Best of 2013

It is really hard for me to remember things that happen in a calendar year, because teachers think of years starting in August and ending in June. However, I have compiled some of my favorite pictures and moments of 2013. Enjoy.

February: Most importantly, we had a new niece in 2013! Kailee was born on February 11. So fun to think that in 2014, Lance and Kendra will have another baby, and we will have another nephew! We also will have another new niece when Kamie has baby Blakelee!

April/June: Cassie not only went to prom, but graduated from high school in 2013!

April: Tim and Kamie not only bought a house in March, but got a puppy in April! Matt loves Jack and is still jealous that he can't have his own dog.

May: Matt and Tim both got to bring their elk home! Matt's elk "Spike" has been in Diet and Myrna's basement since we got it. All my friends think I'm so crazy for having a dead animal mounted in my house. Unfortunately, I don't really have a choice!

June-August: This summer I spent almost every day in my big sun hat, sunglasses, and beach chair. It was the best! This is at Kamie's parent's cabin at Bear Lake over Memorial day in May.

June: Matt's birthday present was tickets to the RSL game and his jersey. Best present ever. He wears that shirt all the time.

June: Harrison has definitely gotten to the cutest age this year! I love how much he talks and interacts with you. Most importantly, he learned how to get treats from Matt.

June: I learned what a great babysitter Matt is. We were in charge of watching the kids one day and Matt cut holes in the bottom of the cups and made up a game for the kids to play. They were entertained forever!

June: We have seriously the best friends. This summer was our first "friends trip" and we went camping. Natalie and Zach, and Tom and Lindsay were both able to come. The boys spent the entire weekend shooting birds and anything else that moved with their BB guns. I'm so happy that we are all still close (and that the husbands are all friends) even though we have been out of college for over four years.

July: Annual Bear Lake West golf tournament. Definitely fun to see all the boys together.

July: More babysitting adventures. Claire was nervous to sleep in the same room as Spike.

August: Park Day! I went to almost every park day this summer. What a great way to spend time with friends and family and play outside!

August: My mom, Alex and I got to take Cassie to Dixie State to get her set up for college!

August: Matt and I celebrated our four year anniversary.

August: More babysitting. Matt and I had Reagan for a day and it was the busiest day of our lives! We love that crazy girl! I couldn't decide which picture was better, this picture of her trying to become part of the zoo exhibit, or the picture of her licking the ground.

September-November: Football season was cold this year! Most of the games were wet or cold or both, but always fun!

September: After moving in with Randy and Jenny, we have gotten close with the kids. This face was pretty typical for Harrison this year!

October: Matt and I signed the paperwork to start building our house! Definitely growing up! We started this process in August. It took almost two months to get paperwork together!

November: Our lot! We finally got all the paperwork together and were able to start work in November. I can't wait to put together a comparison of all the pictures of the house as it has slowly gone up!

December: Cassie got her mission call in December. She leaves for the Fresno, California, mission on February 26.

December: This is the progress of the house on December 31. I can't believe that next year we will be living in our finished house!

I have so many other good stories and fun times from 2013. Sad to see all those things pass, but definitely excited for some new things in 2014! We are looking forward to having a new niece and a new nephew, sending Cassie on her mission, finishing another school year, getting started on my Reading Endorsement, finishing and moving into the house, a long summer with a lot of camping and spending time with family and friends, more babies from all my pregnant friends, another batch of fourth graders, and in no time it will be the end of the year again!

2013 Recap

2013 Recap

What did you do in 2013 that you have never done before?

• We started building a house and all the stuff that goes with it, like buying property!
• We moved in with Randy and Jenny and the kids- living with kids was new for us
• We bought a new tent- our old tent was a hand-me-down that has slowly died
• Went on a friends camping trip
• My baby sister Cassie graduated from high school, I moved her to college at Dixie State University, and was there when she got her mission call!
• Went to a REAL Salt Lake soccer game
• Brought a class back to school early from a field trip

Did you keep your New Year's Resolutions and will you make more for 2014?

I don't think I made any new year's resolutions this year, but I already have a few on my phone for 2014. Most of my resolutions are projects to work on, and usually take multiple years, but it's good to get started right?

• Scan my mom's old scrapbooks and create a massive digital scrapbook that combines all these books into one. Possibly add my own personal scrapbook pages (see below).
• Remake our home video DVDs and possibly include a slideshow of pictures from those I scan
• Finish my digital scrapbook pages for pictures from high school and college. Start family scrapbook pages post-marriage.
• Put Matt's mission pictures onto my computer and make a digital scrapbook of these pictures.
• Print my blog book for the past three years (oops.)

What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?

A finished house! I will kill Matt if it isn't done by the end of the year. Also maybe a better reputation at school (not all the kids need to think I'm mean!).

