A Final Look At 2010

January, 2010, found Meg and me in Provo, Utah getting her classroom prepared for her 1st grade teaching debut.

The above pictures are of Meg's cute classroom and here is Meg on her first day of teaching.

I enjoyed playing in the snow, trying not to fall and talking to Meg for hours. What a great way to start the year.

Because it was my year to have the Delta pass I was able to fly to Utah a lot in 2010 to visit Meg and enjoy the cool weather.

This is what our garage looked like in January. We decorated it with blow horns to celebrate the new year. I think most of our home is held together with scotch tape, but it sure does make life enjoyable.

January also found us ridiculously "egg"cited when one of our chickens laid its first egg.

As you can see, we might have gotten a little carried away with our "egg"citement.

We also had an opportunity to get in the party wagon and take a trip to San Diego to attend the marriage of our friends, the Wagoners, son.

We had lots of fun. Can you see how much fun Matthew is having? Sometimes he gets a little tired of being surrounded by girls but he puts up with us and for that we are grateful.

What would a trip be without a pit stop at McDonalds?

Allie and Paige had lots of fun posing for silly pictures in front of the San Diego Temple.

Sarah was a little cold, but having lots of fun.

Isn't the San Diego Temple beautiful?

Paige and Kaylee had fun swimming in the indoor pool where we stayed. It doesn't get any better than swimming in January.

We even had time to stop and enjoy the beach for a few hours.

I'm not sure what you call this, maybe kelp? It can be found at most beaches and it is like bubble wrap, it pops when you step on it. This stuff fascinates me and I am pretty sure that the person who invented bubble wrap got the idea from this unusual sea plant.

We even found some patches of snow as we left California and had fun throwing snowballs at each other and making this cute snowman. A temple, a beach, indoor swimming and snow, what a fun trip!

By the middle of January almost all of our chickens were laying eggs and Matt's chicken, Kevin (named after the funny bird in the movie, UP), was laying eggs with double yolks.

We were able to go to the rose gardens at Mesa Community College in January and prune the roses. It was part of Disney's give a day of service and get a free admission ticket into Disneyland promotion. Getting into Disneyland for free probably makes pruning roses not service because we are getting something amazing for our time, but that is what they called it.

We took our amazing cousin, Annie Jones, with us to prune roses at MCC and we couldn't help but feel all of the cousin love that Annie was dishing out that morning. Thanks for helping us to have such a fun time, Annie.

This is what our door and garage looked like in February. I couldn't find any other great pictures to document the fun we had in February but hey, February only has 28 days so you can't expect too much.

In March, we went to the party of the century...

At this house...

For this cute girl. Happy 16th birthday, Annie! Our kids were so jealous that you had such a fun party. You definitely had the party that every kid hopes to get when they turn 16 but rarely does. Thanks Jones cousins for such a fun night, we loved it!

March was also Spring Break, so of course we had to go to the "pit of abomination" aka Skateland. Kaylee's pose pretty much shows how passionate she and I are about Skateland.

Skating rocks! If you have never skated or if it has been awhile, you should definitely give it another try.

Other fun things we did in March were to pretend we had a broken leg and walk around on some crutches that we bought at Savers.

We also had time for a quick day trip to Tucson to visit the Reid Park Zoo. Of course we had to start our trip with a yummy slush from QT.

And, before we saw the animals we stopped to eat at McDonalds.

This is Matt at the zoo, having fun and surrounded by sisters again. One day he will look back and realize how much fun he had with us.

One of the best things about the Tucson zoo are that you can buy fun animal posters to color for only 25 cents.

Sarah drove us to Tucson...

and Matt drove us home. March was also when our driver's side window broke and was stuck halfway down (or halfway up for all of you optimists out there). Anyway, we decided that it might not be as fun to have a convertible as we thought it might be and we were glad when we could get it fixed. Our broken window was probably one of the reasons we had a record amount of rain in the month of March, it was wet and it was breezy, but we still thought it was funny.

We got home from the Tucson Zoo and still had enough daylight to play jump rope with our friends, the Rays.

We also had a fun picnic with our cousins Charles and Maelee during Spring Break.

