Don't Hate Us Cause You Ain't Us!

WARNING: This is going to be a long post. I am catching up on all of the amazing things that we experienced during the month of April. I borrowed the title of this blog from Allie who is often quoted at saying, "don't hate me cause you ain't me." Well, it seemed an appropriate title for this blog because the Cluffs had LOTS of fun in April.

What are all of these gardening pictures about, you ask? Well, Paige, Kaylee and I had a wonderful opportunity to go with all of the young women in our Stake and plant the summer flowers at the Mesa, temple. It was such a wonderful experience and now whenever we go to the temple this summer we can remember what a good time we had planting the flowers and feel happy that we had a chance to give service and have fun at the same time.

We took a few pictures of some of the young women standing by the temple after all of the planting was done. Isn't that a beautiful sight? I hope this service opportunity inspired every young woman that participated in it to have a desire to be married in the temple when the time is right.

This is what you get when two middle aged people have a camera and attempt to take a picture of themselves. Not the best picture, but boy, did we have fun! Richard and I left April 15 and flew to Salt Lake City, Utah to spend time with his parents and to attend Meagan's college graduation from BYU. We were gone for 10 whole days and we got to sit by each other for all 3 hours of church on 2 consecutive Sundays. Wow, that hasn't happened in a long time!

While we were in Utah we went to the tulip festival and enjoyed spending time with Meagan and getting to see lots of beautiful flowers.

We had so much fun! Now whenever I have an especially busy day I think to myself, I'll always have the tulip festival. We were also able to visit several of the temples in Utah and that was wonderful.

Best of all, Richard and I were able to attend Meagan's college graduation from BYU. I'm so glad that some of the pictures we took at graduation turned out o.k. because I have to admit that I cried a lot. I didn't think that I would be so emotional, but there is something unexplainable about seeing one of your children accomplish something that was really hard. We are so proud of you Meagan and our whole family is so excited that you have decided to move back to Arizona. We missed you and I don't know if we will realize how much we missed you until you are really back in Arizona. We love you!

O.k., enough of the mushy stuff, this is the beautiful Gila Valley Temple. On April 30, the children and I played hooky and traveled to Central, Arizona to see this temple. We had such a fun day together.

I know some of you may be thinking that this just looks like an old farming community, but it is beautiful to us. So many people that we love have lived in the Gila Valley and we really enjoy it when we can return to our roots and see some of the places and the people that we love so much.

Here is Allie and Paige goofing around in the backseat. Paige recently said to Allie, "Allie if we weren't sisters, I still choose you for a friend." Lets all say it together... PRECIOUS!

After seeing the temple we changed our clothes and headed into town to The Water Depot, one of our favorite parts of any visit to "the valley". This place has shaved ice every bit as good as Bahama Bucks and the prices are fantastic. Definitely worth the trip! If this place was in Mesa we would say Bahama who?

Next, we headed to the house where our Grandpa Ervin and Grandma Letha used to live when they were alive.

We have so many memories of so many good times visiting our great grandparents in this house.

Then, we headed to the local park in Central where we had lots of fun together playing on the swings and the teeter totters.

On the way home, everyone really needed to use "the facilities" because all of those shaved ices we ate were beginning to take their toll. Well, the only place we could find to stop was the Bylas rest stop. We do not recommend it. A word to the wise, if any of you have not had a chance to visit the Gila Valley Temple yet be sure and use the "facilities" in town before you start driving home.