New Changes

The past week has involved a couple big changes in our lives! First, we moved out of our apartment and in with my parents. I am going to miss our first home together, but I'm just glad I have a wonderful family that will let us move in with them (and that Quinn and I are both happy to live with!). I took a few pictures of our apartment before we left so I would remember it :).

We also got a new dog! I had been begging and begging Quinn to get a puppy, but he said he wouldn't let me until we were in a house. I found a dog I thought would be perfect for us, and the day we moved in with my parents we went and got her.

Her name is Abby, and she a Queensland Heeler. She's already a year and a half old, but when we got her she was already spayed, up to date on all of her shots, microchipped, and potty trained! Her previous owners had six dogs and couldn't handle all of them, so they gave Abby to us for free.

We are the third owners she's had, and we think her first owners beat her as a puppy, She's pretty skittish when it comes to new people, especially men (although she's already getting better). She warmed up to me really quickly, and is practically my shadow wherever we go. Of course I love it, it's always fun being the favorite! She is extremely obedient, and we've already had a lot of fun jogging together and playing ball.

This morning we went to a mock Race for the Cure run that Mesa High's volleyball coach organizes every year. Quinn and I took Abby and we had a lot of fun.

Here is Abby playing ball before the race

She did great in the race too. I'm so happy we found her!!

Anjulicious

I just wanted to share a song with everyone that was written especially for me a couple years ago by my friend RJ Watson - it is hilarious! I will give a warning though, the song is about my booty! :)

Buster

Two weeks ago I had to put my puppy Buster to sleep. He was ten years old, but he'll always be my puppy! It was a hard decision to put him down, but he had a lot of health issues and was in a lot of pain so it was for the best.

I got Buster on my 11th birthday, and he was the best present of all time! For years I had begged my parents for a puppy, and I even cut out pictures of dogs in magazines and wrote a little story about how much I wanted a dog. Finally I convinced my dad who convinced my mom into letting me have one.

I had a lot of fun with Buster over the years. He knew how to do a few tricks, and he was really smart (and sneaky, which I didn't like too much!). Although it was on accident, Buster became a father! Cute little Queensland Heeler / Beagle mix puppies!

He had his share of challenges too. When he was about two years old he had to have 34 stitches after playing a little too rough with our other dog Cinnamon. About a year later we found out he had epilepsy, and he had seizures pretty regularly the rest of his life. As if he didn't already have it tough, a couple years later he developed really bad allergies and a skin disorder. Poor puppy!

I'm glad that Buster is in a happier place and not suffering like he had to when he was alive. He really was a good dog and I loved him a lot!

Benson Family Reunion

A couple weeks ago we went with my family to

Newport Beach for a reunion. Here are some of the highlights! (There are a lot of pictures)

Hanging out around the beach house

Hanging out at the beach

The guys had a lot of fun burying each other. They got pretty creative!

Kevin...the woman

Richard Stradling...the crab

Quinn got nabbed by the crab!

Tiff kissin' her crab hubby :)

Richard Hale...the beautiful butterfly!

Quinn... the turtle

We hung out at Balboa Park for some rides and arcade games

I took Grant on the Carousel. This is during the first half of the ride...

The second half of the ride. I think he got a little dizzy...

The girls went to "the district" in LA, and Quinn & Richard were nice enough to come along :).

We went to the Newport Beach temple, which was beautiful!

And of course we took family pictures on the beach!

Couldn't leave without a jumping picture :)

My family is the best!!!

GIRL'S CAMP!!

I absolutely love girl's camp! So I was really sad when I realized that, because I was in a new ward, it would probably be the first time I would miss camp in eight years. Then surprisingly in April I was called to be my new ward's camp director! I was really excited!

The theme for camp was Believe In Me, and each day there was a focus on part of the overall theme. The first day focused on believing in yourself, the second day on believing in the Savior, and the third day was about living like you believe.


Throughout the week we went hiking, sang a million camp songs, played games, ate a lot, and also had some really good firesides and devotionals. I decided to tough it out and not use my one shower, but I don't think I smelled too bad! :) Anyway, here are a few of my favorite things about camp.

-Our stake camp song. A sister in our stake wrote a song called "Believe In Me" especially for girl's camp, and it is so cool! She shared her experience with us about how she was inspired while writing it, and it made the song even more special for everyone at camp.

-Being in nature. There is definitely a peace that comes from being in nature. I feel like I am closer to Heavenly Father when I am surrounded by all of His beautiful creations.

-The Young Women. I was extremely impressed with the way the young women treated each other. Our ward is pretty big (we had 40 young women from our ward at camp), and all of them made an effort to talk to and include everyone. It really was like they all saw each other the way Jesus Christ sees them.



Camp was a blast and I hope I have more opportunities to go in the future!

It's been a while...

So I haven't posted for a few reasons. One being that after I read about everyone else's interesting lives I feel like I have nothing to write about! Two, I don't own a camera at the moment so I don't have pictures :(. Hopefully this summer will bring some excitement!

This past weekend was really fun though...the club volleyball team I coach had our last tournament and we WON our FIRST GAME! It sounds really sad I know. It wasn't really our fault that we lost all the other games. All the girls I coached had no club experience, and by some mistake we were put into the championship division, where 98% of the other teams had at least 1-2 years of club experience. Not to mention we were playing some 16's teams when we are a 14 and under team. Anyway, the girls improved so much and we had a lot of fun regardless of losing.

The team we finally beat in the end was kind of our "rival" (we'd played them a few different times at different tournaments). We always came so close to winning but fell short. Our very last game of the season we got to play them again, and won 26-24. You would have thought by watching us that we'd won the state championship. We ran onto the court cheering, and one of the girls said she thought I jumped three feet in the air.

I get a two week break and then it's back to volleyball - open gym and other camps. It's a great sport, I love everything about playing and coaching! And in the fall I am going to be the assistant varsity coach for Mesa High, pretty dang exciting!

After the presidential election in November, I realized I knew almost nothing about current issues or politics. So I started listening to talk radio, and now I'm addicted! I don't listen to anything else in the car :). Anyway, a couple weeks ago I was listening to Glenn Beck, and he introduced something called "We Surround Them." The point of it is basically to show that even though we may not like the direction our government is taking our country, but feel like our voices aren't always heard, there are a lot of people who still believe in America and have good values. Glenn gives the following nine principles:

1. America is good.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

He asks that if you agree with at least 7 of the 9 principles, send pictures of yourself and each family member to wesurroundthem@foxnews.com. There is going to be a special program on Fox News on March 13. I think this is a great thing and encourage anyone who agrees with these principles to participate!

You can go to the website http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/21018/ to read more about it, and also see the other 12 values that he posted along with the nine principles.

A few things I've learned and love

I've learned that Quinn can be quite the romantic! He went quail hunting a couple weeks ago and on the way home stopped to buy me some flowers for no reason. I was so surprised - I loved them!

I don't know if I LOVE this one, but I have learned how to cut Quinn's hair. I cut it in the bathroom in front of the mirror so that he could watch and make sure I was doing everything right.

Before

After

I didn't do a perfect job by any means (luckily in this picture you can't really see around his ears!) but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!

I LOVE coaching these girls! All of them have their own crazy personalities and they make me laugh all the time. Volleyball is one of my loves, and being able to pass that on to these girls and watch them get better every week is so so cool!