christmas break part 2

I found out rather quickly that Kolton is a man of his word.

It wasn't too long after our Sunday date that he called me up for another. We got together with some friends, Andra and Marshall, Laken and Skyler, and took fourwheelers up into the mountains to find some trails. There was a ton of snow, but we didn't let that slow us down. We went about as far as we could and then discovered a big hill that was completely covered in ice. We took advantage of the gigantic slip-n-slide and just really had a nice time sliding down the hill on our bellies, the seats of the fourwheelers, and whatever else we could find, then trying to climb back up. It was really a lot of fun.

Soon it got dark and we headed back to Marshall's house to have dinner.

We had met up with everyone at Skyler's house, so Kolton and I were going to jump in our own pickup to head up to Marshall's.

To digress a little, I'd like to take a moment to discuss the barrier of the center console in a pickup. On all of our previous dates, and for that matter, on the way to Skyler's house; the center console had stayed down and we had sat in our own separate seats on our own separate sides of the pickup. When we arrived back at Skyler's house however, Kolton had gone to warm up the pickup and when I finally opened the door of the pickup, I was alarmed to find the center console up and the expanse of the large center seat staring me straight in the eye. I panicked just a little bit....

What do I DO? Do I sit on MY side of the pickup? Do I dare put the console back down? Will I seem too forward if I sit in the middle? Did he do this on purpose?

All of these questions and a million more were racing through my brain.

So I did the only logical thing I could think of to do.

I sat half of me on the middle seat, and half of me on the far seat.

It was quite uncomfortable, and as we were driving, I could see Kolton sneaking peeks at me and my uncomfortable situation and the awkward way I handled it.

Finally he looked me in the eye and said,

"You can come sit by me if you want"

So I did.

And it was a huge improvement from the previous seating arrangement. :)

When we arrived at Marshall's we immediately got to work preparing a dutch oven meal Kolton had planned. Needless to say,  three hours later, the potatoes were still crunchy. I don't know what went wrong, but that stuff just didn't want to cook and Kolton was getting more and more embarrassed as the hours passed. Inside the other couples were playing games and I went outside to sit with Kolton on the step as we watched the potatoes and tried to figure out what went wrong.

 As we were sitting out there we talked a little bit, but mostly just sat in a comfortable silence. It was nice. and I felt like it dispelled a lot of the still-lingering awkwardness of our new friendship/relationship or whatever it was at that stage. That seems really strange, but I think it was just that we were sitting together and finally felt comfortable around each other and didn't have to struggle to think of things to say. Like I said, it was nice.

Finally we decided we couldn't wait any longer to eat so we scarfed it down, crunchy potatoes and all.

After dinner we went to watch a movie.

Kolton sat on the couch and I just snuggled myself up next to him. Looking back, I just can't believe how all of that happened so quickly. It just felt comfortable and I didn't even think twice about it.

That could have also been because I was dead tired.I zonked out shortly after the movie started and didn't wake up until Kolton was shaking me and telling me it was time to leave. I had been leaning on his shoulder and he had gotten up, packed up the pickup and was ready to go before I finally woke up. That was slightly embarrassing but mostly funny. He'd plum wore me out!

When he dropped me off at my door we said our good-byes and I was thoroughly looking forward to seeing him again.

a word about camping

So last weekend was the big Hansen family reunion. I have spent the last week trying to recover, and therefore haven't been able to write about it. {Not really. I was just searching for my camera in order to show some pictures of the lovely ordeal}

We packed up our bags and headed up to Montana to meet up with the whole fam damily.

And just so you know....I am not a camper. As in, I never go camping and don't really understand how someone could call "leaving-all-of-life's-modern-conveniences" a vacation. But nevertheless, I went.

And had a pretty good time, I must say.

