Fourth of July Frolicks

Lucky for us, we got to spend Fourth of July in Ocean Park at the Fish Family beach house. I have been to the beach house before, but never during the Fourth of July. All I can say is that it was the best firework show I have ever seen!!! Seriously. I couldn't contain myself . . . I was screaming, jumping up and down, and just lovin' America so much. Of course, the pictures don't even do it justice, so you'll just have to go someday and see for yourself.

Before heading out for Ocean Park, we went to the Vancouver Rodeo. Man I love rodeos!! I sometimes wish that was I raised as a barrel racer. sigh. Oh well. I'll just make my kids do it. There was cattle roping, barrel racing, bucking broncos, bull riding, and don't forget the best . . . MUTTON BUSTING! Little children ride on sheep for as long as they can, which means the sheep usually start moving and the kids fall in the dirt. If we are still in Vancouver when we have kids, we are definitely signing up the little Fish kids for mutton busting! 

Vancouver Rodeo 

bucking broncos

bull riding

MUTTON BUSTING!! hahah I laughed so hard

roasting hot dogs at the beach house 

playing bocce ball on the beach vs. cohan & ems

i tried skim boarding for the first time! not super successful, but super fun. 

fireworks!! people lit up fireworks all along the beach. there were fireworks in every direction . . . over the ocean, above us, beside us, alongside us. . .  any preposition you can think of! 

you can see in these pictures the fireworks that are going off all down the beach as far as you can see

we can't wait to go back to the beach house for our mini first anniversary trip!! In one week we will officially be married for one year! Wahoo!

oh, and this picture is simply for amusement :) Love you Brodie Fish!!

Changes

We officially made the big move from Utah to Washington! We have been busy packing up my classroom (seriously bigger and has more stuff than our apartment) as well as our tiny apartment :) Needless to say, it took longer than expected and was harder than I thought. Thanks to Brodie, the packing master, we were able to fit the classroom and our apartment into my car and the back of Brodie's truck. We accomplished our goal of not renting a U-Haul!

The "Big Blue Burrito" as Brodie calls it. You can see Luna's kennel peeking out the back corner.

 My view the whole trip . . . I had to make sure nothing fell out!

the proud pack master

Now we are in Vancouver enjoying our summer and I am especially enjoying setting up my new classroom! At first I was a little discouraged (you can ask Brodie or my mother) because I kept picturing my old classroom and wanted everything to look exactly the same. But now I am fully on board with the windows, wall to wall cupboards, tan wall paper (it's growing on me), and cool cubby spaces. As I have started to set up, I am getting excited to improve my organization system and change up the decor a little. I don't know if it's a teacher thing, but decorating and setting up is all I can think about. . . eat, sleep, read . . . all I do is imagine what I can set up next. And don't even get me started on my AWESOME reading corner/alphabetized student library. It's seriously the best.

gettin' to work on the new classroom!

OH!! I forgot to announce this (as you probably already assumed): I GOT A TEACHING JOB!! I am happy happy to say that I will be teaching fifth grade next school year at Dorothy Fox Elementary. Fox Rocks! I am so, so lucky and so thankful to Heavenly Father for giving me this job opportunity. I literally applied for over 100 jobs (no joke) and Dorothy Fox was the only school to invite me to interview. haha. I didn't expect much since I knew that over 130 people applied and they only chose a handful to interview. Especially since part of the interview included writing a paper on the changes from Washington State standards to Common Core. What?! I haven't taught in WA and therefore do not know much about the WA State standards!! Talk about a stressful interview. So when they called to offer me the job I was stunned, surprised, and so stoked!! I know that God is watching out for me and giving me more blessings than I deserve.

As I mentioned, leaving behind my old school/classroom/students was difficult. I felt extremely nostalgic when I came back to the school to clean up my stuff and saw these sweet messages from my students written all of my whiteboard. Seriously, they are the best and I miss them already. When you spend 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 9 months, you get pretty attached. And as Brodie knows very well, I can easily talk about my students for DAYS, so that's where I will stop :)

Goodbye Reagan Academy!

Goodbye yellow classroom! 

they seriously melt my heart 

last day of school flowers

As our time in Provo ran out, we tried to spend time with friends and use up the last of our "only in Utah" gift cards. And exchange the last bit of wedding presents that we had found sitting under out bed :) Yay for exchanges and in-store credit. We also found our wedding cake in the freezer. Since we couldn't take it with us, we celebrated our year anniversary a month earlier and ate some cake. We were scared at first because of all the nasty, year-old wedding cake stories we heard, but it honestly tasted just as good as it did a year ago! 22 days until anniversary #1!

