Uncle Ben is in India!

Ben is in India this week, and I'm hanging with my sis in Georgia while he's there.  I'm pulling carrots from the garden, making crafts and sewing clothes, eating really good food, doing Zumba, and exhausting myself with three adorable children.

But on to the exciting stuff.  Ben is in Bangalore, nicknamed the Silicon Valley of India because it is the center of development and technology.  That means it is relatively clean and foreigner-friendly (the exact opposide of my experience in the more touristy Delhi and Agra.  I'm glad he's having a better time!) So he's loving it.

Here are some pictures he's sent me so far:

I'm not really sure who any of those people are... 

Ben, you are welcome to come into this post and give us some insight about your adventures! 

And a couple fun videos: 

We love you, Ben, and hope you have a great trip! Glad you made it there safe!

Meat and Potatoes, Vegetarian style!

A couple years ago a member of the ward I grew up in made the most amazing meatballs I've ever had for my family, and I finally got the recipe from her!

This dish is so amazing that I just had to find a way to vegetarian-ify it. And yes, folks, it can be done!

Vegetarian meatballs:

Ingredients:

1. 1 pkg. soy crumbles (or 1 lb. of ground beef... if you're into that stuff...)
2. 1 cup Italian bread crumbs
3. 1 egg
4. 1/2 cup milk 
5. 2 tsp. Salt
6. 1 pinch pepper
7. 3 mozzarella sticks, cut in thirds. 
8. Spaghetti Sauce

Directions:

• Mix together well and shape into tennis ball-sized balls.  
• Push two pieces of mozzarella sticks side-by-side into the balls. 
• Cover sticks completely
• Bake at 350 for 40 mins. 
• 15 mins. before meatballs finish, add spaghetti sauce to the pan

I admit that I was pretty nervous about this recipe, but they were amazing! Ben ate four for dinner!

Seriously, you have to try these meatballs. Meat or no meat, they just can't be beat :)

Fun Weekend in Cola!

We had a fun, fun weekend with our Fields family last weekend in Columbia.  Our temple is there, so we make a trip once a month or so, but usually only stay for 24 hours so we can be back in time for church Sunday morning (the Relief Society roll won't take itself!).  Last month my sister's family, from GA, met us in Columbia so they could visit the temple and have my niece take Girl Scout cookie orders.  She suggested another get-together this past weekend to celebrate another niece's birthday, her husband flying into Columbia from a visit to BYU, and the fastest delivery of the Girl Scout Cookies.  Yes, it was the cookies that brought us together.  (visit her blog post... so worth it.)

We all decided to stay an additional day to pack in all the fun, and it was a total blast to spend time together and do what we wanted to do with no time constraints!

Friday night we had an amazing night talking and laughing over my favorite local pizza place with my mom and sisters Megan and Brett.

Saturday morning Brett, Ben and I went out to the temple, then we headed out for a much-anticipated trip down the Saluda river to enjoy our recently AWESOME weather and test out the new addition to our family: Ben's new whitewater kayak!

The Saluda is an awesome river to run. It is a great combination of flat water and class 1 and 2 rapids (3's when the water is higher), lots of river boulders to practice turning and navigating around, beautiful scenery, and lot of people who enjoy tubing and fishing. 

It has some great drop-in spots, and we decided to start from the first one we know of to the last one we know of.  Almost 5 miles (5.6 mi. by road) down river... the longest run we've ever done. It took almost 2.5 hours, and my shoulders were killing me afterwards! 

Ben practicing some playboat moves on one of the rapids:

Megan and Brett brought their kids to the Marionette Theater while we paddled, and met us at the end of the run to drive Ben back to his car at the beginning. (Ben wanted to go to the show, but I took a behind-the-scenes tour of that place in college and I find it so creepy!)

All the kids and my sisters met us at the boat landing at the end, and were waving and yelling "You made it! Congratulations!" as we pulled in.  It felt like finishing a marathon, especially after being so tired, and was one of the sweetest memories of recent years. 

My sister made an awesome lady bug cake for our beautiful niece, Eliza-bug. 

And she really enjoyed photographing it. 

Eliza seemed to like the elephant t-shirt I made her!

We love you guys! Thanks for such a fun weekend! 

Already?!?!

I just looked up a very popular blog by Seth Godin (referred to simply as "Seth's Blog" by other popular bloggers... it's that good.) just now, and wondered to myself, "Hmm... When was this latest post written? I'm sure he's too busy to blog everyday..." Sure enough, it was posted earlier today, Feb. 8, 2011.  

