Cluff Family Campout in Tropic

If this picture says it all.....they camped, played, fished until they dropped!

We went to look at deer and elk one evening and Holdyn zonked out in no time.

Kimber loved looking at the deer!

Here is Taylor, Holdyn, Emma, and Nolan eating dinner.

It started to rain one afternoon so all the kids ran into our trailer and played on Holdyn and Kimber's bed.

Here we are getting water from the fresh spring.

Holdyn and Emma decided they needed to swim in the creek behind our camp. I wasn't too excited, but she sure had a great time...and got some of the dust off of her.

Holdyn, Emma, and Kimber loved finding sticks to go fishing with...notice Ben in the background, trying to find another fishing hole where the girls weren't scaring all the fish away.

Here is Holdyn with her fishing stick...and Bella helping round up the fish.

Here is Holdyn being grumpy while Brennen blows bubbles with two hands.

Bella took a beating and was a good wrestling dummy for Austin.

Here is Kimber looking for the deer.

Look we caught a fish in the stream!!! Looks like a whopper!

Here is Nolan being a deer around the camp.

Nolan, Holdyn, Shayla and Emma had a great time playing in the trees and along the creek. We had a GREAT time!

Happy Birthday HOLDYN!!!!

We had a super fun day with Holdyn for her big 4TH birthday!!! Holdyn woke up and all she asked for was her birthday cake with 'nummies' AKA M&M's. Grandma Cluff worked on her cake and we had to find a way to put her 'nummies' on. It turned out SUPER cute! Holdyn LOVED it!!! Thanks Crazy Grandma!

We had a birthday party with some of the cousins. There were about 7 girls in all. They played a few fun games. Here are pictures from "Pin the Tail on the Donkey." They loved it...Holdyn even won...I'm not certain if she could see or not.

Here are a few of the girls enjoying the cake :)

A week with 8 kids!

I got to spend a week with a few of my awesome nieces and nephews! When I was there for their mom's funeral, we picked some flowers off of her grave that people had left for the funeral and we pressed them. This was the perfect time to put the flowers in their frames for each kid. Here is Katelyn with hers.

Annie with hers.

Kyle

Tyler

I don't know how I missed a photo of Avrie with her frame, but somehow I did.

Here is Holdyn with her new cousin Olivia. They are just a few weeks apart in age and had tons of fun playing dress up and making 'plays' with the other kids to perform.

Avrie and Kyle were the hosts of their performances :)

We also got bored because it was too hot outside to do anything. Soooo, we decided to slide down the stairs in all sorts of ways. Avrie had the slippery sleeping bag.

Tyler and Kyle got pretty creative an went down the stairs in totes loaded with pillows and blankets....good thing they put on their bike helmets :)

READY....SET......GO!!!

Other than the super fun stuff....we also had the flu going around while their parents were gone. Yep, the throw up kind. I had it first then it went through most of the 8 kids. YUCK! I can live without cleaning up throw up again for the rest of my life! Poor kids!

The Big MOVE from Bakersfield

I wish I would have taken more pictures of all the help we were blessed to have as we packed up the house and cleaned and got moved out. My dad was gracious enough to come down and bring his truck and trailer for us to load up.....BOY was it loaded! We even had a yard sale...and it is a good thing because we were loaded to the max! We had Cody and a wonderful neighbor and friend Kirt Russell (also our stake president) come to help Ben load the heavy stuff. Earlier in the day I had 9 women from church (also GREAT friends) come to help me finish packing and deep cleaning the house....they were also great at entertaining the girls :) We have been so very blessed with good friends wherever we've been! It's nice to know we have our family away from home wherever we are....also known as the mormons :) Rachel also came over many times to help! Thank you just isn't enough for those wonderful friends who put their lives aside for a few hours to come help us. It is deeply appreciated!

As we were driving home in the intense heat.... we lost the tread on one of our tires just north of Las Vegas. Luckily, we were close to an exit with a gas station where we could change the tire and get other necessities. So we were on our way again. Another hour went by on our journey to St. George, UT and another tire fell to pieces in the gorge...just south of our final destination. After a quick family prayer, Ben put the first tire back on (our spare was on the other side and the first tire still had air, it was just losing tread). We drove the rest of the way with our hazard lights on and only going about 45 mph on the freeway. With a little faith and a lot of help from above we made it!!!! WAHOO!!!

4th of July and Rafting fun

HAPPY 4TH of JULY!!!! We absolutely love this country we are blessed to live in. I think the patriotic spirit stems from Ben's father being a retired Navy Chaplain and our living out of the country for 2 years. Even though there are problems with the government it is still the best place in the world to live! With that said, we had a great Independence Day celebration. We spent Saturday the 3rd with a few families from church. It was great fun for us all!

Above is Holdyn with her sparkler.... she never really got to like holding them, but she loved watching them. Below is Holdyn with her friend Patrick. They were two peas in a pod all evening.

Kimber hated being close to the fire work display. They were pretty loud as you can see Holdyn and Patrick demonstrating the best way to plug your ears when the squealers were lit.

Kimber and Holdyn cleaned out the back of the truck on the 4th of July so we could go watch the fire works and lie in the back.

Rachel and Cody came with us to see the big fireworks booming and lighting up the sky. It was great fun!

Here is one of my favorite pictures of our great friends! Rachel and Cody-we couldn't have made it this far without you! They watched Holdyn while I had Kimber on the island of St. Maarten and they have been there for us ever since!

We were able to take a much awaited trip down the river with Rachel and Cody and our other friends Jesus' and Allison. We had a blast!!! I wish we would have done it sooner so we could have done it more than just once! Thanks River's End Rafting and Jesus' for being such a great river guide!

Team Holdyn-Kimber vs. the dust of Logandale, NV

We stopped at my brother Jason's home in Logandale, NV. It was about 115 when we got there and much too hot to do anything outside. As soon as the sun went behind the horizon it cooled down to 99 so the girls ran outside and enjoyed the 'cool' weather..... ha ha. They LOVED the dust and the chance to get dirty.

Looks like the dust won the battle.......YES, that is a dusted Kimber.....I think it took 3 shampoo's to get it out of her hair! Thanks Jason and Heidi for letting us stop and play at your house!

Happy Father's Day and Ben's Birthday!

We were in St. George for Ben's birthday! He had to study all day for his STEP 2 exam before we could do anything to celebrate. It wasn't as planned as I would have liked, but we still had a great time. We about set the house on fire with all of those candles, but lucky enough he had enough air to blow them out :) ha ha.

If you are wondering about the butter on his nose, it is a family tradition dating back a few generations.... I still don't know why or how it started, but we still do it. It is always good for a birthday pimple right on the nose.

Kimber sure knows how to have a good time.

Ben is lucky enough to have his birthday and Father's day just a couple days apart. We tried to spoil him rotten and shower him with love from his girls. I hope he enjoyed his special days. We sure love him and are so happy when he can spend time with 'his girls!'

We LOVE you Ben/DADDY!