What was your biggest struggle this year?

My new class that I got in the fall. This class had a VERY hard time transitioning into fourth grade and I had a hard day EVERY day for a long time. I'm glad those days are mostly over.

What was your biggest achievement this year?

Starting our house. It was so amazing to sign the paperwork and hand over our down payment to start building. It is really our first "grown-up" thing we've done in our lives (besides getting married).

What was the best thing you bought this year?

Our house! Duh! I think our tent is a close second though. Camping is totally different with our new awesome tent! Renewing our USU football tickets was awesome. Definitely a tradition for a lot of years to come.

Where did most of your money go?

We had to put a lot of money into our down payment on our house, so that was probably the biggest payment we made at once, however we also paid off my car and my student loan this year! We will be debt-free for a couple months until we close on our house!

What did you get really excited about this year?

I always get pretty excited about starting a new school year. I had a lot of fun ideas and I've loved implementing them. It was also fun to go camping in our new tent! I think we ended up camping like ten different times this summer in our new tent. And of course, very excited about every little step of building the house.

 

What songs will remind you of 2013?

"Roar" by Katy Perry

"Applause" by Lady Gaga

"Trouble" by Taylor Swift

"Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke

What was the best movie you saw this year?Probably "Catching Fire". There were a lot of big sequels this year but I think that was the best one. "Frozen" was pretty cute too.

What did you do for your birthday and how old did you turn?

I turned 26, and had a pretty normal day. Actually Matt was out of town so I really had a normal day. Jenny brought me a slurpee and a doughnut at work, and I went to Brad's basketball game after work. Matt turned 28 and I can't even remember what we did or what I bought him! Birthdays are kind of lame when you want big presents!

How would you describe your personal fashion statement this year?

I was finally introduced to the skinny jean this year and am loving it. I love the long blouses and sweaters and boots! Definitely fall is the best season! Still sporting the cowboy boots on a regular basis though.

New Year's Eve

How did Matt and I say good bye to 2013? By building our house of course! On New Year's Eve, Matt, Todd and I spent the day working on the house. After all the work we had done the day before, we got the exterior walls up pretty fast. And, by a small miracle, our trusses came early for our roof!!! This meant that we would be able to have a chance to get the roof on before it snows again, which would be amazing. I do not want to shovel out the foundation again, that sucked!

Trusses got literally dropped off the truck, I was worried the guy was going to break them! This is the framing for the roof of our house. Sunroc had to come measure our foundation before they could build these so they would fit perfectly and still have our vault and tray ceiling in the right places.

Matt and I put this wall up pretty quick. This is the kitchen. I was in charge of getting all the studs in place and Matt or Todd would come through and nail everything together.

These also went up super fast because they are all so small.  You can see in this picture where I had laid out the other walls to be put together.

This was the second longest wall in the house, ready to be stood up. We had to have some of Matt and Todd's work friends come over and lift the wall. I was in charge of picking up pizzas and drinks as a thank you to these guys for helping us lift this wall and the back wall. There were seven of us and it was still super heavy!

View from the kitchen with all the exterior walls up!

This is the wall leading from the mudroom into the garage. You can see the plate is laid out to frame the mudroom/laundry room and pantry.

All the plate laid out for the interior walls!

I walked pretty far around this hole all day. After falling off the house the other day, I was worried I would fall down this hole, which is a ten foot drop and would definitely hurt.

Todd was a champ. While Matt and I were laying out the plate for the interior walls and measuring everything, Todd had framed the entire garage by himself. We had to help carry the big beam above the garage because it was super heavy, but he pretty much did everything else by himself! I was Todd's personal lumber hauler to help him get started in here- I had to move like a million 2x6s for him to use, but I think it helped him keep moving because he didn't ever have to stop to get lumber.

Front view! Changing every day!

After working on the house all day, Matt and I were SOOO tired. Jenni and Nate Shields invited us over for games and treats for New Year's Eve and I have to admit that I barely made it. The Fischer's are infamous for not playing games, and I thought that the women would end up playing games while the guys watched football. Surprisingly, Nate got out "Whitetail-opoly" which is the hunting version of Monopoly and all the guys played. In fact, the guys were super competitive! I was surprised at how into it everyone got. I thought for sure that people would get tired and give up.

Harrison and Wyatt working on the car. They had the car lifted up and were looking underneath the car and playing with tools. Melissa even had to run out to the car to get Wyatt's glasses so that he could match Harrison with the awesome safety goggles. 

By the end of Monopoly, I was freaking killing everyone! Even the banker and accountant were begging for mercy (I wasn't too worried about the construction workers). By the end of the game, I owned pretty much all the property and ALL the hotels and had over $8,000 in cash. It was awesome! Reminded me of playing Monopoly on the Super Nintendo with my grandma when I was little.

