400 Pounds of Fischer

Right after school got out, Matt and I went down to Lake Powell with my dad and the Hightowers. What a wild trip! With Matt, me, Alex and Jake, and Cassie, Laurie, my dad, Laurie's six kids, three Hightower wives, two girlfriends, and six Hightower grandchildren, we were definitely a full houseboat. Matt and I are new to having a houseboat at Lake Powell and have to admit that it was nice to have a little A/C and a place where you could be semi-clean if you wanted to be.

We spent time skiing:

 (trying to ski... without success)

(skiing with a lot of success)

Matt getting ripped up on a ski behind the jet ski... We didn't believe it was possible, yet here's the proof!

Watching other people wakeboard:

(again, I tried with limited success)

Jordan- who is awesome... yes, he is upside-down

 Alex- who is also awesome (see below)

Very awesome

Playing with the kids:

 Trevor

 Riley

 Kevin

 Avery

 Sadie

 Kaylee

 Bucketheads

Matt and cute Avery- We couldn't get enough of this happy baby!

 Matt and I brought glow sticks for the kids- this is the glow stick ball that we put together

The kids all tried to water ski behind the jet ski- Kaylee was the closest to getting up

Avery's cute scooting

 Wakesurfing- the new favorite:

 Jordan in his swimsuit that matches his girlfriend's

Matt in his camo hat

And.... TUBE WARS!
I cannot say enough about how fun tube wars were. Matt and I talked a lot of smack about how we would dominate tube wars and how the Hightowers weren't ready for the "400 pounds of Fischer" they were about to battle, and it was so true! (Sorry for the millions of pictures... I couldn't leave any out!)

Round One: Couple vs Couple
Matt and I vs. Ryan and Stacey (we definitely won)

Round Two: Boys vs Boys
Basically wrestling on the tube while flying really fast (No real winner)

Matt vs. Kelly
This picture has Kelly pinning Matt on the tube

 Matt starts to make his move...

Kelly realizes that he is going to be in the water soon...

DOMINATION!

Round Three: Norton/Fischer vs Hightower
Matt, Alex and I vs Ryan, Chelsie and Chris (Norton/Fischer winners!)

Chelsie attempts to jump to our tube while Matt holds us together... little did she know in this picture that Matt had just pushed their tube away from ours....

I think at this point she started to realize what happened...

And now she definitely knows what happened. I love all of us on the tubes watching her eat it!

This time Matt and I made our move... Here I'm screaming for Matt to rip Chelsie off the tube first (notice she is holding on to the boys' lifejackets- not the tube)

Ryan is crazy strong! When Matt couldn't get all three of them, I had to jump in and help out....

I started to lose my grip but Alex grabbed my toe... At the end of this, all of us were in the water except for Ryan...

This was called the "Flying Squirrel Formation" by the Hightowers... they all jumped over at the same time, each with a target in mind...

There was a point in this battle that I realized that nothing was happening to me even though Ryan obviously has a firm grip on my body...

Again, DOMINATION!

Celebrating Father's Day:
Laurie brought aprons for the girls to decorate for the boys... Since we don't have kids, mine was a Lake Powell apron with all the nieces and nephews handprints on it

 Matt, Dad, Chason, Chris, Kelly, Jordan

Hanging out on the beach:

 Thank heavens Matt and I came prepared for spending time away from the houseboat. The Hightower crew aren't big on camping so it was lucky Matt and I brought our camp shade and camp chairs for everyone to use while we played on the beach!

Hanging out with Matt:

 On our sightseeing ride...

 Matt found this frog for the kids to see one night...

 Fishing! Yes, Matt went fishing on the jet ski almost every night! I must be bad luck because he and I never caught anything together, but when he went with Cassie they caught 11 fish!

Even the ride home was an adventure:

 The car overheated and threw the fan belt about 40 miles out of Kanab. So we had to get a tow back to Kanab (everything in Panguitch was closed for the weekend), spend the night in an interesting hotel, and get the car from the shop the next morning before we could get on our way home!

Luckily, we made it home safely and had a fun trip to Lake Powell! Thank you so much dad and Laurie for making this trip happen!

School's Out for Summer!

As of June 6, I am officially done teaching sixth grade at East Sandy!

All my desks and furniture are put away:

And all my stuff that is going to my new school is packed and ready:

I am going to miss my team a lot:

Karen, me, Michele, and Chris

*Update:
Now that we are back from Lake Powell, my mom helped me move my classroom up to Logan. In Salt Lake I had to hunt down a cart for us to use and we basically did all the packing ourselves. When we got to my new school, Summit Elementary, the principal jumped right up and started running around collecting carts, ready to give me a tour of the school. The janitor grabbed his whole crew and they unloaded the cars and took everything into my new classroom for me. The janitor, Mike, got me my keys to the school and my classroom right away, told me not to move anything heavy by myself and gave me his cell phone number in case I needed help. The principal got me a schedule and popsicles! I have a huge classroom and the previous teacher left me a ton of her stuff. Seriously the best place ever!

Cute Reagan

Last night we were having some fun playing with Reagan while Tim was working on his truck. She was a little fussy because she is sick and Tim gave her a Dorito to suck on. (I hope I'm not getting Tim in trouble with Kamie!) Hilarious! She was smacking her lips for a few minutes after and I had to grab my camera to capture the moment!

All Moved In!

