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.

3 things

1. First, and most importantly......

My boyfriend's back!

He's been up in Dillon, MT planting potatoes but we finally saw each other on Saturday night.
And it's good to have him back. I was not enjoying sleeping all by myself in our creaky house.

2. Yesterday while we were getting ready for church, Kolton was entertained by watching me fall off the bed.
I was putting my shoes on and swung my leg up to strap my tootsie in, but I overestimated my swing, lost my balance, and as Kolton describes it, "With eyes as big as saucers and flailing arms," fell onto the floor.
To add insult to injury, Kolton didn't even try to help me. As he saw me falling he took one tiny step forward in an attempt to grab me and then realized how much funnier it would be if I actually fell, so he stopped himself short and just watched the accident unfold.
And got quite a kick out of it too, I might add.

3. I was entertained yesterday by hearing Kolton's foot get caught in a mouse trap. He was washing his hands in the bathroom when I hear a "SNAP!" and then a second later. "ARGGGHHHH!"
Oh, it was so. funny.

Goll, do we love each other or what!?

christmas break part 1

Okay. To continue on with the lovey dovey story. Let me just first start off by saying that things like this never happen to me. like, ever. I didn't get my first "boyfriend" {okay, so maybe we were just "going out"} until I was in the sixth grade. I was practically an old maid in grade school years. And get this: I  had to ask him out. And we never even held hands. No sir, all we did was throw snowballs at each other during recess and one time he threw a 100 Grand candy bar at me while I was on the swings.

So you can imagine my surprise when during my freshman year of college Christmas break I had three boys vying for my attention. And I'll just be honest...I wasn't that upset about it. At the beginning, anyway.

So Kolton and I had chatted a little bit before the break and I was hoping, hoping, hoping, that I would be seeing a little more of him. When I got home, I was at my sister's basketball game and talking to Kolton, via text, when he asked if I wanted to ride over to the singles ward the next day. I wasn't actually even considering going to the singles ward, but there was no way I was going to decline that invitation! So the next morning, he showed up at my door and I was a happy, happy {and nervous} girl. {this is giving me butterflies talking about it. I'm nervous all over again!}

During Sunday school, I had {conveniently} forgotten to bring my scriptures so we got to share. So we're turned towards each other sharing his scriptures, {I'm trying really hard to focus on what the teacher is saying}

And then he does it.

He ever so coolly and casually, slips his arm around the back of my chair.

And then I died.

and all thoughts of listening to the Sunday school lesson were sooo long, lost, and forgotten.

{disclaimer: I know that someone putting their arm around the back of a chair may not seem like that big of a deal. but let me tell you, it is. Especially if that someone is someone you have teasingly told your friends multiple times, "that you're gonna marry someday".....just so you know, and just so I don't sound quite so pathetic}

Anyway....

when I finally came back to life, it was time to go home.

So we climbed back into the pickup and on the way home we started talking about a neighbor who was building a ginormous house. Kolton told me that we could probably sneak in and take a look

{Only in Monteview can you do this kind of thing}

so we stopped by and as we're going up to the house, there's a little 2x4 ramp we have to walk up to reach the front door. And of course I'm wearing really dumb high-heeled boots. {I make a really good damsel-in-distress} so I start up the ramp doing a little balancing act and praying I don't slip and fall and land in the snow/mud, when I feel his hands on my waist guiding me up and ensuring I don't slip and fall and land in the snow/mud.

And then I died again.

When I came back to life we had walked through the whole house and were back in his pickup headed to drop me off.

He left me at the doorstep with the promise that we would be seeing each other again soon.

Oh, did he ever fulfill that promise...

friday the 13th

I have a Friday the 13th story  that I just had to share. Now, just so you know, this was a couple years ago when things were much more dramatic and life-altering, and I was a silly little teeny-bopper. (okay, so maybe not that much has changed)

The story starts on Thursday the 12th, in June sometime, I think.

Late at night my little phone bling-blinged and when I opened it up I had a text from a boy I thought I was totally in love with. I was on top of the world because we didn't talk very often, but I just knew that he was beginning to realize he loved me too.

Wrong.

After talking for a bit I not-so-subtley mentioned that we oughta hang out sometime. To which he replied,

"Um, actually I just thought maybe I should let you know that I kinda have a girlfriend"

To which I should have replied,

"Um, what the helen are you talking to me for then?"

But I was nice back then, so I played it off and was all "cool" with it.

But I was seething inside and our conversation ended quickly thereafter.

The next morning, Friday the 13th I woke up and might have still been a little (or a lot) ticked off. Then my sister suggested that we go ride horses. I thought this was an okay idea, so we got ready and headed up.

And just so you know, I'm no cowgirl. I try to pretend, but it's just not happening.

So we get up to the horses, get em saddled and are ready to go. I got stuck on Big Red, who has really never been my favorite, and this was when I realized that I'm maybe not his favorite, either.

So once I get the saddle on Big Red, I grab his reins and we start walking (I'm on the ground, leading him) toward the other horses.

And this is when Big Red decides to frienziedly and completely, manically and utterly

flip out.

It's also about this time that I realize the horse-shoers pickup is parked right in the way of Big Red's flailing back legs.

The only thought I had in my mind is that there was no way I was going to let that crazy horse lay a finger (or hoof) on that pickup.

So I grab hold of the reins with both hands and pull like there's no tomorrow. And really, I think there must be something to that "super adrenaline under duress" theory, because somehow i was able to move the horse far enough away from the pickup before I finally couldn't hold on any longer.

As soon as I let go, that crazy horse took off, and I honestly thought that was the last we were gonna see of him.

He's running down the farm road with saddle parts flying every which way, and we just all sat and stared at each other. Finally I head after him along with one of the guys that was standing around watching the drama unfold. We head towards where that crazy horse ran to and finally find him nuzzled up in a corner on the outside of the horse pasture looking gentle as a lamb.

We start walking slowly toward him and that's when I start to feel the burn.

I look down and my hands are just on fire. I had some serious rope burn from trying to hold the horse back and my hands were criss-crossed around my fingers and all over my palms with nasty open wounds.

And they hurt.

a lot.

We finally got the horse calmed down and it was determined that I had done up the flank strap (is that what it's called) too tight and that's what had caused the catastrophe.

(I have my serious doubts about that due to an incident that occurred last summer, which I have yet to share with you. My pride won't allow me to)

And as if this disaster wasn't enough to break me, we got a new saddle, someone else saddled Big Red, and I was forced, kicking and screaming, to get back on that devil horse.

I was very unhappy.

So we continued our ride uneventfully, with my hands just killing me, and then finally went home.

When we got there, I began getting ready for the day and was going to put egg whites in my hair (does anyone else do this anymore?) when I spilled the entire bowl of egg whites on the carpet in my room.

Later that day, in an attempt to salvage the day, my friend invited me to hang out with her and some friends from another school.

I think the sullen look on my face scared everyone away and barely three people talked to me all night. when we finally left, I arrived home to find my family gathered in our laundry room which was flooded. We spent the rest of the night mopping up all the water on the floor, using every towel we owned to help clean up the mess. I think we finally finished the job at about 2 or 3 in the morning.

Then we all determined that it was time to go to bed and put this awful day behind us.

As a result of the events from this day, I will forever be superstitious about the dreaded Friday the 13th.

Within good reason, I think.