Our Family

Just a bit of history of how our wonderful family came to be....on a freakishly hot August day, my sister and I took our mother to the weber county fair for her birthday. It was August 11, 2001 a Saturday. It was packed as always, and I had my two beautiful children with me, Austin (3) mo (1). And for all those with small children you know how many fateful times we made the long trek to the restrooms. Bless there lil hearts because if it hadnt been for the twenty-ninth trip to the potty I wouldnt have met my best friend, soul mate and wonderful spouse. He was all spiffy in his army uniform, working his hardest to get people to join the army. In fact he even tried to recruit me :D. I politely declined his offer and went to find my sister and mom. I told them as soon as I found them, of the cutie at the army tent. They insisted that we go back that way so they could "check him out" Thank goodness we had the lil ones so we didnt look too obvious going to the restroom again. hehe. We went back and they both agreed that he would be quite a catch, but there wasnt a chance in hell that I was going to go up to him and talk to him again. So we walked the fair grounds once again and then we went home.
I thought of him often, wishing I had more guts to at least give him my number or get his. All I knew was his last name, and it being such a common name I was convinced that we would never cross paths again. Yet I still thought of him... I couldnt seem to get those amazing crystal clear blue eyes out of my head.
A week or so later, he showed up at my friends house with her brother. Intending to play a trick on her. They said that he (ben) was her brothers recruiter and that he had just joined the army. I was totally falling for it. he was in full uniform and I had just seen him at the fair. We later found out that it was all a lie. (what a way to start out huh?) I also found out that night that my dream man was in a serious relationship (dammit!)
I went on about my life for about another week still day-dreaming of him each day. This was eating me up inside and finally I asked my friends' brother How is Ben? Whats he up to? and got little or no information (later to find out that her brother had a crush on me) Meanwhile, Ben was asking him the same questions about me :D And he was getting the same responses. It seems at this point that we were destined to never be together.
Finally he got my phone number and called me up and asked me out, explained that he had ended his previous relationship (that had been rocky for awhile) and wanted to see if there was something to all these feelings. We went out for the first time, he took me on a beautiful drive up the canyon for a picnic in the back of his lil toyota pick-up.... or at least that was our intentions :D as soon as we found a quiet place to park we were attacked by an entire hive of bees, so we took our picnic lunch back down the canyon and found a park to eat at. He was so polite and gentlemanly he opened my doors and served my lunch. I knew that moment that I was going to keep this one around for a while.
A week later after spending each and every day together, he moved in. The second weekend he was living with us was September 11. Knowing his military status I knew it was only a matter of time.... and he ended up going to Iraq only a few short months after we met. It tried our relationship every day. I missed him each and every day.
He came home in April 2003.
In March of 2006, we were married by his Father in a wonderful ceremony. This is when it became official (benandmistyplus3) Although we had always considered ourselves as a family, now we had that damn paper :P. We went on an amazing honeymoon to Jackson Hole, WY. and I went snowmobiling for the first and last time.
His parents gave us their car in March because last spring his son, Nate (13) moved back to Utah and became part of our family again so we were in desperate need of a car that could tote all of us about, and finally we were a two car family for a minute. Then our first car finally died only a month later. In lieu of my recent salary increase we decided to buy a new"er" car.
We have Nate every other weekend and it seemed trying at first, then after about two months we had him for three weeks while his mom was trying to get settled in. We were all trying to get to know each other and our boundaries and I think we have gotten to know each other and truly feel like family now.