ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE

Don't you just love the movie UP? Well, we do, and if you have never seen it or if it has been awhile, you should definitely watch it. Every year during spring break, we try to have as much adventure as we can. This year we may have set a new personal Cluff record for having an extreme amount of fun. On Monday, we woke up early and headed to the Bishop's Storehouse to work from 7-9 a.m. They call it work, but it is really fun and we go every Monday in the summer and every Monday that is a holiday or day off from school during the school year.

When we finished helping at the storehouse, some of us hopped on the light rail and headed to the Science Center in Phoenix. It was fun going into the city and some of us had never ridden on the light rail before.

It was so fun that some of us decided to stand instead of sitting and see if we could keep our balance while the train was moving.

Once we got into Phoenix, we stopped to take pictures on these cool statues of bugs.

At the Science Center we rode a bike that told us how fast we would need to pedal and how long we would need to ride to burn the calories in a hamburger. If you had seen this exhibit you would think twice before you ate another hamburger.

We participated in wheelchair races.

We went inside a giant model of a stomach to see how food is processed once we eat it and slid out a plastic rectum while the sounds of gas and gurgling noises played in the background. Hey, it was educational! We apologize in advance if Uncle Robert's family is reading this post because we used the actual names of body parts. :)

We each took turns laying down on a real bed of nails.

We used a computer to distort our images.

We went inside of a room that taught all about the Roosevelt Dam. I'm not sure where, but somewhere there is a rule that if you go to an actual dam or if you go to an exhibit about a dam you are allowed to say the word dam because it is not a bad word.

We spent plenty of time in that room building dams and having a _ _ _ (not the bad word, we only left 3 spaces) good time.

We had lots of fun playing in the water at this exhibit. I'm not sure what it was supposed to teach us but we had a good time.

We walked up and down a lot of stairs because it was fun.

We crossed from one side of a Phoenix street to the other side using this cool bridge, not because we needed to, but because it was fun.

We got back on the light rail and this time we sat down the whole trip because we were tired.

We stopped at Wendy's on the way home and bought some good food, but I noticed that no one ordered a hamburger. See, we did learn something!

On Tuesday, the only picture I took was of these beautiful daffodils that we had in our house to help us celebrate Spring. On Tuesday, we sang the song Because I Have Been Given Much, I Too Must Give, and we cleaned our rooms. That activity was surprisingly not voted as one of the favorites of the week. I found $1.78 while vacuuming and doing laundry and if I had a dollar for every bobby pin I found in the house I would be filthy, stinking rich! We celebrated our clean rooms by eating lunch at Costco and later in the afternoon we went to the temple to do baptisms.

On Wednesday, I needed to spend the day with my parents, and so I left the children with 250 water balloons and 5 cans of silly string to create their own fun. Kaylee looks like she is posing for a mug shot, but it turned out to be a very fun activity.

Who wouldn't love throwing water balloons at siblings and neighbor friends?

When I got home all I found were the plastic bowls in the sink and the pictures of the fun they had on the camera.

Richard got home early on Wednesday and took Paige and Kaylee out into the desert to shoot with his family. Thanks for the invite Uncle Robert, sorry we had to throw you under the bus a little earlier in this post.

Those guns sure were loud!

Paige looks like she was taking this activity very seriously.

Thursday was voted as the most fun we had all week. We woke up early and were in the car headed to the Tucson Zoo by 7:20 a.m. Why? Because they feed the giraffes at 10:00 a.m. and we had to make it there on time. This picture shows the kids humoring me while we wait for the giraffe feeding to begin.

What can I say? It was amazing and totally worth the drive and the effort to get out of the house early. AND, did I mention that admission is only $3 for 14 yrs and younger and $7 for 15 and above?

We all enjoyed the zoo, even me, who will never be considered an animal lover and will never own a license plate that says pets enrich our lives.

After we left the zoo we found some ducks to feed. If you know anything about the Cluffs, then you know that we always go to parades and we always find ducks to feed. On our way home from Tucson we decided to stop off at Picacho and visit the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Farm. We had never been before and we were curious, so we thought we would check it out. It was so much fun! I am serious, we really do recommend it. The place was full of animals and even I liked it. :)

There were donkeys to feed.

There were deer to feed.

There were goats to feed and ducks and ...

even I liked it.

Of course, there were ostriches to feed, but they were not our favorite animal there.

Our favorite thing to feed at the farm were these adorable lorikeets. They are from Australia and they drink 250,000 calories of liquid nectar a day. Yup, you read that right, 250,000 calories per day. That is the equivalent of a 150 pound person eating more than 470 hamburgers. They were very friendly and would climb all over you while you fed them. On Friday, I didn't take my camera with us, but we went to the Kiwanis Wave Pool in Tempe and then we went to the Arizona Mills Mall and looked around.

On Saturday, we all wore green shirts (even Dixie wore a green dress for the occasion), since it was St. Patrick's Day and we drove to Payson to find adventure.

We took our cousin, Katie, along. Don't worry, she was wearing green socks.

We ate green, chewy sprees and green sweet tarts and green mints and we chewed green gum.

The weather in Payson was much cooler than Mesa and we found these beautiful trees that were blossoming. We went on some walks, checked out the local Wal Mart and ate at Wendy's. (Again, no one ordered a hamburger.)

Then, we found a cool store where we could take these great pictures.

If you don't know what this is, then you really do need to go and rent the movie UP and watch it. Adventure really is out there. Get out there and find some of your own.

