Happy Birthday Allie!

WARNING, if you continue your senses will be overloaded with pictures of our cute Allie.
I can't help it, it's her 21st birthday today and I am her Mother and so I get started going down memory lane and I just can't stop. I was going to post 21 pictures but I got a little carried away. Here is Allie with one of her all time favorite people - her Dad. Allie is such a happy person. She was born at 12:30 p.m. on September 29, 1989 while the theme song to the Andy Griffith show whistled happily in the background.

This is Allie when she was about 2 years old. For someone who didn't start out with a whole lot of hair she sure did turn out to be a beauty.

Allie has always been someone who hangs on tight and gives life everything that she has.

Like I said, not much hair, but look at that smile. When she was little I almost always had a bow stuck in her hair so that people would know she was a girl, but she could take those bows out faster than I could put them in.

This is Allie when she was 8 years old.

Allie was 11 when Kaylee was born and she was so excited to have another sister.

As you can see, Allie has sported a lot of different hairstyles and looks and she is one of the few people I know who can embrace change so easily.

Here is Allie in her room when she used to live at home. (sniff, sniff) Allie moved out last month into an apartment on Country Club. We are so happy for her, but we sure do miss her.

Allie makes everything fun, she just has that kind of a personality. Guaranteed, if you are with Allie you are having fun.

She always cheers for the underdog and she loves snow, even when there is only enough to make this sad little Charlie Brown snowman.

Allie is extremely talented. She really enjoys taking pictures.

As I said before, she has a fashion sense all of her own.

Besides being a fantastic photographer, she is also a really nice sister. Matt lovingly refers to her as "pooch" and she accepts it as the endearment he intends it to be instead of getting all bristly.

In fact, I think that Allie has more nicknames than anyone in our whole family...Allie, Lou, Loulabelle, pooch, Allie Baba, Allie A Babwa,...

Allie and Richard have had a special bond since the day she was born. She is definitely a "daddy's girl" and that is a good thing. She can get him to do things when no one else can and that is a skill.

This is when Allie and Sarah went to their first concert together. Phil Collins? Nope! Phil Vassar! They made their own concert shirts and had a blast together.

Allie knows how to have fun and never takes herself too seriously and that makes her lovable and so fun to be around.

Allie is fine all by herself....

but she prefers to be surrounded with friends.

She says she really isn't a chicken lover, but we know differently and we have the pictures to prove it.

Did I mention that Allie LOVES her Dad?

She sports a style for every occasion. Her bowling attire cracks me up but she claims it improves her game.

Allie should have considered being in the theatre because she can pose and act and tell a story better than anyone I know.

Allie loves snow cones almost as much as her Dad.

The beach is one of Allie's favorite places to visit.

When we go on adventures she is a good co-pilot and she always wears an appropriate co-pilot hat. She definitely takes that role seriously.

She has a serious "sweet tooth". One of her favorite treats is what Chex calls "muddy buddies". She calls it "dog food". Chex probably made the better marketing call by sticking with muddy buddies.

Allie is a ham. Lucky for us we love ham! We are so glad that she is a part of our family, our lives would be so dull without her.

Allie, Happy 21st Birthday! Besides photography and being fall down funny you are also beautiful, responsible, hard working, never quitting, amazing at doing hair, craftier than Martha Stewart ever though of being and smart. You have learned to do hard things and I am so proud of the woman that you have become. I never "hate ya cause I ain't ya", I'm just glad that you are mine. Oops, I forgot that you are going on a fun road trip to conference this weekend. I might have to "hate ya cause I ain't ya" just a little bit this weekend. I am grateful for the opportunity to be your Mom and I love you so much. Thanks for letting me be one of your biggest fans!

I Always Wanted To Be A Foster Mother

Aren't babies sooooo cute? Even with 6 children I always did entertain the idea of having more children or becoming a foster parent. Well last week an opportunity presented itself that I just couldn't pass up. I had a family member contact me and tell me that due to some unforeseen circumstances she would no longer be able to care for her 4 children. I know, 4 additional mouths to feed does seem like a lot of responsibility, but how could I say no, especially since it was family.






Aren't these chickens cute? Of course I was talking about chickens. Did you really think I was talking about children? This isn't a real picture of our new family members because our Internet isn't working this week, but we did get 4 more chickens from our Jones cousins and now our farm seems complete. Thanks for sharing your little bundles of joy with us Jones girls. We even got a light blue egg from one of your darlings this morning.

Some Think Life's A Dance...Here It's A Circus!

