Oh, What Did We Do In The Summertime...

when all the world is Brown! That is what it feels like sometimes when you are living in Arizona during a hot summer. I think that the person that wrote that song must have lived in Colorado not Arizona. Anyway, here are some of the fun things we did this summer;

Sarah, Paige and Kaylee had fun painting flower pots by our front door and got a little carried away with the paint.

Allie may or may not have started dating a clown. :)

We went to the circus and took our neighbor and our cousin because life is so much more fun when they are with us.

Richard and I celebrated 25 years of being married. This was a big year in his family because his brother and his wife also celebrated 25 years and his sister and her husband celebrated 30 years of marriage. We plan to spend a week in October together celebrating a collective 80 years of marriage and enjoying each other's company.

As you read in the last post, we got a dog named Dixie. She is cute, but more than a little squirty and she equals the equivalent of bringing a newborn baby into the house. We all love her, but a baby at our age? What were we thinking?

Right before school started we made our annual Cluff Family Tradition trip to Dennys. One thing that changed this year was that instead of going to breakfast on the first day of school, this year we went to dinner. I found it much more relaxed and enjoyable to hear about the first day of school instead of seeing nervous people hardly being able to eat, but there are some in the family that are already campaigning to return the tradition back to eating breakfast together. Who says the Cluff Clan isn't wild and crazy? Imagine that, us changing our breakfast to dinner? We do like to change things up now and then. :0

Before the summer started I agreed to serve on the PTO board at our local elementary school. These are some of the cookies that Richard and Kaylee baked so that everyone who went to the meet your teacher event could have a cookie. Thanks for the support Cluff family!

Paige and Kaylee spent an entire month visiting their new nephew, Brigham. Oh yeah, and Meagan and Hyrum. They had so much fun! Meagan and Hyrum took them camping and to a museum and introduced them to lots of new people and lots of new foods. When they were home, they continued playing volleyball. I was just a little bit jealous, but I got to spend a lot of time with Sarah and that was pretty great.

Richard got his first ever pair of Chuck Taylors aka Converse. I don't know if you can see it, but perched on the shoes are his reading glasses. You should see him wear these shoes. He looks so cool, in a mid-life sort of way. We love him and we love his Chucks!

As was mentioned earlier, Hyrum and Meagan went from just thinking about a baby...

to actually having one. I know, this isn't a good picture, but I am not that great with technology and this is what I had at the moment. If you want to see some fantastic pictures of their new family come over to our home and visit us and we will show you some great pictures in our family room. This means that Richard and I became grandparents and we think that is wonderful!

In case you can't read this paper it says, The Fort Of Bonding. Paige, Kaylee and Richard made several of these this summer and had a blast doing it. Who says chair forts are for little kids?

Sure, it's a big mess, but they always have so much fun doing it and they are always good to put everything away when they are done. Richard even agreed to sleep in it all night with them once, but that will never happen again. It was a loooooong night on the floor between chairs. He just might be in the running for father of the year.

Sorry, this is a file photo of our lovely Sarah. I had the honor of really getting to know Sarah a lot better this summer and I am so grateful for the opportunity. She participated in a U of A summer program called Med Start where she was able to explore the field of medicine and she really enjoyed the experience. Her days were long. 5 days a week and even several Saturdays she was on the bus by 7 a.m. and didn't return home until 7 p.m. I got to take her back and forth to the bus and even attend a couple of her presentations and it was a great experience. This summer Sarah really honed her skill for braiding hair and she learned to not only braid other people's hair, but also her own. She looked classy all summer and felt a lot cooler with her hair up.

This is how Kaylee, Paige and I decorated Sarah's room to congratulate her on her completion of the Medstart program and her acceptance into the EVIT medical program. Kaylee even painted the toenails on this foot and I think she did a great job.

Sarah's room is now full of hanging body parts and it looks awesome! Did I mention that the color of Sarah's walls was already red? Yup, her room looks pretty great now. So far she has learned how to suture and cast and she was able to go to the medical examiner's office several times. Some of you may be saying yuck, but Sarah is pretty sure that she wants to be a doctor.

Richard was able to go to Utah twice this summer and visit his family. Don't you love this 4 generation picture?

This is a picture of Paige and Allie at Matt's high school graduation. Allie spent the summer working and having fun with us when we saw her. She is great to always have her camera ready to take goofy pictures and to make us laugh, I think it is because she hangs around with clowns.

Matt spent the summer working and saving for his upcoming mission. He also had ACL (knee) surgery and had to be on crutches for awhile. He was told that he won't get clearance for a mission until his leg has healed at least 6 months. He is taking college classes at MCC right now and excited to get into the mission field in early 2012.

We called this summer our summer of service and we had such a good time going to the temple to perform baptisms weekly and...

working every week to fill orders and stock the shelves at the Bishop's Storehouse. It wasn't always fun to get up early during the summer, but we always had a fun time and enjoyed the time we spent together. We hope you all had as great of a summer as we did!