The End of Summer

I'm always curious about what people consider to be the "end" of summer. For teachers, and probably parents, it happens on the first day of school. The month of August was basically the only month that we really spent time outside our house, and I didn't even take any pictures! Matt and I started spending time with some of my friends from work and their husbands. McKenzie and Devin and Molly and Andrew. Kenzy and Molly both teach fifth grade at Summit. None of us have kids, so we get to spend time doing pretty much whatever we want! Things like:
1. Playing mini golf
2. Going out to dinner
3. Playing Halo
4. Going to movies
5. Watching Ridiculousness
6. Playing Super Nintendo and Wii
7. Having fire pits
8. Playing cards and Settlers of Catan

It has been so much fun spending time with friends. I especially love it when Matt gets along well with my friends' husbands. Last night, the night before school started, we went out to dinner after back-to-school night. I can't wait for more fun nights to come!

From left: Devin, Kenzy, Andrew, Molly, me, Matt

5 Year Anniversary

On Friday, August 15, Matt and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary! Matt said that he couldn't believe that I put up with him for five years. I can't believe that he has survived living with such an OCD woman for five years. On our anniversary, we had to go to Matt's physical therapy in the morning and then we went out to lunch at Costa Vida. Then we went to the Logan temple to do an endowment session. It was so special being in the temple on our anniversary, and even more fun seeing all the newly married couples taking pictures with all their friends and family outside the temple. I remember when that was us. Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday, but other days it feels like we've been together forever.

We definitely are older, and fatter, but happier than we've ever been before.

That night, we went to test drive a new car. Since Matt's Nissan has pretty much died, we've been looking for a new one. We played with the idea of getting a beater for Matt to drive to work, but then we decided to upgrade my Ford and let Matt drive the Ford to work. And a few days later, we bought the car as our anniversary presents to ourselves! Pictures to come!

In the past five years:

• I finished my bachelor's degree in Elementary Education
• I have had three different teaching jobs with five classes of kids
• Matt has been a student at SLCC 
• Matt has had two jobs
• Matt and I have lived in five (yes, five) different places (Millcreek, Cottonwood Heights, Logan, Randy's basement, and our house in Richmond)
•  Matt and I BUILT A HOUSE
• I had brain surgery and Matt had ankle surgery
• We have had five nieces and nephews born (7 now total)

I can't wait to see what happens to us in the next five years!

Sisters

I was looking through some old pictures and found this picture of Reagan from Brad's baptism in 2012. She was almost five months old. I couldn't believe how similar she and Blakelee look! Blakelee is actually almost the EXACT same age in this picture as Reagan was in her picture. Almost five months old. Crazy!

Cell Phone Pics

I don't take a lot of pictures with my cell phone, because the quality is nowhere near as good as my camera, but sometimes there are those moments that you just have to capture and all you have is your phone.

Like Blakelee. She is so cute and fat. I love babysitting her and Reagan. Blakelee is such a happy baby. Being an Aunt is the best!

Or like bedtime with Harrison. Matt apparently needed to test the weight limit on Harrison's crib. Yes, it holds a 200 pound man.

I LOVE hanging out with Harrison and Reagan separately, but they are so much fun together! I was watching them play in Harrison's room and they decided they both needed to sit in the rocking chair and read. 

Matt and I have seen the snowie place Pink's in the Lee's parking lot all summer and had to stop by and give it a try. I have never seen snowies so elaborate before! I had to prove that Matt and I actually did get out of our house a couple times this summer. They were delicious!

After we moved out, Matt and I had the basement carpets cleaned at Randy and Jenny's house. Moving the furniture really sucked, but it was worth it to see all the crap that was hiding in Brad's bedroom.

Behind his dresser...

Under the bed wasn't quite as bad...

Again, babysitting. We are awesome babysitters! I was wrangling Reagan so Matt had to hold Blakelee but he was very involved in his NBA Jam on the Super Nintendo with Lance. Haha! This day was also the day that Tim walked into our house to get the girls and Reagan was sitting on the armchair in just her diaper and one shoe, chugging a Diet Dr. Pepper! Best babysitting moment ever. I promise I was watching her!

This is about a third of what I accomplished on the day I sent Matt fishing with his parents. I spent 11 hours at school running copies for school this year. I am getting everything copied and bound into books in advance so I am prepared! No last minute copying for me! Okay, that's a lie. Not as much last minute copying for me. My note is for the other teachers on my team who I ran the copies for...