The ride up there was nice. We left modern civilization and kept heading deeper and deeper into sagebrush covered hills when we finally turned a corner and before us lay a beautiful, tree-covered oasis. (seriously-in all that sagebrush it really did look like an oasis...minus the palm trees)

We drove and drove and drove and finally pulled up to the lovely campsite. I'll tell you what, I have never been so happy to see an outhouse in my life. Kolton had been tormenting me about what particular modern conveniences we would have to leave behind (read: toilets) and I was just a bit nervous. However, when we pulled into the campsite and I saw that outhouse, my outlook on the weekend brightened considerably.

Anyway...

Kolton and I went to scout out a campsite to pitch our tent and stumbled onto the prettiest little clearing we ever did see! It was a little ways away from the rest of the camp but there were trees and a little creek running right by the perfect place to pitch our tent. We just couldn't pass up that prime real estate.

That night we just visited with the family that showed up and tried to warm up by the fire. When we went back to the tent it was seriously freezing. Camping is cold, I figured out real quick. The whole weekend I had layers upon layers upon layers of clothes on. It was super attractive.

The next day we played some minute to win it games which were hilarious. The best part about them was that I went up against Kolton twice and beat him twice. He couldn't believe I'd beat him. It was a sweet, sweet victory.

For one of the games we had to stick a popsicle stick out of our mouth and stack five dice on it. Harder than it sounds. The second game we played, we each got a box of Kleenex and using one hand, had to pull every single Kleenex from the box. Holy cow, my hand was cramped by the time I got done but it was SO fun! There were lots of other games that everyone got to play and for me, that was the best part of the weekend.

Kolton also jumped on these stilts and had a few accidents...

He biffed it hard a few times and came away with a few battle wounds

That morning about the time we started playing games it also started raining.

It rained, and rained, and rained and I don't think it stopped until we pulled out of camp the next day. But we didn't let that put a damper on our plans! We went on a few motorbike and razr rides just around to explore, ate a lot of real good food, played some games, and just had a nice time chatting with family and trying to stay at least a little warm/dry {didn't really succeed in that department}.

I believe Kolton's favorite part of the weekend was the night before we went home, they passed out a few awards and he was given this:

He was quite proud of it.

On Sunday we had a little church meeting and then packed up and headed home. It was a fun weekend, but I was sure glad to be home, be warm, and take a long, hot shower.

All in all, I decided camping is pretty alright.

things i love lately

1.  Two words for you.

Soft Scrub.

This stuff worked a major miracle on my kitchen sink.

Ever since we moved into this house I have been disgusted with the state of my kitchen sink. It's white porcelain and every little stain would show up. And plus, there was a bunch of nasty crusted on junk that no matter how hard I scrubbed would NOT come off.

So I invested in a little Soft Scrub, laid it on thick, and let it work it's magic. I'll tell ya, I became a believer. After just a tiny bit of scrubbing, the junk I for sure thought was permanent lifted right off. I should have taken before and after pictures. And I should have also invested in rubber gloves because the plastic sacks I had covering my hands didn't really do the trick. My hands were burning, but my sink was finally sparkling.

It was a fair trade.

2. Biore Pore Strips.

I always watched those makeover movies where they put those fancy little beauty strips on your nose, but I didn't know that they actually made them...or better yet, that they actually worked. These things work some magic. Seriously.

If I was Oprah and had my own talk show and could give away free gifts to everyone in the audience.

I would give them these. Just so you know.

3. Cardigans

Why, oh why has it taken me twenty years to discover cardigans? I have a wish list of cardi's I would buy including this little beauty...

h&m baby. I just discovered this little treasure of a store.

4. on a less materialistic note...

the new additions to our the Hansen side of the family.

Tyson the missionary got home last week and Calvin Barrett Godfrey joined us just yesterday. I went to visit the sweet bebe and his parents in the hospital today and he was just darling.

I already love that little guy.

But do I have pictures of any of these big events....of course not. That would require that I actually grow a brain and function like a normal person.

Sometimes I can really connect with the plight of the scarecrow....

If I only had a brain...



a few things i've learned about my husband.