All those white hotels were mine! Not to mention most of the houses too!

After our LONG game of Monopoly finally finished, Nate was hanging on forever, Melissa, Jenni and I went to the hospital to visit Jenny who was working. They were super busy and we had to wait for like 15 minutes before she had a free second, and by the time we got back on our way home, it was already midnight! We basically missed the only reason people stay up that late, but that's okay! We had a way fun night! Bring on 2014!

More House! Day 4

Thank goodness we had Sunday this week. I needed a break after three long days of working on the house. But back to work on Monday! This time, Todd was able to come help us, which I think was good timing for Matt because he was ready to just get some work done and not have to explain every step!

Today was the best day yet! Matt and Todd spent the morning putting all the plywood down for the main floor. I took them about two hours to do the entire thing. I was in charge of gluing. Yes I am so important. The plywood has a groove on one side so the pieces all fit together perfectly. Todd explained this to me as the "female" side, and the other side was the "male" side. This is why women don't normally build houses. Men are crazy! After finishing the floor, the boys snapped all the lines for the interior and exterior walls for the main floor. It was so fun walking around and saying, "I'm standing in the master closet right now," or "You're in my mudroom right now." I couldn't really help snap lines, so I went to the Sinclair for doughnuts and drinks.

After lunch, we starting building the exterior walls. We started with the back wall and started laying out the front walls. Matt and Todd were like house-building robots. They both just got to work. You can tell they work together every day because they didn't even need to talk to each other or explain anything, they just got to it. At this point, Matt trusted me enough to use the nail gun! And no, I didn't nail my finger, or any other body parts, to anything! Champion! I nailed the headers together (the big pieces that go over doors and windows and make them structurally sound). After this, I also was responsible for carrying like 40 2x6s to the front of the house so I could lay them out for the front exterior walls. I was dripping sweat. It was like 12 degrees outside. I harass Matt for not wearing a coat while he works, but I understand why. My other very important job today was to go to Todd's trailer and get a tool that they forgot. I didn't know what the tool was so Todd drew me a picture. I wish I had taken a picture because it was hilarious.

When I got back, I got to use the router to cut out the windows on the back wall so it would be ready to stand up. This is a very cool tool, but I think I am fired from ever using it again. I was cutting out a doorway, but didn't realize that it was a doorway until I was like an inch from the bottom of the wall and started freaking out that I had done something wrong. This wasn't so good, because I was balanced right on the edge of the wall and totally FELL OFF the house! Good thing it was only like a two foot drop, and double good thing that I did not fall in the window well, which was only inches away from where I landed. Matt, Todd, and Tim were laughing hysterically, and I actually still smile when I think about it. Where is a video camera when you need one!? We could have won a million bucks on America's Funniest Home Videos!

After the fall, we were able to finish the back wall and finish the wall between the garage and the house. This one is not an exterior wall, so it didn't need plywood before we stood it up, and was not very heavy. You can actually see how big my mudroom/laundry room will be from this picture. The door is in the middle of the room and it stretches from the flat 2x6 on the right to the next flat 2x6 on the left. The room is about 12 feet long and 6 feet wide.

Then we had to wait for some help to lift the back wall. It was 55 feet long and even with 7 people (okay I only count as a half person, so 6 and a half) lifting, we barely got it up! It was freaking heavy! But doesn't it look great? The little window is above the sink in the kitchen, and you can also see the door to the backyard and the two windows in the living room and even a little bit of the window in our bedroom.

The front walls that we will finish tomorrow... all laid out and ready!

View from the east!

The front view finally has changed! I love it! The two windows all the way to the right are in the master bedroom.

The garage. You can see where the door into the mudroom is, so Matt's future truck will go on the right side and my car will go on the left side because the stairs into the house will be on the left side. 

Randy and Jenny had us watch the kids while they went down to Salt Lake for a Jazz game and dinner. We weren't quite done working on the house, so they put Brad and Claire in their snow clothes and dropped them off with their sleds. They were sledding in the field behind our house for a while, then needed a project. I told them that we'd pay them a penny for every piece of garbage and wood they picked up around the house, and they were so excited. That reminds me that I need to find $1.46 for Brad and $0.78 for Claire. After picking up all the scraps, they decided to build some houses for themselves!

Can't wait to finish the exterior walls tomorrow and start framing interior walls or the garage!