Going Out With a Bang!

I can't believe that summer is already almost over! This has been the fastest summer I have ever had as a teacher. We spent all of June getting the house ready and all of July with Matt's ankle surgery/recovery and now that things have calmed down, summer is over! Ah! I even had to send Matt down to Salt Lake with his mom and dad for a few days so I could actually get some work done! They were great babysitters- they took him fishing at Strawberry for a couple days and he didn't miss me one bit.

Before I get back to work, we wanted to spend some time with friends and family. One night, Jenny and Kamie called me for a girl's night! We went to see "Maleficent" and got yummy dessert at Kneaders.

Matt and I went down to Salt Lake for Erika's wedding (no pictures unfortunately) and got to spend time visiting! On Saturday, we met up with my dad and Laurie and went to lunch and then saw Ninja Turtles 3D! Matt (my adult child) LOVED it! I didn't watch the cartoons as a child, so I don't know a lot about the turtles, but Matt was an avid TMNT watcher and just loved the movie. The funniest part was that they gave us "3D glasses accessories" that were turtle masks! Dad is Donatello, Laurie is Leonardo, I am Michelangeno and Matt is Raphael.

On Saturday night, we met up with some friends from our ward in Cottonwood Heights for dinner. Dustin and Emily Wallis are our friends who are Utah football fans so we have a bit of a friendly rivalry going on!

On Sunday, Cassie, my mom and I all went to see WICKED! My mom and I went a couple years ago and it was so much fun! I love seeing plays, and this one is amazing! Cassie had never seen it and thought it was great. After the show, we picked up Matt and went to grab some food at Red Robin!

I wish we had time to visit all our friends and family when we are in Salt Lake! We are lucky to have so many people that we still keep in touch with. I wish I could convince everyone to move up to Cache valley with us! What a great way to spend my last weekend before starting to go back to work.

Our First Camping Trip of the Summer

It is so sad that Matt and I have only been camping once this year, but we have been so swamped with the house and Matt has been a gimp! Once he got put in his walking boot, we went camping that very first weekend! We definitely needed some camping time and family!

We went up Logan Canyon to a spot we've been to a few times with a ton of stuff to do. Randy brought up his Can Am and it was way fun to go for rides. One afternoon, Nate, Todd, Matt and I wanted to go see Old Ephraim's grave and I'm glad we did! It was a fun ride and a fun place to stop. Everyone seems to know about the grave and it was so cool! The monument is the same height as Old Ephraim was! I would be terrified to ever see a bear that big.

Selfie!

The best part of camping is always the campfire! The kids got to sit out with us for a little while, so I snapped a couple pics. I haven't been awesome with taking pictures lately...

I could not get the boys to sit by each other for this picture, but at least they are both smiling!

Matt Can Walk Again!

Matt had the soft cast on for two weeks. We went to see Dr. Rigby about getting Matt in a walking boot (he was going crazy on his crutches) and he said that he needed more time in a cast! Matt did get to pick his color. He couldn't pick between bright pink or bright yellow. The deciding factor was that the yellow was much more obnoxious than the pink.

After a week of being in the obnoxious yellow cast (he still was non-weight-bearing so he had to hang on to his crutches), Matt went to the doctor again who decided it was finally time for the walking boot. They also decided it was time to take the staples out! Matt was more worried about getting the staples out than he was to actually have surgery. He did have 17 staples and some of them were dug in there quite a bit and it hurt just watching some of them get pulled out!

The doctor put in a few stitches on top of his ankle too. Those came out way easier than the staples did.

Matt had the joy of being in the walking boot for two weeks. He limped around a lot, and even still needed his crutches a little bit. After three weeks with zero weight/pressure on his ankle, it was hard for him to trust his ankle at all, even in the boot. We still did a lot of sitting around because he would get really swollen and hurt when he walked on it too much. Two weeks in the walking boot was plenty. At this last appointment, Matt traded his walking boot for his ankle brace and a shoe. It was so funny to watch him try to walk. It was like he couldn't remember how!

His incision looks way good! Those staples gave him some nasty little cuts though!

Matt has to wear his ankle brace for three weeks, and is now starting physical therapy. Hopefully after three weeks his ankle will strengthen enough to just need the brace when he's working. He will start going back to work really slowly, which is going to be crazy because I'm going back to work this week! Matt is going to have to take care of himself for a little while! Not sure if he's going to make it...