Luna has grown so much! Enjoying one of our last nights around the apt. complex

we went shooting with our friends. not to brag . . . but Brodie was the all star shooter :)

drinking Orange Peel smoothies/bubble tea. thank you 4th grader for the gift card!

haha can you tell which one is mine? straw failure . . . 

the top of our wedding cake. 

(notice our rings in the picture . . . that was Brodie's idea :) he's so cute!!)

Thanks Utah! The last five years have been real. We will miss you!!

aloha vacation!

There's nothing like kicking off your summer with a family trip to Hawaii. Thanks Mama & Papa Fish for planning the trip! Brodie and I have been waiting for this trip since before we were even engaged!! We had been anxiously waiting all year to spend a week with Fish Fam in paradise. Here are just a few Hawaiian highlights of the trip:

10 seashells

9 family members 

8 Hawaiian Shaved Ice  

7 days 

6 hours on a plane 

5 beaches 

4 books 

3 turtles 

2 scuba dives 

1 temple trip 

10// we found lots of shells while scuba diving! Brodie is quite the shell hunter and found this beautiful shell on our second dive. 

9 // We are lucky enough that everyone in the whole family was able come! It was a long plane ride for baby Danner and Tek came all the way from Ohio.

8 // Of course while we were in Hawaii we had to get some Hawaiian shaved ice! It was ironic that the Hawaiian shaved ice stand was called Scandinavian Shaved Ice. Still tasted great! 

5 / / There are lots of different beaches to visit in Hawaii (obviously), and we went to a new beach almost every day. Brodie, Tek, Dad, and Durant all went to a lava beach with HUGE waves . . . some of which were slightly unexpected. As illustrated by the pictures below :) Thank goodness Dad was there to catch the whole thing on camera. Hilarious!! 

4 / / The great thing about vacation is the time you can spend reading!! I got through four books in a week, all of which I would recommend! I read The False Prince, The Uglies, The Mysterious Benedict Society, and Safe Haven. The False Prince is a new book that my fourth graders recommended to me. One of my students gave it to me as a gift and I absolutely loved it! 

3 / / We saw three turtles while in Hawaii. One of the turtles we spotted on the very first day! It was just sitting right on the rocks on the shore. We were lucky to sneak up and get a few pictures before the crowds came :) 

2 // The Fish Fam is certified for scuba diving. The last class I took at BYU was a scuba class to become certified in anticipation of this trip. It was so nice to rent the equipment and go out diving on our own time without an instructor. We did two separate dives and it was a blast! 

1 // We were so blessed and lucky to be able to go to the Hawaiian Temple. The temple is much smaller on the inside, but the temple and the grounds are absolutely gorgeous!

We LOVED our trip and are hoping we will be able to go back :) 

new life, new blog

If you read my most recent post, you may think that Brodie and I celebrated Fourth of July a few weeks early. Au contraire my friends! It's just that I haven't posted since July 6th, 2013!! Since last summer, there have been only a few life-altering changes in my life. Probably the biggest change being that I got married and am now Natalie Fish. Wahoo!! Not to mention that I also have finished my first year of teaching and Brodie and I are now proud parents of a border collie puppy :)

Being married is new and different. I think it's definitely safe to say that I have started a new life. With that being said, I thought it would be appropriate to do a blog makeover with a blog title that includes both Brodie and I, hence the new name "Fish Tales" (credit goes to my mom for thinking of the creative, cheesy pun). All of my old posts are still there, so I can go back and laugh at some of the more silly/dramatic ones (that's what blogs are for right??)  I can't guarantee a high frequency of blog entires, but with summer break, there just may be a chance of posts more frequent than every six months :) If you would like to subscribe to receive email updates, enter your email address into the sidebar on the right labeled "Follow by Email". Mom, Mama Fish, D, & Brodie . . . I have already subscribed you, so you have no choice now but to read everything I write. Muahaha.

Happy reading - stay tuned for posts on our most recent trips to Hawaii and Norway!

Happy 4th!

Four Happys on the Fourth! 

+ went to the Freedom Festival Parade 

thanks Amy for saving seats :)

hokey pokey? maybe?  not sure. . .

+ played cribbage & went swimming at the Branbury pool with Brodie and Tek

for the record. . .i creamed em! muaha.

+ went over to Amy and Jeremy's for dinner and sparklers with the kids 

thanks Amy for feeding us :)

+ set off our own fireworks with our married friends, the McBeths. 

we have married friends now! it rocks. 

afterwards we watched The Stadium of Fire fireworks from the Ford dealership parking lot.We have decided that next year (depending on who is coming for Stadium of Fire) we will grit our teeth and pay up and go to the show and see things from a little bit closer :)

Hope everyone had a fabulous fourth! Only 13 days until Ragnar and 20 days until we get married!!