Christmas Break House Work... Days 2 and 3

Wood. Lots of wood. Pretty much everything you need to build a house is wood. But not all wood is the same. There's special treated wood that you use as plate to hold up the walls in your garage and basement and main floor because it doesn't mold when it gets wet. And tons of other special wood that you can only use for certain purposes. There are also tons of different sizes. Did you know that a 2x4 isn't actually 2 inches by 4 inches? It's really only 1.5 inches by 3.5 inches. And you can get these sizes in all different lengths. It is way complicated. This huge lumber package was delivered to our yard last week and it is quite complex. And not to mention expensive. Like almost $15,000 worth of wood just sitting out in the snow. Crazy.

Thankfully, my husband knows just what to do with all this wood. On Friday, day two of working on the house together, Matt taught Randy and I how to build the bearing walls in the basement. The worst part of this was chipping ice off the foundation with a hammer and a blow torch the day before so the wood would sit flush with the concrete floor. Stupid winter! I did get to use the blow torch. Both Matt and Todd reminded me not to light anyone on fire, or melt my boots, or explode the propane tank. Thanks for the confidence boys.

After all that prep work, Matt whipped up some bearing walls in no time. I was so impressed with how quickly he was able to do everything. He was barely even thinking about it. Now, lest I deceive you, I must admit he isn't perfect. There were a few places where he made mistakes because he was working without another framer (Todd notices when we do something wrong, or Matt asks before he does stuff- but Todd wasn't there). But still, in one day, it was very impressive that they all got done! I think Matt was very close to strangling Randy. I was warned that Matt and I would fight a lot while building our house because I would supposedly question everything that Matt did. Well, it wasn't me questioning everything, but big brother Randy. Matt was getting so frustrated having to explain everything! I definitely understand where Brad gets his personality from!

Matt did let me use the tools today! I was in charge of using a drill, a very long drill, to drill into the concrete foundation so they could use anchor bolts to connect the plate (bottom part of the bearing walls) to the concrete. These tools were definitely made for big man hands, because I couldn't quite keep my finger on the trigger of the drill comfortably. I needed to take a few breaks, switch hands, even sit down at one point, but they all got done. I also helped lay the wood out so Matt could nail the walls all together.

All three bearing walls:

This will be where our stairs to the basement will be:

Can't really tell a difference from the front view:

Okay, day three. Saturday. Tim and Randy both came to help today, which was soooo good because in hindsight, there was no way I could have done what they did, or even close! Today we finished up the bearing walls in the basement so they would be ready to start building the floor for the main level. Matt has been trying to explain this process to me for months, but only after seeing it done did I fully understand.

I should have taken a close-up picture of this, but I think I can explain it. So there is another special kind of wood, called a JOIST. Matt pronounces it "joyce" so I was confused when I saw the actual spelling written on the invoice. The floor joist is basically a strip of plywood that is just under 12 inches high with a 1x1? 2x2? piece of regular wood on the top and bottom. And they are LONG. Really long. They have to span your entire house, so of course they are long. So you cut them to size and they sit on the plate that you cut and secured two days ago. They have to go every 16 inches across your entire house, because your FLOOR, everything on your main floor, will be sitting on these. Seriously. Jump up and down on your main floor after you read this. That is WOOD under your feet holding you up. Little skinny pieces of wood. It blows my mind but makes total sense at the same time. Again, I was in charge of measuring. Tim and Randy were champs with the saw and carrying those heavy joists and putting them in place.

Hole for the stairs into the basement. Crazy Matt tight-rope walking across the UNsecured joists. I only told him to be careful once. He told me I was not allowed to come the day they set the trusses for our roof. I agreed. I do not need to have a heart-attack every second while I watch my husband walk on sketchy, unsecured wood with no harness.

Ta da! This is where my future mudroom and kitchen will be! On top of those joists!

And this is where my future dining room and entry way will be!

And this is where the living room and master bedroom/bathroom/closet will be!

View from below- starting to feel like a basement now that there is some kind of ceiling. View of the future under-stair closet and part of the great room:

Rest of the great room and the back bedroom:

View of the water heater room and storage room- hence the two doorways:

View of the space that will soon be closets for the bedrooms, the bathroom, and front bedroom in the basement:

View of the two bedrooms and bathroom from the front:

I find myself saying this a lot, but it is starting to feel like a real house! There are real rooms and the spaces are easy to see and even walls and almost a floor!

Sad extra story about this day:

Matt and I, and everyone in our house, have been fighting the stomach flu since Christmas. I had it mostly on day 2 of working on the house. I tried to still be helpful, but was so weak from being sick and not eating anything that I'm sure Matt is lying when he tells me that I helped. Matt had the stomach flu the night after I did and into day 3. He was still battling it while we were putting in the floor joist. At the end of the day, he started putting on the plywood to cover the joist and act as the floor, when he got violently sick. His brothers are laughing hysterically. I'm clueless, and ask what's going on, and I look over at Matt, kneeling on the side of the house, throwing up into the snow. Poor guy! We were definitely done after that.