We fished and fed the ducks at our favorite pond in Tempe. Sarah and Matt taught me how to text and although I was painfully slow at first I have gotten the hang of it and actually like it.

Here are Sarah and Paige practicing being teenagers. I think Sarah is working her "angst" a little better than Paige, but Paige is learning fast. Just kidding, they are both great girls, just being a little silly in this picture.

There, much better. Here are the 2 girls we know and love.

We had a fun Easter party and my mom and dad's house.

April brought "pizza conference". That is General Conference, but we call it pizza conference because between sessions on Saturday we eat pizza in one of the classrooms and...

horse around in the gym and...

play basketball. We love to hear the talks and eat pizza and enjoy the day together.

In April, Paige and Kaylee played neighborhood softball and we enjoyed...

cheering for them.

Towards the end of April, Richard and I flew to Utah to visit Meg. We got there just in time to enjoy the tulip festival.

The real reason for the trip was to watch Meg graduate with her bachelor's degree in elementary education from BYU. Way to go, Meg!

Richard got to see where she worked and we had lots of fun being together.

What a great day for a Dad.

In May, we were able to go and tour the Gila Valley Temple.

Afterwards we went to our favorite shaved ice store in Thatcher. Yes, it is only $1 for a large, we wish Bahama Bucks would charge these prices.

We drove past the house where our Great Grandma Cluff used to live and even stopped to take a picture.

I was able to go on a school fieldtrip with Kaylee to the Phoenix Zoo.

Paige turned 12 in May and started going to young women's activities.

Paige even turned 12 in time to drive back to the Gila Valley Temple with the young women and young men and tour the temple again.

Kaylee showcased her cooking talent by making and decorating this baseball cake and entering it in the Primary talent show.

Paige said goodbye to the 6th grade and graduated from elementary school.

But, before the end of the school year, Paige and I had a chance to go on a fieldtrip to a place called Camp Sky Y.

We were able to try climbing this tall tower.

I think the prince who rescued Rapunzel really had his work cut out for him. Climbing this high is not easy.

We had a fun day at Camp Sky Y and we were tired by the end of the day.

In June we had a fun swimming party at Richard's sister, Debbie's house. She doesn't need a wheelchair and we don't need crutches but sometimes it is fun to pretend.

Richard's dad, Bill, his brother, Robert and Richard all sit poolside laughing and teasing each other.

Meagan brings Hyrum Mitchell home for a visit and Hyrum asks Richard if he can ask Meg to marry him. When it's right, it's right.

Paige and I go to girl's camp and have lots of fun together while Sarah stays home and begins college classes so that she can have a year of college completed by the time she graduates high school.

Richard goes to girl's camp for Bishop's night and has fun performing in a skit with the other Bishops.

It will be Richard's last time going to girl's camp as a Bishop. Later in June he is released. He enjoyed serving as a Bishop twice and serving in the Stake Presidency. Now he enjoys teaching gospel doctrine on Sundays and spending more time with us. We are so glad to have him with us more often now.

In July I flew up to Utah to visit Meg and Hyrum and to fly with Meg to Mexico where she taught English the summer of 2009.

July 30th, 2010, Meagan and Hyrum are married in the Salt Lake Temple and our family returns to Utah again to celebrate with them.

Before the wedding we spend time school shopping...

looking for the perfect dresses to wear to the wedding receptions in Utah and Arizona...

And I spend a lot of time waiting for people to try things on.

We also try to figure out what to do for wedding decorations and...

Paige starts practicing how to make frosting and decorate wedding cake.

It was a busy summer. My mom bought me another blender because she had a feeling that I would break the one I had making batches of strawberry-lemonade slush for the reception in Arizona.

My mom was right, in the process of making all of the slush I blew out the motor of my blender again. In 24 years of marriage I have broken more blenders than I care to remember. Richard even bought me one once that had a video showing the blender grinding rocks. NO, I did not grind rocks with that blender, but it did break. Now, my blender of choice is the Black and Decker Crushmaster and I buy a new one whenever I see them on sale, knowing that it is only a matter of time until the one I am using breaks. If I really took them up on their 1 year warranty I would own the Black and Decker company.

In August, Hyrum and Meagan and Hyrum's parents came to visit us and we had a reception for them in Arizona.