I think I've talked about this before, but for those of you who don't know, I decorate our front door every month. Why? I'm not sure, but it is something that I really enjoy and the rest of the family tolerates and so it has become tradition. This is what our door looked like in August and even though the message on the door has changed this month, the message from last month still holds true. Sometimes we have so many people going so many directions in this house that it does seem like a circus and then I stop and think, I sure am going to miss all of this when the children grow up and it is calm and quiet.

We have a family of squirrels living in our backyard and a few weeks ago they had 3 of the cutest baby squirrels you have ever seen. Well, actually, they weren't that cute when they were first born, but now that their tails are starting to fill in and get bushy they are really cute and they run all over the backyard playing.

Last week we got invited to a 50th birthday party for Richard's sister, Debbie. Everyone brought gifts so that the total number of gifts she received was 50. They were all placed in these bags and one by one she opened them. The gifts were awful, but the party sure was fun.

Here is Debbie in her "old lady" wheelchair and her husband Don. Thanks for hosting the party Don and for allowing us to clean out our cupboards and give Debbie all of the stuff that we don't want!

Paige and Kaylee have been playing volleyball every Thursday evening, thanks to Coach Matt who vowed to teach the neighborhood children sports. He survived the softball season and has gone on to begin teaching them volleyball.

Here is a file photo of Matt on the first day of school this year. (I had to use a file photo because it is not often that Matt will pose for a picture) Matt went to a Stake Youth Conference this Friday and Saturday and got up at 4 a.m. this morning to finish up some school projects that were due today. Way to participate in church activities and still get your homework done Matt!

I drove people around this weekend to all of their activities and went to a wedding reception in the evening. When Richard and I got married, we lived in our first Ward for 14 years. It was sure hard for me to leave that Ward, but the good news is that whenever I run into anyone from that Ward it is as if no time has passed at all and it sure is fun to visit. One of our friends from that Ward had a daughter that got married and Richard and I really enjoyed talking to people we don't get to see very often. That is one of the things that I love about the Church, serving with others creates life long friendships.

Paige is too young to go to the youth conference and too old to go to the activity day fun and so she planned to hibernate on Saturday. I knew she would be so sad if I let her sleep and she missed going to the baptism of a great new couple in our Ward. Paige is a good sport and she did go with me to the baptism. She and a friend went with Richard and I on Friday night to do baptisms at the temple. It sure is fun having a 12 year old in our house.

This is Kaylee. Luckily for her she is just the right age to be eligible to go to the Stake Primary Activity Day this weekend. She had lots of fun with her friends.

Kaylee took this picture at the temple on Friday night. She and some of her friends stayed outside and took pictures while we did baptisms. She wants to be a photographer like her sister, Allie, one day.

Meagan & Hyrum's Wedding, July 30, 2010

Here are Meagan and Hyrum cutting their wedding cake at their reception in Utah.

This is my brother, Kenneth, and me enjoying a nice visit during the reception. He came from St. George and it was really nice to sit and talk with him.

Did we mention that Meagan and Hyrum asked Paige to make the wedding cake? Didn't she do a fantastic job?

Kaylee was assigned the job of the wedding flowers and she did a really good job too. This is a picture of Allie, Sarah, Paige and Kaylee and I am the old, brown, spotted hand. Way to go Kaylee, those flowers are beautiful! Poor Sarah didn't get a wedding assignment because she was enjoying being at EFY at BYU with Matt the whole week that we were in Utah. She did a good job of assisting the sisters in the preparation though and she had a lot of good ideas. We will have to find out what her hidden wedding talents are at the next Cluff wedding.

These are pictures of Meagan and Hyrum on their wedding day. They were married in the Salt Lake Temple. Aren't the clouds beautiful? Almost as lovely as the couple. Allie did the photography and she got some really great shots. Maybe the Cluff girls could go into the wedding business someday, what do you think?

This is Hyrum's grandparents, the Glausers. They are wonderful people.

Here are 3 generations of really great men mixed with a lot of silliness. Grandpa Bill, Matt, and Richard Cluff. What handsome guys they are.

More pictures of Meagan and Hyrum. We are so glad that we got to share your special day with you. Utah sure was beautiful.

Ireland

My Mother keeps reminding me that I need to get back to blogging and catch everyone up on all of the things that the Cluffs did in the summer of 2010. She is right, of course. Catch up blogging is not nearly as fun for me as "in the moment" blogging, but I guess I have to start somewhere, right? So, my last post was about me and Meagan heading off to Mexico in July. I was pretty nervous about the food, the language, the culture and anything else I could think to be nervous about. The above picture is of Allie heading off at the same time on a trip to Ireland with Richard and Richard's father, Bill. It doesn't look like she had any worries about her trip.