Over Memorial Day weekend, while many people were camping, boating, and doing other things in the rain (suckers!), Matt and I moved all our belongings to our new apartment in Logan! On Friday night, we loaded up the Uhaul. A BIG thanks to our amazing help: my mom, Jeff, uncle Scott, and Tim. Luckily Scott and Jeff have experience with loading Uhauls because I'm not sure we would have been able to fit everything without their expert packing skills. After two hours of loading, we had dinner, then spent three more hours deep cleaning the apartment.

On Saturday morning, we drove up to the new apartment and started unloading. Tim came up again to help, and Randy, Jenny, and the kids met us there. We were unloaded in less than an hour! My mom and Jeff made it just in time to see us finish. We spent the rest of the day unpacking, and setting up furniture. Matt took me out for a much needed dinner that night.

Sunday was a relaxing day. We did a little unpacking, went to take showers at Randy and Jenny's (our gas isn't turned on yet), and had dinner with them. We got the TV set up so I was able to fall asleep, exhausted, in front of the TV.

Monday was our finish day. We spent the whole morning finishing unpacking and putting up pictures and basically putting all the finishing touches on the apartment. We had a BBQ at Randy and Jenny's, hit some softballs, and then sent the boys out turkey hunting while the girls went to a movie. Claire was hilarious in the movie. Right in the middle, Claire was a little fidgety, she sat up and said, "I have a wedgie!" I was laughing so hard! What a fun night with the girls!

Then we ran back to the house, grabbed our stuff, and headed back to Salt Lake for work. We are staying at Matt's parents' house until school is out. I can't wait to get back to our new house!

 I had no idea Matt would be so obsessive about his garage! He arranged and rearranged that thing like four or five different times. And was I allowed to put anything in there? Ha!

 The living room... it extends a few feet to the right, where the desk is, and the TV is on the left next to the door coming in from the garage.

 The kitchen! It doesn't have as much storage as I'd like, but it sure is nice to have a full size oven! Brad and Claire packed the refrigerator for us and they did awesome! It was hilarious to listen to them talk about all the food we had!

This is the entry-room. It will be mostly decorative as Matt and I aren't the type to sit at the table for dinner, nor do I practice the piano very often...

 The spare bedroom is huge! I love it! Along the wall on the right are two more bookshelves, and behind the two bookshelves on the left is a pretty big closet.

 The bathroom is fine, but just outside the bathroom is a huge linen closet. I seriously fit a million things in there!

And here is part of the master bedroom. Behind where I was standing to take this picture is the closet, which is pretty long. There is quite a bit of space in here. I loved the master bedroom in our old apartment because it is so big, but I am not disappointed with our new room because there is still quite a bit of space.

Who Knew!?

One of my biggest accomplishments with my sixth graders this year was that I was able to teach them a bunch of dances in P.E. I've always wanted to do this, but have never had time, so when it was my turn to teach P.E., I went a little crazy. I taught the kids some basic ones: the macarena, boot-scootin' boogie, the electric slide, and the chicken dance. Then I taught them some other fun ones: the hoedown throwdown, cotton-eyed joe, and the cha-cha slide.

Below are the hoedown throwdown, the chicken dance (who knew it would be their favorite?), the macarena, the boot-scootin' boogie and cotton-eyed joe...

Celebrate the Cows!

Matt and I had the opportunity to go up to Richmond and spend time with the family to celebrate Black-and-White Days! We missed it last year so we were excited to go up this year and see how small towns celebrate important things, like cows. On Saturday we went down to the park and got to see Bradley do his little jumprope show with his group and walk around the little tents. There was also a cow pie eating contest that Brad won last year, but, sadly, did not win this year. Later we went up the street to the parade, where Claire reigned in the candy! She was pretty shy at first, but was excited at the end to scream and have people throw her candy. Brad was jumproping in the parade. Even the adults were on their feet to grab as much candy as possible!

 Claire finally trying to get attention from the people with the candy

 Brad jumproping in the parade

 The boys on the golf cart waiting for the candy

After the parade, Randy had the whole neighborhood over for a BBQ, cornhole tournament, and fire. The boys bought a six foot high trophy at a garage sale to give to the winner of the tournament (I was totally fine that Matt and I were both eliminated in the first round of the tournament!). The adults got to sit around the fire while the kiddos watched a movie on the back of someone's house and we all went to bed that night exhausted, but had a great time!

 Reagan pining after Jenny's hamburger... that baby loves real food!

The girls, and Ryan, sitting on the dirt hill chatting like old bitties... Can't wait for them to all be in high school!

Bees Game

So every year, we try to go to a Bees game. Last year we went with our roommates and this year we went with my mom, Jeff and sisters! The best part of the game (besides the yummy food) was that we got in for $1 per person! Matt got this email from the Utah Jazz (yes, my husband gets emails from the Utah Jazz) that was giving away free tickets to certain Bees games. Of course, Jeff and my mom thought it was a hoax, but Matt and I did it anyways and got us all in for less than $10! We had a ton of fun introducing my family to sitting in general admission in the outfield. When we walked in Jeff says (pretty loudly), "Look! Beer!" Haha! Jeff made me laugh so hard! The weather was perfect and we had a ton of fun!

 No, I actually do not know what Matt is doing here... Practicing making a double chin??

Alex brought this hoodie and her date, Taylor, got cold and was wearing it for a little while... Cool guy...