Rewind to November-December 2011

So, I didn't blog about the holidays. At least I took pictures. I have to get a few Mom points for that, don't I? Kaylee turned 11 years old on November 27th and celebrated with a pumpkin pie. That is what happens when you are born around Thanksgiving. She was so glad to turn 11 because it means she is even closer to turning 12, the age when life really begins and you get to go to mutual, girl's camp, the temple and have your ears pierced, if you so choose.

You would have to enlarge this picture to do it justice. What is that on our steering wheel you ask, why it is bright yellow paint of course. In November we participated in yet another Eagle Project. We Cluffs have a special place in our hearts for young men and their Eagle Projects. This project was for our friend, Caleb, and it involved driving around the neighborhood and painting fire hydrants. The only thing is, Caleb hadn't thought to bring anything to get the paint off of us and before we knew it we had paint everywhere, on our hands, our legs, our clothes, our hair. We (mostly me) laughed so hard that we cried. It was such a fun morning and a fun project. Most people never realize what fun service can be, but we have been involved in enough Eagle projects over the years to know better than to miss one because they are always interesting and FUN. We were hurrying with the project because another friend, Cody, was getting baptized that same morning. When we got home and raced to take showers and get cleaned up we realized that the paint was really not going to come off. We decided that Cody would rather have us at his baptism with yellow paint on our skin than not there at all and so we went. I could take some paint thinner and get rid of the paint on the steering wheel, but I kind of like it and it helps me to remember our fun day together every time I get in the car.

Here is Richard and Kaylee at the Daddy/Daughter dance that was held at our elementary school.

They sure can dance. There were over 400 dads and their daughters in attendance.

I got to attend because I am on the PTO board and they needed someone to serve cookies and punch and serving cookies and punch is one of my talents, so they chose me. That is how I got Kaylee to take my picture with Richard, even though he wasn't my date that night.

One of the very best things about having a birthday close to a holiday is that you get to celebrate your birthday with your family and then if you are going to have a party with friends you usually have that a week later because of the holiday and so you have something else to look forward to. Kaylee had a party with some of her friends on the first week of December. They played lots of fun games and...

ate lots of good food. Happy Birthday, Kaylee!

Here is Kaylee with her friend, McKaylee, in yet another school play. Kaylee played the part of Mrs. Claus. We are starting to wonder if Kaylee really likes acting that much or if she just enjoys being in plays because she gets to wear make-up? She had a wonderful time and we enjoyed watching her.

This is a terrible picture, but proof that Kaylee plays the saxophone. In December we were able to go to her band concert and see her perform.

My parents had their annual family Christmas party and Santa was able to make it again this year.

Everyone from the youngest to the oldest enjoys getting together and visiting with Santa.

This is my Dad, Max. He loves watching the great grandchildren. He turned 87 yesterday.

Everyone has such a great time together.

This is my Mother, Mae, surrounded by family.

Here is a picture of Allie and Chad before they were married. Doesn't Allie look like she is in love? It looks like all of that love is making Paige gag. Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Tyler.

Hyrum, Meagan and Brigham visited for Christmas. Here is a picture of Brigham and Paige when we went hiking at Usery Pass.

Even Dixie Dog go to go on the hike and she enjoyed it very much. She wore her best green dress that she got for Christmas.

Kaylee really enjoyed the hike and thought the fruit snacks we brought were especially delicious.

We had so much fun hiking that Paige and Kaylee and I are thinking about doing it again during Spring Break this week.

Even Sarah had the day off from work and got to go hiking and enjoyed spending time with her nephew, Brigham.

Thanks for coming to visit, Hyrum and Meagan, it was sure fun to see you!

Last, but not least, here is a picture of Hyrum and Paige posing as Santa and Mrs. Claus at the Kiwanis Wave Pool. They look a little scary, don't you think?

We Should Have Been Cowboys!

This is what we did last weekend. No, we didn't actually ride bulls, but we did watch bull riding and it was lots of fun.

It was a rare weekend where no one was working and there was something really fun to do for FREE!

Rawhide had their 40th birthday celebration and admission, parking and all of the attractions were free, so we went. This is Paige posing next to John Wayne. People that were watching me take the picture laughed when Paige asked "who is John Wayne?"

Here is Paige and Kaylee wearing the free cowboy hats and bandannas they got just for showing up. Yee Haw!

We even took two of our neighbors, Anna and Grace, to share in our cowboy adventures.

Here we are, watching an animal show while wearing a too small hat and what looks like a bib. That is the beauty of being a cowboy, fashion doesn't really matter.

Here is Sarah and her boyfriend, Shawn. I'm pretty sure the guys that accompanied us thought it was a little cheesy, but the bull riding at the end made up for everything else.

Speaking of cheesy, yes, this is Allie's real smile. Chad kept saying after every gunfight, pig race, trick shooting and animal show, "I'm so glad I didn't pay for this." Silly Chad, you are just beginning to learn what Cluff fun really is. Our only regret was that Meg, Hyrum and Brigham couldn't have been with us to share our cowboy adventure.

Arizona Snow

We were enjoying another beautiful, February weekend, feeling the love and enjoying our festive Valentine's decorations...

Kaylee spent most of the day outside riding bikes with friends and Paige and her friend Grace did a fabulous chalk drawing on the driveway.

Then on Sunday, we woke up to some good old Arizona "snow". We laughed as we cleaned it up. Good job to whoever did this TP job on the Cluff house this weekend. Consider yourselves professionals!