Here is a picture I took of Meagan and her friends, Ximena and Diego when we visited Mexico in July.

Matt went caving in the summer with the Priest Quorum and got this cool cut on his leg.

Matt is holding a large mud ball from his cave adventure.

The middle of August finds us at IHOP, not Dennys ( a big mistake) for the first day of school breakfast. They built an IHOP right next to where we live but I think I still like Dennys better.

Here is Paige, slightly concerned about attending junior high for the first time. You can see Sarah is in the back seat giving Paige lots of sympathy.

Kaylee has no worries about the 4th grade.

Matt and Sarah are excited to attend their first day of their senior and junior year, respectively and they are especially excited that we rolled our windows down, blew them kisses, honked the horn and yelled to them to make good choices. Times like this make parenting so satisfying.

The summer was so busy and so crazy that I decorated our door with this phrase, Some think life's a dance...here, it's a circus. That pretty much summed up how the summer went but the good news is we survived.

In September we swam as much as we could, knowing that summer was really over. Our next door neighbors, Robert and Peggy Turnbough are so nice and let us swim in their pool as often as we want.

In October, Paige and Kaylee had fun playing on a neighborhood volleyball team and we enjoyed another "pizza conference".

In November, Kaylee turned 10 and enjoyed the freedom of going wherever she wants to in the public library without the supervision of an adult. Woohoo, freedom!

Paige practiced sleeping in later on the weekends and practicing for when she turns 13 next year and becomes a real teenager.

In November we also became "foster parents" to the Jones cousins' 4 chickens. 4 of our chickens were tragically killed by a coyote in August including Matt's beloved, Kevin. Yes, a coyote can jump a six foot brick fence, who would have thought?

We enjoyed turtle-sitting our "grand turtle", Little Richard. Allie got him this year and when he grows up he will become a huge desert tortoise. We are practicing with our "grand turtle" so that we can be good grandparents when Meagan and Hyrum's son is born next May.

For October Break we drove to Payson for the day with our neighbors and friends, The Rays, and had lots of fun playing in a park...

wading in a stream...

rolling down hills...

and feeding ducks and trying to catch fish using some beef jerky as bait that we bought at the dollar store.

The weather in Payson wasn't as cool as we thought it would be but we sure did have a great day!

On Thanksgiving day, Richard and I and Paige and Kaylee participated in a neighborhood 1 mile fun run.

In November we saw the new Disney movie, Tangled.

We also used our Disney day of service free tickets and went to Disneyland.

The weather was nice and we had a great time.

We even had time to make a quick trip to the beach before we started home.

In December, Sarah went to a military ball with a friend from school...

and Kaylee and Richard went to a Daddy/Daughter dance at the elementary school. They all had a wonderful time.

Kaylee had her very first piano recital. This is a picture of Kaylee with her piano teacher, Sicily Wilcock.

Here are some animals that we made for a homemade nativity set. We found out we aren't that artistic and it didn't turn out so welll.

We also made gingerbread houses.

Not our best efforts, but a good time was had by all.

Hyrum and Meagan surprised us with a visit. They were supposed to spend Christmas in Korea, but because of weather their flight was cancelled. Too bad for them but great for us. It was so fun to see them and have them here for Christmas. We had lots of fun games of kickball and soccer and Meagan and Hyrum made a nativity set that put ours to shame.

Then on Dec. 31st we got back into the party wagon and headed to the Fiesta Bowl parade. We talked about it and think that we have been attending the Fiesta Bowl parade since 1989. What a tradition. It was cold but fun.

My sister, Sharon, and her son Kurtis met us there. We also met up with our friends, the Wilcock family. They cooked a fantastic breakfast that we all enjoyed and kept us warm with lots of hot chocolate.

You've got to love a parade and if you have read even a portion of this ridiculously long blog post then we know that you love us too. This last picture is the Sun City Grandmas dancing in the Fiesta Bowl parade. They are my favorite entry in the parade each year and now that I am going to be a grandma in 2011 I am one step closer to realizing my dream of becoming a member of their dance team. We hope you had a wonderful 2010 and we wish you a Happy New Year and an amazing 2011.