Gone For A Year

I just got back from spending a week in Provo with Meagan and I had so much fun! Her apartment complex put up several of these Christmas trees in the complex so that it would look festive for the holiday.

Here is a picture of some of the bikes that belong to the students attending BYU.

Here is Meagan unloading boxes from her car to transform her classroom into the best 1st grade classroom ever. She had a cold and wasn't feeling her best, but her classroom turned out so cute.

This is the school where she now works as a 1st grade teacher. Yea, Meg! Spring Creek Elementary, home of the hawks.

This is a fun reading corner that her students are going to love, especially once they become better readers.

You can see that the subtle brainwashing of these small 6 and 7 year old children that will be students in Meagan's class has already begun. Reading is fun and hopefully they will begin to believe it too.

This is a giraffe that Meg let Paige and Kaylee paint while she was home at Christmas. Didn't they do a good job? It's pretty much the best giraffe I have ever seen. Her classroom theme is stretch yourself and be the best that you can be. The tree next to the giraffe is her warm fuzzy tree. She has the children write about one good thing that they "caught" someone doing each day and then she picks a few at the end of the day and reads them and awards the good deed doers with a "warm fuzzy" and they get to put it on the tree. It's never to early to start teaching children to be kind and recognize kindness. Way to go, Meg!

You have to admit that this room is really cute! Meg and I had so much fun putting it all together.

Here is Meagan on her first day of teaching. She was so nervous but she mustered up enough courage to strike this confident pose. I told her there have been plenty of times in my life when I was technically "in charge" and couldn't have been more scared. I remember once when I was put in charge of leading a hike at girl's camp and I thought "do these girls really think that I know where I am going?" Thank goodness for Heavenly Father and faith or we wouldn't get very far in this life.

I didn't come home until late Tuesday night, so while Meagan taught on Monday and Tuesday, I wandered around Provo enjoying the sights and the snow. I don't think I am really mature enough to live in Utah because I was constantly tempted to pick up snow and just throw it at random people. How do the people in Utah maintain such self control? I thought the snow was wonderful and BEAUTIFUL.

I don't know if it is worse living in Arizona where every street corner has a Check Into Cash business or living in Utah where every street corner has a jewelry store. I thought it was funny and so, of course, had to take a picture.

I also enjoyed some of these yummy treats while waiting for Meagan to come back to the apartment. These things are pretty much the best thing ever invented and sealed in a plastic bag for human consumption.

What would a trip to BYU be without stopping at this yummy place? (I bet you are so jealous and pretty much craving ice cream right now aren't you Cousin Emily?) Meg and I met here after her first day of teaching so that I could hear all of the details of her day and more importantly eat ice cream.

Meg and I flew into Utah on December 30, 2009 and I didn't fly home until January 5, 2010, so it was really like I was gone for a year. Here is Meg and I right before she took me to the airport. We are both looking a little tired from staying up late and getting up early, but we are happy. I had sooooooo much fun! Thanks for letting me come and visit your world Meg! I think you are so brave and I want to be just like you when I grow up.

I've Missed You, Old Friend

Have you ever met someone and just instantly "clicked"? Well, that is what happened to me a little over 5 years ago. My friend and I were so close and used to spend at least a few days each month together just talking. Then, we both got busy and we just kind of drifted apart. This was a busy year for me and my friend got busy with school classes and we just stopped seeing each other... until last Friday. On Friday, my friend's Mom called and wanted to see if my friend and I could get together for a morning of fun. I agreed, and boy am I glad I did. We had the best time ever and it was as if we had never been apart. That is the sign of a really good friendship, you don't see each other for a long time and then when you do get together it isn't weird at all, just fun.









This is my good friend, Grace. I sure do like her. We like just about all of the same things. About the only time we don't get along is when she chooses to be purple when we play Pretty Pretty Princess because she knows that is my favorite color.

We played with dolls and danced to our favorite songs. Grace is much better at the Hillbilly Hoedown than I am. In the song it says that anyone can dance to this song whether you are 5 or 82 and Grace says that is perfect because she just happens to be 5 and I told her that I am less than 82 so we can both try to dance to that song.

We had time to make some cookies.

Grace even volunteered to grind the wheat. What a pal!

We got a little messy, but we sure did have a great day! Thanks for coming to see me Grace. Friday was the best day I've had in a long time. It was so good to see you old friend. We can't wait this long to see each other again.

We're All in This Together!

Here's a picture of all of the future teachers from the Provo cohort. Someone said we should have taken the picture last week BEFORE finals so we'd all look better-trust me, it hasn't been long enough for me to forget last week and it wouldn't have helped :) Ha! Ha! Losing sleep is the small price we college students pay to get an education.

I officially turned in my last final today! Now I can focus more of my energy on my internship. Yay!!!

Write a Song about it!

For Kaylee's Birthday in November she got a pink guitar! We've been having lots of fun pretending that we can actually play and that the goofy songs we make up are worth listening to. The newest phrase in the Cluff family is "Write a Song about it." Whenever we are frustrated with something we play the blues on the 6 string. It's much more fun that way, and we usually end up cracking up and forget about our worries and woes. We have had people write songs about getting up for school each morning and we even had a great song about selling back 2 college books and only getting $18. So.... This one's for you Meg.

