Phipps Fun

We love this family. Janelle's dad lives here in California so they were here for Thanksgiving and she also served a mission in our area, so it was great for them to be able to see family and her mission, and squeeze us in! We spent the whole day in San Francisco together which was so much fun. It was amazingly beautiful weather and we just love that city. It has such a cool feel to it, nothing else like it. We met their friends Jackie and Brad, walked the Wharf, got steamed crab (well, they did...I'm not much for crab), watched the seals, and then had a heck of an adventure crammed in the back of a 5 person car searching for Chinatown.
This is cute little Hazel...

Finally made it to Chinatown (thanks to TomTom and the iPhone), quite the sight! It was a cool place, we felt like we were back in Asia.

CUTE Janelle. 7 months along and she looks THAT cute!

We also walked around Union Square at all the shops and the fun ice skating rink and big Christmas trees...Don't you just love the Holidays?!

David, Janelle and Hazel came back and stayed the night at our place, we had a fun morning with waffles and eggs and Kung Fu Panda, and then went to the Spanish ward that she served in. We just didn't want to say goodbye! Fun weekend...thanks guys, we love you!

Thanksgiving Feast

We spent Thanksgiving at my Aunt & Uncle's place in Pleasanton, just 10 minutes from us. Their oldest Jared and his wife were in Oregon visiting her family, Nick is on a mission in Brazil, so it was just good old Nate at home with us (and Calvin, the cutest dog ever):

Christy (my aunt) went ALL OUT! It was AMAZING. It was like the "picture-perfect" Thanksgiving dinner with everything imaginable. I don't know if I've ever had such a fancy Thanksgiving feast. She worked SO hard, thank you Christy! It was wonderful, I'm still full!

We also played lots of ping pong, and the Johansen favorite...ROOK! Nate and I were dominating and 60 points away from winning when Alan and Ben had the biggest come-back ever. We had a ball with them and are so grateful to have family close. They are the greatest family, we love you guys!

Tomorrow we see our favorite Phipps! SO excited to see them, their little Hazel, and the 7 month baby bump!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving Day!

Hot Fudge Sundaes

I'm afraid this will be a long post. But aren't we all thankful for SO many things!? Ben and I spoke in Sacrament meeting today, and it went really well and of course, was more a lesson for ME than for anyone else.
I have this little journal that I started when I was 14 that I call my
Hot Fudge Sundaes. It's simple, it's just a list of things of love. I'm on page 70 now (w0w!) and it is one of my most cherished possessions. I like to think of it as my "Thankful Journal" and anytime I get discouraged, or feel blue I can read it and be reminded of all my blessings and all the little and big things that I love in life. Reading back through it is like a time-line of my life. I can tell what was happening just by what I was thankful for at the time. I love it!

As Thanksgiving is approaching, I like to reflect on what I'm thankful for and read through my little book. There are 3 big things I'm thankful for this year: 1) the small and simple things in life 2) the spiritual gifts--the Savior, His atonement for me, and the Lord's hand in my life and 3) my husband Ben. Here are a few things from my book that fall in those categories:

THE SMALL THINGS

I love the sound of a storm

I love watching lightning

I love waking up, looking at the clock, and realizing I still have 30 minutes to sleep

I love the feeling of barely shaved legs against pants or sheets (doesn't happen that often)

I love wearing new clothes for the first time

I love talking to myself

I love when my mom hugs me for no reason

I love going on walks and pretending my future husband is with me (haha--this one is funny...remember I'm 14)

I love reading the last word of a book

I love the little pictures, books, stories and cards I get from my siblings

I love watching ants build their little kingdoms

I love being somebody's hero

I love coming home late from a date and talking to my mom about it

I love the mind-boggling questions that come up when I'm laying under the stars with a friend

I love getting dance pictures backI love floating on tubes on the dam at night (Mo--that's for you baby!)

I love the chills I get when a choir sings patriotic songs

I love weird dreams

I love licking the knife after making a PB & honey sandwich

I love being alone in the car, turning up my favorite songs and singing at the top of my lungs

I love getting people Christmas presents

These are just a few, probably only a couple pages out of 70...I wish I could just list them all!