This is Richard's Dad also known as Grandpa Bill. He worked for Delta Airlines for a lot of years and now he is the first person to say "where to" when someone in the family suggests taking a trip. Allie had wanted to go to Ireland for awhile and Bill was more than happy to encourage her idea. After Bill and Allie decided they were going for sure, Richard decided he wasn't going to miss out on the fun and so he accompanied them.

Allie took hundreds of pictures of Ireland while they were there. Way too many to post even a fraction of them. All of the pictures turned out beautiful and I am jealous that I wasn't able to go on this trip with them. They even had a 7 hour layover in New York on the way to Ireland and enjoyed seeing some of the Big Apple. Why didn't I go on this trip? Well, they were flying standby and Meg and I bought full fare tickets and when it looked the best to fly standby to Ireland was the exact same time that Meg and I had bought tickets for Mexico. Oh well, we all had a wonderful time.


Here, Allie is a little worried because while she is posing in front of these beautiful flowers a bee is beginning to show her a lot of attention. I would be worried too.

The scenery in Ireland was beautiful. The weather was nice and cool, the fog rolled in just like they thought it would and Bill, Richard and Allie had lots of fun sight seeing, being goofy and just having fun together. Allie was even excited that it was cold enough to wear a scarf. Imagine wearing a scarf in July. Unheard of!

This is the small, humble shack that Grandpa Bill rented for them to stay in while they were in Ireland. Not bad, huh? They even drove around in this cute, little, red rental car while they were there. Ireland can be driven from one end to the other in about 6 hours, so they had plenty of time to see many of the beautiful sights.

Isn't this gorgeous? According to them it was very green and there were old, stone fences everywhere and sheep in the fields. It was like stepping back in time.

They didn't see lions and tigers and bears, but they did see castles and lots of interesting people. I think the whole trip sounds very relaxing. I just might be a little jealous. If you want to see all of the pictures Allie took, make an appointment to come over and maybe you can talk her into giving you the full slide show. As Allie would say, "don't hate us cause you ain't us!" Thanks Grandpa Bill for working so many years at Delta and putting up with all of the frazzled travelers that you had to put up with to allow us all to enjoy great traveling perks.

Marvelous Mexico

On July 5 - July 12 Meagan and I went to Mexico where she spent last summer teaching English. We got to see some of the beautiful country and visit with the family that she lived with last summer. We had a nice time and the people of Mexico were so nice. Above is a picture of my favorite fruit in Mexico, the mango. They are delicious! You can buy them from street vendors, peel them kind of like a banana and the fruit is firm and sweet and juicy enough to run down your chin. The papaya on the other hand, would have to be my least favorite fruit from Mexico. Sorry all of you papaya lovers but I didn't like it at all.

We flew into Mexico City and took a bus to the town of Puebla. We spent 2 days there walking and checking everything out, then we took another bus to the town of Tehuacan where Meagan's host family lives. While visiting them we took 2 different day trips. The above 3 pictures are of a city called Oaxaca. It is pronounced Wha-hock-a. We had a great time while we were there and toured a monastery built in the early 1500s and these ancient Mayan ruins. The weather in Mexico was fantastic, probably in the high 70s and it rained a lot while we were there which is something I especially enjoyed.

These are some of the shops on the streets of Tehuacan. We liked the bright colors and the sidewalk fruit and taco stands. Luckily for me Meagan speaks Spanish. She says she isn't very good, but everyone in Mexico could understand her and she could understand them and that was good enough for me.

This is Meagan and Diego. Diego is the grandson of Meagan's host family and he was lots of fun to play with. He loves to play soccer, but his favorite indoor games are rock, paper, scissors, thumb war and down by the banks of the hanky panky. He was tireless.

This is Ximena. She is one of the grand daughters of Meagan's host family. She loves to learn and she and Diego's English is excellent. She painted a picture on canvas for Meagan to take home and put on the wall of her apartment. Ximena is very talented.

My favorite day trip was to Vera Cruz. Why? Because it is where the ocean was and I love the ocean. This is a picture of a pool at a hotel overlooking the ocean. The pool was nice but the ocean was wonderful. The water was very warm which is very different from the ocean in California. There weren't many sea shells but we had such a nice time. I really like the soothing sound of the ocean, it is one of my favorite sounds.

What would a visit to the ocean be without building a sandcastle? Messy and fun, it doesn't get better than that.

The water coming out of the showers was much colder than the ocean water as you can see. I'll admit I was plenty nervous about going to Mexico, but it ended up being such a fun trip even for someone like me that does not enjoy spicy food or even salsa. We saw lots of amazing sights and the people were very kind. Thanks Meg, for encouraging your chicken of a Mother to go.