(Sung to the Primary song "Mother Dear") ♪ ♪
Meggie dear, we love you so! We miss your smiling face! Whenever you are with us, home is such a happy place.
Meg-a-roo we love you so. Your long dark, curly hair. We just cant wait to see you, cause no one else can compare!
Meagan Dear, we know your stressed, and life can be so tough. When life gets dark and dreary....just remember you're a CLUFF! ♪ ♪

We can't wait to see you again Meagan. Hurry home!

A Day Late and a Dollar Short...But Life is Great!

I have been so blessed this semester!

There's A LOT to think about right now-so I won't say I'm necessarily sane or stress free but life really is good.
RECENT AMAZING HAPPENINGS IN MY LIFE:
-I've become quite skilled in the art of using a snow scraper.
-I'm almost finished with all 18 credit hours of classes!
-I'll be teaching 1st grade starting this January.
-I went to Temple Square to see the lights with my friends yesterday.

(This was one of my favorite Nativities at the temple-
it kind of reminds me of Mexico.
Don't you love the donkey's ears!?!)

-Best of all....I get to come home for Christmas soon!
Love you family! See you soon!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Does this guy look like someone who can be trusted? If you said no, then you are absolutely right. Not only does he enjoy being goofy like this when we are trying to take some serious pictures but he has also been known to be quite a joker when it comes to other things. Last year at Christmas time we had decided to take a family trip and so we thought it would be fun to choose family names and exchange gifts within our immediate family and we put a $10 limit on the gifts. These would be the only gifts that we would buy for Christmas. Well, we put Richard in charge of the choosing of names. He wrote out the names on pieces of paper and then went to great lengths to talk to all of us about keeping who we chose a secret so that we would all be surprised on Christmas morning. Can you tell where this story is headed? Well, of course we began to talk to each other and try to get hints about who had chosen who and do you know what we found out? All of us had chosen Richard because his name was the only one that he had written on every piece of paper. Luckily we found out about his trick within about an hour of choosing the names and so his plan was foiled. Well, we had so much fun choosing a name and exchanging gifts last year that we decided to do it again this year, but since we would be staying home and not buying any other gifts we put the limit of the gift this year at $30.

We definitely did not put Richard in charge of choosing the names this year, we aren't that slow. We got all of the money in one dollar bills so that it looked like a lot. Then we put 30 one dollar bills and a family member's name into 8 separate envelopes. We had our friend Tyler come over to officiate and be sure that everything was on the up and up. We put the 8 envelopes into a pillowcase so that it was impossible to cheat and then we took turns pulling an envelope from the pillowcase. Each person looked inside to be sure that they did not have their own name and then once everyone had chosen, the fun began.

The only rule was that you had to make sure you hadn't chosen your own name and you aren't allowed to trade names with anyone. Apparently, not everyone agrees with those rules.

As you can see we had a lot of fun choosing names and now everyone is sneaking around trying to buy a gift and get it under the Christmas tree without being discovered.

Paige was the first one in the family to have her gift bought and wrapped for her secret family member. We can't tell if her face is glowing because she is so happy or if the bright, pink wrapping paper that she chose to wrap her gift in is simply reflecting off of her face. She said she didn't care if we knew that the gift was from her because we still wouldn't know who it was for. When we saw how good her wrapping job was and all of the bows she put on and even the balloon we are all thinking just one thing, "I hope Paige chose me as her secret gift recipient." Our hope is that without all of the stress of driving around to find an endless amount of gifts that we will enjoy each other's company more and really enjoy the spirit of Christmas without getting caught up in all of the stress and worldly pressure that sometimes comes at this time of year. We hope each of you have a Merry Christmas too.

These Are My People

O.K., if you are not familiar with country music then this post won't mean as much, but if you are a fan of country music then you will hear some of these songs playing in your head as you read. These are my people and this is where I come from. On Tuesday, December 1, 2009, I had an opportunity to drive to Geronimo, Arizona and visit some of the graves of members of our family. These are my parents, Max and Mae Blazzard.

We have a family owned cemetery close to Geronimo and my parents recently had their own headstones installed. Macabre? Not really, some of us just like to call it planning ahead. This is a front and back view of their stone and I think it turned out great!

This is a picture of a headstone that they put up for my sister, Sandra, who died 2 years ago.

Sandra's son, Daniel, died 3 years ago and this is the stone that was chosen for him. I think they all turned out really well.

This is my sister, Sharon, who accompanied us on this trip and did almost all of the driving. We were gone about 12 hours and it was fun to be together and "catch up."

Have you ever heard the song that goes "Where I come from, there's cornbread and chicken, where I come from a lot of front porch sittin?" Well, this is the house in Geronimo where my Mother was born and it reminds me a lot of that song.

In Geronimo there are always lots of peacocks running around. I don't even know how they got there but they are really fun to watch.

This is one of the horses that my cousin keeps at his home in Geronimo. Next time I go I'll have to take my kids and maybe we can have a ride.

My mother's maiden name was Black so this is a picture at the corner of the property that we have always liked, but never taken the time to photograph. We had a nice time together and enjoyed remembering the past and planning for the future.