Heavenly Father loves me
I love truly knowing that I am heard in my prayers
I love getting a simple answer to a simple prayer
I love when I remember to talk to my Heavenly Father before I got to school
I love getting a father's blessing
I love having so much support from neighbors and friends during hard times w/gifts, dinner and reassurance of their prayers (when my littlest sister almost lost her whole finger when a trailer hitch came crashing down on her)
I love hearing bios on the Prophet's and that even when David O. McKay was 93 years old, he would still creep over to his wife and give her a goodnight kidss.
I love doing little acts of service and the way it makes me feel
I love EFY
I love having the gift of the Holy Ghost
I love knowing that in the 180degree night sky that we can see, there are over 400 billion visible stars, plus thousands of satellites going 17,000 mph around the sky and the shooting stars you see every 5-10 minutes plus the planets like Mars, Jupiter and Venus that are out and the milky way that you can see and that this is just one galaxy out of an infinite amount with other worlds and other people like us thinking the same thing I am and then knowing that God is watching and knows everything and that He loves ALL of us and that there is a HUGE big plan for us! (deep thinking moment, probably just got home from laying under the stars with a friend:)
I love God's "tender mercies"
I love how amazing music is alone and how it can testify stronger to me than any words can
I love the Plan of Salvation

I love Ben!
I love being on cloud 900,000,000,000,000,000,000,...TRILLION!
I love first first date kisses
I love when the "perfect guy" just waltzes into my life
I love saying his name, "Ben Garrison" (haha--I'm laughing out loud)
(Keep in mind, this was only a couple of months after we met...Ben was still off datin up a storm in Provo! :) )
I love meeting the man of my dreams and how he fits every single thing I've ever wanted and more
I love getting cute calls, messages, texts and facebooks from Ben
I love hearing Ben say, "And lo and behold! You have hold all the qualities I want in a wife!" Ah!
I love the sound of "Camille Garrison"
I love being so happy :)

Then there's a big break and the very next one is, "I love being MARRIED!"

Ben's trying out a goatee for a while.

We're also so thankful for our families. I love Ben's family, each and everyone of you: Sitty and Grandad, Michael & John, Tom & Janet, Jim & Gina and Alyssa, Wesley, and Sheridan; Patti, Lisa & Kraig, all of Kraig's kids: Tracee, Scott & Katie, Jeff & Danielle and kids, Kelley and Jason, Chris & Chelsea, Josh; Nan and Pa, Jon! Aunt Peg! And I love my family so much: Grandma Gooney! Grandpa Bert! Grandma and Grandpa "J," mom and dad! Raquel, Anna, James Brooke! Uncles: Scott, Don, Blake, Alan, Mark, Jed, Kim! Aunts: Cathy, Jackie, Deb, Christy, Jill, Laura, Diane! And all my many many cousins: Casey & Brandy, Kim & Brett, Erin, Kelly & Jen, Blake & Morgan, Dirk & Trudy, Aimee & Tyler, Lindsey, Jay, Jordan, Jared & Tiff, Elder Nick, Nate, Jessica, Dallin, Jenna, Kara, Hannah, Kate, Will, Elder Aaron and Jason! I love you ALL! I am so blessed to have such a great strong, supportive family. Wow I love my life.

Count your many blessings, name them one by one! I highly recommend starting your own "Hot Fudge Sundaes" book. Just write a couple every night before you get in bed!

12:01 AM Twilight

Not gonna lie......I LOVED IT!!!
I've only read the first book. I really enjoyed it, but not enough to continue with all the rest. And I definitely didn't think I'd go to the movie, let alone the midnight showing! But my cute Aunt Christy and adorable cousin Tiff invited me and I couldn't turn it down--girl's night! I went and got in line at 9pm (Sweet Ben went with me to keep me company till the rest of the group came) We took our lawn chairs and Rook and made it just in time still be in line INSIDE. The rest of the group came at 10pm and we had a fun 2 more hours till the movie! It was insane!
There was a news crew there and I was on TV! They came right down our line and zoomed in on me jumping and screaming "EDWARD!" (I discovered that there really is a 13 year old girl in all of us).