My mind just had a wake-up call: It's February 8th already?! 

This past month has been a whirl-wind for us, and it feels like February is already flying by.

Since we came home from our very amazing, relaxing, much-anticipated and well-delivered Christmas/ New Years trip I have been busy building a new website and overhauling our business, uVinyl, and nagging Ben to learn and teach me what I needed to know about web design.I can't express how proud I am for learning enough to build and edit it on my own, and how grateful to Ben for teaching me. I've also designed TONS of new marketing materials, and begun to distribute them through the mail and around town. It's taken up a lot of  our time, but the changes and updates feel amazing. (Sort of like redecorating an old room to fit your current personality so it feels really calming, then jumping onto a comfy, thick, soft bed and sinking into pillows... that's how my soul feels right now.)

Ben has also been really busy with his new calling of Elder's Quorum President.  He is overhauling their EQ, too! Rearranging the Home Teaching assignments for the first time in years, and adding some new callings to delegate the load. His hard work and enthusiasm have paid off so far, but it is a long road to journey... especially at the beginning. He's studying for the GMAT at the same time, so I feel like my husband is "gone" a lot (at least some of every day is dedicated to both church stuff and studying, which I try very hard to understand), which leaves me lots of time to tweak my website, now that he's taught me how. (We're often in the same room, or even on the same couch, each with our own laptop and a movie playing on the projector screen that neither of us is watching.)

Not to mention a weekend to Columbia for the temple and to celebrate Ben's and Brett's birthdays, our home celebration of Ben's birthday, and a current 3-day trip driving to different Avery Dennison locations around the region. 

So... I'm sorry I haven't been so up on the blog lately.

Forgive me? 

An Evening with Ben and Suz

Did you guys know Ben is a fantastic guitar player? And we have a lot of the same music tastes, too! It is so fun when Ben pulls out his guitar, puts some music lyrics on the projector screen, and we sing together. Maybe a little Brady Bunch, but that's how we relax :)

See how happy he is?!?!?!?!

Don't stop believ' ! Hold on to that feeeeeeeeeelin........

I love my little Guitar Hero :) 

Some fun in the snow!

Here a few pix of just a couple things we did during our break!

Snowmobiling:

Cross Country Skiing! 

Awkward at first, but this could be my favorite winter activity!

And New Years!

Thousands of people came out to the town center of Traverse City (the cherry capital of the world) to watch a giant cherry drop at midnight! The town had beautiful lights set up everywhere, most of the stores on the block stayed open until midnight, and there was a good live band! 

We bought a ton of glowsticks from Target earlier and spent the drive over cracking them in the car, and Ben tried selling them to the crowd. He made enough $ to cover our investment, then we gave the rest away to kids! Really fun. 

Happy New Year!

Winter in Petoskey!

We had an amazing 2 week holiday! Last year we were in Columbia with my fam for Christmas (before we were even engaged), so we planned early to spend this holiday season with Ben's family. It was crazy:

We flew, drove, and explored all over the midwest! 

12/ 22 - 12/ 24: Milwaukee, WI (Steve and Tamara + girls, Betsy)

12/ 24 - 12/ 26: Rockford, IL (Entire family at Sarah and Danny's)

12/ 26 - 1/ 3: Petoskey, MI (Mom and Dad, Betsy)

As you can see, we spent the most amount of time in Ben's hometown of Petoskey, MI. I was so stupid excited to see the fam and visit his hometown! Everyone who knows Michigan said I was crazy to make my first trip in the winter, but what did they know-- Petoskey is gorgeous any time of year, and I had tons of fun in the snow.

We took so many pictures of our time up there, so I had to condense them to collages to fit everything in! I hope this does it justice!

Showing some love all over that town...

One of the first things we did was take a hike through the snow in one of their downtown parks. It was so beautiful!

Ben and I spent an afternoon driving up to the bridge to the Upper Peninsula, and walked out onto the rocks to search for Petoskey Stones. 

We found one!

Petoskey is a very small, beautiful, classy, laid-back resort town.  Ben's family lives close to the town center, so we had a lot of fun taking random walks into town for some really terrific food, good views, and unique stores.  

Here are some of the town highlights:

One of the really unique things about Petoskey is that the awesome town center (with the really terrific food and unique stores) is across the street from the famous waterfront; an area the town has really beautified on the edge of Lake Michigan. 

Seriously... I am in love with this town!

We had a lot of other fun things we did there, like snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, hiking, New Years party, etc... so I'll try to get those pix up too :)