get back!)

Happy Birthday Mammy!

Today is my mom's birthday! I really wished we lived closer, so we could celebrate together. I want everyone to know how wonderful my mom is. We talk on the phone about 3 times a week, about everything. She listens very well and gives great advise. My mother is the least selfish person that I know. She is always serving others. Growing up she was always there for me and my siblings, I hope when I have children that I will be the same way. My mom constantly makes me laugh, she loves playing jokes on others, listening to music really loud (when you are driving with her, with the windows down-I might add) she just has a great sense of humor. I love spending time with her. I know that I am blessed to have such a great mom, I hope she knows how much I love her.

Moving Day

Today was a bitter sweet day. I went to my Grammy's house in SLC to help clean and get rid of her things. She moved into an assisted living home this past week. My mom, aunt, cousin and I were ciphering through her things, deciding whether it was trash, DI, or a keep item. My grandma lived in her home for more than 50 years, so there was a lot of stuff. For lunch, we went down to my grammy's new place. It seems like a great place for her, she has her own living area and is able to do a lot of fun things with the residents. (Karly, I took some photos for you to see her place!)




Afterward my mom and her siblings decided who got what. It turned out really well. All in all the day was a success. I really hope my Grammy is happy at her new place, we all love her so much.

After a long day, my mom and I met up with the Hansen's for dinner. We went to a yummy Mexican restaurant, La Cocina. It was free margarita night, so we all indulged!


Spencer for some reason loves to eat salsa-plain....here he is eating his salsa out of his bowl...

After dinner we went back to their house and hung out. We had a lot of fun!

Happy Birthday Mom Linda!

Today is my fabulous mother-in-law's birthday! We've decided that we don't like to use the term in-law because it sounds too formal...so my mom's birthday is today. Benton and I love her very much and are so glad she is in our lives, we don't know what we'd do without her. For me personally, she is the best! I am so glad I married Benton, so that I could become really close to her. I can call her up anytime and just talk to her. I am so lucky to be able to have such a close relationship where we hang out together, whether that's going to a movie, dinner or just hanging out at her house and talking. I always hear talk from others saying how they can't stand their "mother-in-law" and I always think of how blessed I was to end up with her, because we get along so well.
We celebrated her birthday last Saturday. All of us kids threw her a surprise birthday party. She was shocked, she thought us girls were taking her to get pedicures, and instead we had about 40 of her close friends and family celebrate her life. We made Cafe Rio salads, which were delicious and all just sat and talked with one another. It was a great surprise.
Mom and her kids.....

Here we are, me and the Birthday girl...

And some more fun pics....



We love you Mom, Happy Birthday!!!

I love Spencer!

Chelsie and Spencer came over for our weekly get together. While Chelsie went to go get her hubby, I spent some time with Spencer. We had just made some chocolate chip cookies, which Spencer really enjoyed. He is at such a fun age, tons of smiles and laughs. I love him so much!

Knee Update

Well it's been over a week and Benton is doing really well. He has been going to physical therapy twice a week and does exercises everyday from home. I know it's been hard for him to sit home all day, he's very active and always likes to be doing things. Here are some pictures of his knee; beware they are kinda yucky!

ACL Knee Reconstruciton

On last Thursday Benton had his knee operated on. He tore his ACL back in December playing basketball, it's such a dangerous sport! We went to the IHC hospital in Murray and arrived at 9:30am. My sister Chelsie and her little boy came to hang out with us around 11am. Benton didn't even get into surgery till about 1pm. I was glad Chelsie and Spencer came down to keep me company, we just hung out and ate at the hospital's cafeteria. Benton's surgery went really well and he got out at 3pm. The doctor said his ACL was torn and he had arthritis in his knee. He has to be in bed for 5 days with a cooler hooked up to his knee. The cooler is actually pretty cool, this way you just fill it up with ice/cold water and plug it into the wall for it to circulate the cold water, they use the cooler instead of an icepack now. It's kinda noisy, so it took some time getting use to it. Here is Benton right after surgery, he made me laugh when he was coming out of his anesthesia, he was talking nonsense.

Here is his leg hooked up to the cooler...

and of course Roxy by his side at all times...

He should recover in about 4-6 months, I know he'll push himself to get better as soon as he can. His doctor told him he could golf in 6 weeks, which he is thrilled about. Love you Benton!

Welcome Reid!

We're so excited to have a new little guy into our lives! On March 24th my sister Karly and her hubby Nick welcomed their 2nd son into the world, Reid Hewson Hodge. He was 7 lbs 9 oz and was 20 inches long, and he even came a week early. Benton and I were sad we couldn't be there with them, but hope to go see them this year! We love you guys, congratualtions! Jackie will be such a good older brother. Here are some photos...

TriP tO VeRnaL

Stephanie and I made a trip out to Vernal to buy my bike. Her hubby Tim found me a realy good deal on a road bike from his friend who owns a bike shop in Vernal. We left on Friday to get a head start. We had tons of fun, talking, singing, telling stories, and eating. Here we are overlooking Strawberry Reservoir, it's still frozen.

We stopped in a town called Miton to get a bite to eat for dinner. It was really strange, while we were eating I was telling Steph how surprised I was that it was still light at 8:20pm, we pondered on that thought and continued eating, about 10 minutes later Steph said "It's not 8:30 it's 7:30." For some crazy reason my phone changed time zones only in the town of Miton...kinda strange.
Here we are being crazy!!!


Saturday morning we went to Attitude Cycle, and bought my bike. Yay!!! I'm so excited, I can't believe I finally have one of my own! Steph and I stopped in Park City to go to Pearl Izumi to get some cycling clothing. Here we are in Park City.

Once we got home we changed into our clothes and hopped on our bike to go on a 20 mile bike ride. It was super windy, but we had a lot of fun.
Here I am with my new bike, it's a Cannondale Synapse Carbon 5 Compact, I love it!

Steph and I right before our ride.

I had such a good time going to Vernal with Steph, and know how hard it was for her to leave her baby Gracie, but I really enjoyed our time together. Also, thanks Tim for giving up Steph and being so willing to watch Gracie overnight and all day Saturday!

I have the BEST friends!

So today for my birthday (I know it was about a month ago)I went out to lunch and dinner with some friends. We always celebrate our birthdays together by going out to eat, I love food! My friends Kalene, Mandee and I went to Doolittle's in Ogden for lunch. We had a great time talking and catching up. I have known both of them for 5 years now, we worked together and have stayed good friends ever since even though we don't work together anymore (we are still all at America First, just different locations). I pretty much forced them to get this picture, since we don't have one with all 3 of us, so here we are.

After work I met up with some other America First friends, we've all known each other for about 8 years. We ate out at Chili's, it had been a while since all 3 of us had gotten together. Both of them have kids and are no longer at America First, so I love hearing about what they've got going on at home, lucky ducks!

After dinner I dropped Megan off at her house, I had to put this picture on here, because her little girl Ellie is so cute, she looks like a doll!

I just want to say, how much I love all of my friends and how well they treat me. I'm so glad I have worked at America First for all these years, because of how many great friends I have made, they are the BEST!