Anyway--the movie was sweet! At first I thought it was a terrible pick for Edward, but after seeing him in that movie--he was perfect! And his whole family, especially Emmet, were so great! My favorite part of the movie was the family baseball game! It ROCKED! It was so funny to hear the crowd's reactions to everything. Every time a new character was introduced or something big in the book happened--screams and oh's! It was hilarious.
I thought it was better than the book. Only because I didn't love the way Stephanie Meyer writes, her style is too long and drawn-out, I was like, "GET TO THE POINT!" So this wasn't the typical movie where they leave out a lot of important stuff--they hit everything!

Here's the group (there were actually 21 of us but we didn't catch them at the end).

Cousin Tiffany, Aunt Christy and me:

First scrapbook page

So I've been getting into Digi-Scrapbooking lately and getting really excited about it. And by that I mean I've been stocking up on tons and tons of pages, kits and elements. I've been finding lots of freebies and good deals (like the previous post). But hadn't really made a page yet. Today I finally sat down and tried it out! Here's my first 2 pages! The first is from a kit called "I Just Love Him" and I thought it was a perfect page to start out with and the other is called "Lucky." Anyway--so much fun!
Some updates:
--Ben is on a new case that is MUCH less time-consuming. He's enjoying it and learning a lot!
--He's in contact with a guy in South Africa on a regular basis about moving out there...it's looking more and more realistic and like it will be in Johannesburg...ah!
--I am in quite a "growing phase" of my life right now: called to teach the Laurels in Young Women's, asked to substitute seminary all week (holy early in the morning!), Ben and I were asked to speak in Sacrament next week, and I was asked to speak at the Young Women's in Excellence evening this Wednesday.
--We have our tickets to come home on December 20th and couldn't be more excited.
--We're so excited for our friends Erin & Clark (a boy!), Kelsi and Landon (a girl!), Kelly and Greg (a boy!), Janelle and David (a girl!), Andrea and Brenton (a boy!), and Jamie and Tyson (a girl!), Chelsea and Chris (a girl!), and Jordan and Steve (a boy!) who have just had or are having SOON their new babies! Congrats you guys! (Wow--that's SO many people!)
--Ben and I have set a goal to exercise every day and we can proudly say we have done it Mon-Sat for the last 2 weeks! Go us!
--LOVIN' LIFE!

Digi-Scrapbooking

Oh my gosh, if you're into Digital Scrapbooking, or WANT to get into it. Go to this link:

http://www.divinedigital.com/boutique/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=37&sort=add_date&sort_direction=&page=1

This lady Royanna Fritschmann is selling her WHOLE store for $29 bucks! 10 pages work of kits, papers, overlays, embellishments, everything you need to get started! It takes a while, but if you want an awesome deal--check it out!

Cute photo shoot

Yesterday I was able to take one of our best friend's family pictures. They are such a cute family!

Brian & Corinne:

Benjamin Thomas:
(funny huh! This is Benjamin Brian Thomas and Ben is Benjamin Thomas Garrison):

Cutest little Austin:

I love these two curly-headed cuties. This is the family we play Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride with almost every Sunday! Love you guys!

Check out my photography blog for more pictures!

New Addition to the Family

It's true. We are now a family of 3. This is Ben's new baby! This awesome lady in our ward was just giving this table away because there was no one left at home to play on it! She sent an email out and I immediately responded. Ben had just been talking about maybe looking into finding a cheap ping pong table. So I surprised him with a free one! We picked it up today and it fits perfectly on our outside deck! Needless to say, this is where we will be spending most of our free time from now on. And I'm already getting so good, I beat Ben last time we played! (He'll tell you that he was playing left-handed.....but don't listen to him).

Where are you...

little diamond?



I'm sad...because yesterday I looked down at my wedding ring and there were only 3 little diamonds instead of 4.



Please bless I find my little diamond.