1. He's got one handsome smile

So the other morning Kolton jumped up out of bed with his alarm and was in an uncharacteristically (is that a word?) good mood for having just woken up. I would know because I was still trying to sleep and he was bouncin around and I wasn't really succeeding. I was also surprised at the good mood because he was headed off for his orthodontist appointment which is kind of a tense subject between the two of us.

I am always, always, always nagging Kolton about his braces. he's been going in to the office every two weeks in order to speed up the process but each deadline they've given him has passed and he's still got em on! Before every appointment I would coach him and ask him what questions he was going to ask the doc about what he needed to do to just get them off already. As a matter of fact, we'd just had one of these conversations the night before Kolton bounced me up out of bed.

So he skipped out the door and was gone.

Three hours later I was looking at the clock and couldn't believe he wasn't home yet. So like the psycho freakazoid I am, I started running through all of the worst possible scenarios. But when I finally texted him he let me know that he had just been out to pick up some parts.

And then it dawned on me.

Five minutes later, he walks in the door and I just stood there and looked at him and waited for him to smile. When he finally did...

Dang! did those pearly whites look good!

I could not believe that he had tricked me and surprised me and that I had had no idea! That little nasty....

2. He's very cultured

On Memorial Day I went with Kolton in the truck up to Dillon, Montana (no holidays/days off for a farmer). For the last year or so Kolton has been talking up the taco bus in Dillon. He says they have the best tacos he has ever eaten and that he is going to take me there someday. Well that someday finally came on that momentous Memorial Day. We ate at the taco bus (my first ever taco bus!) and it was pretty alright. Maybe not the best tacos I've ever eaten, but considering that they were made in the back half of a school bus...they were pretty good. 

3. He's methodical. extremely so. 

The other night we planted a garden. Ever since moving into this house I have been so excited to plant a garden. Gardening at my house is a relaxing thing. You go out, stick some seeds in the ground, water it, pull weeds with your shorts hiked up so you can get a suntan, and in the fall you harvest it. Sounds fun, no?

I found out real fast that gardening with Kolton is serious business. He insisted we plant all sorts of stuff that I have no idea what to do with, he grabbed a nifty planter tool from his mom to ensure that each of our seeds were placed the correct distance apart, he grabbed a tape measure (yes folks, an actual tape measure) to ensure that each of our rows were the correct distance apart, and he planted one row in the time I did three.

in other words...

He completely sucked all the fun out of gardening.

BUT.

Hopefully his insane-ness will help us to actually grow something.

4. I take back the cultured thing...

For one of my classes I have to attend two musical performances. I had procrastinated (of course) so the day before it was due I somehow found that there was a BYU-I Symphony Orchestra performing that night. Somehow (I have no idea how) I convinced Kolton to come with me. We show up to the concert hall and as we're walking in Kolton starts asking if I reallly have to stay for the whole thing or if maybe we could leave just a little early.

That's when I knew it would be a long night.

Halfway into the second song ( is that the correct term?) I look over and he's slouched in his chair with his head down and his eyes closed.

The last song had four movements and by the third he turned his pleading eyes on me begging me to allow him to be put out of his misery.

I showed no compassion for his plight and informed him that we weren't leaving until it was over.

As soon as the audience stood up to applaud, he grabbed me and we were outta there. Probably a better descriptor of this would be that he's a sport.

5. He's a nature-lover

The other night I was cooking dinner when Kolton called me to come outside and see the nest he had found. It was a killdeer nest and Kolton quickly informed me that when you get close to the nest the mama bird will run in the opposite direction and pretend to be hurt so the predator will go after her instead. I was quite impressed by his knowledge but not impressed by the way he kept taunting the bird watching her squawk and run around on the ground faking a broken wing.

He's also taken up quite the interest of driving around in the evening searching for any sign of small animals. Unfortunately, this also includes raising the gun to his sights and blasting the animal (usually a groundsquirrel) right out of it's hole. He gets a lot of enjoyment out of this activity.

What a guy.

The last (almost) six months have been great, And I'm sure you can see why.