Cluffer Duffers On The Move

Wednesday morning comes and we’re all scrambling (like we always are bfore vacation) to finish up our laundry, pack our bags, get the bed up for Sarah, clean the house, go to the library, and whatever else Mom had on her long list of “things to do” before vacation. Dad had to go to work to “touch bases with George and we expected him back at around 3-3:30ish because we planned to be on the road by 4pm. So we’re getting things done, but still have plenty more to do when guess who walks in the door? DAD! It’s 11am and he’s ready to go! lol, then we all start running around and surprisingly get out of the house (a clean house I might add) by 1pm.

The drive to flagstaff is very familiar to me because I’ve driven it more then 4 times to get to school, but Dad still wouldn’t let me drive… that’s okay! The back of the van is always so much fun! Riley went crazy braiding my hair, I talked to lots of friends (texting), we waved at anyone who drove past. =) fun fun fun!

We arrived in Flagstaff around 5pm and stopped and picked up Papa Johns pizza for dinner! Yummy! Erin’s house is amazing and I had missed it so much! Jeremy was ready for a party and we had a blast! We got two new movies from red box: True Grit and Unknown. Erin even bought Klondix bars for us!!! She REALLY loves us! The unknown was a good movie but it had a weird ending. I was ready to go to bed after that but Jeremy was reday for more and wanted to turn on True grit! We all get settled in for bed with Mom and Dad were on the blow up bed, Riley and Georgia got the coaches, and I got my own bedroom in my own bed (Lucky me!!). Then they turn on the next movie! Jeremy’s crazy but so FUN! I can remember nights during the school semester when I was so stressed out with the HESI exam or homework from school and he would say, “Take a break! Watch a movie! Play Mario Bros on the play station with me!”

Friday morning it was very fun to wake up to Julia and Kendra once again. Everyone got up pretty soon after that and Jeremy had made wonderful egg burritos with bacon and a “pink” smoothie for us all. Then around 7:45am I take Jeremy to work at the hospital and drop my nursing application of with Patty herself (the nursing secretary at Coconino community college). Cross your finger they want me this time!!!

Not long after I get back to the house we’re on the move again. Packing up the car and heading to Salt Lake City. I have grown to love Utah! I have only been there 3 times but I have fallen in love with it. So beautiful! Just last October I went up to Salt lake city with Justin for General Conference so I felt like I knew my way a little bit.

We went over the dam. Heehee, made some dam jokes and took some good dam pictures! Then we stopped in a little town called quail creek for lunch. Dad has a hard time stopping but we finally found a rest area with quite nice bathrooms and a little picnic table under the shade of trees for lunch. After our pit stop we kept on driving all the way to salt lake city. Sometime during that drive Aunt Susie called to see how it was going and to tell us that they had tickets for a concert to see the band Journey that evening and that they wouldn’t be back until around 11pm. They had left the little kids with Tom Fife (who was making his way back to Arizona from BYUI).

Thanks to Tylers chalange Riley had the Rubiks cube the ENTIRE trip!! She can do the whole thing now!

Dad and Mom decided that we would stop and see temple square for the evening because Georgia had never been to Salt Lake City or seen the conference center or anything. It was so nice to park and just walk around. We went to the Joseph Smith memorial building and got to see a showing of the brand new movie Joseph smith the prophet of the restoration in one of their huge theaters. Amazing film!!! Amazing amazing amazing! You can’t help but cry!

After that we heard that we could go in and watch the tabernacle choir practice. We dash over there and just walk in and sit and listen to the Mormon tabernacle choir sing the battle hymn of the republic and other amazing songs! I felt so so lucky!! We are so blessed in the gospel and we don’t even realize!

Mom was sad to see the Tab choir was using a TelePrompTer!!!

After that it was around 9pm and it was still light outside! Crazy! We jump in the car and start heading to the Seelos house and plan to stop on the way for dinner but like I said before, Dad doesn’t like to stop and there is no going backwards. “It’s against the rules.” Thanks to In-N-out for having a huge sign we were able to see it and say “take the exit Dad” and got to eat there for dinner.

We finally get to the Seelos’s house and Tom, Ann, and John were still awake. We were just in time to watch the end of the 2^nd National Treasures movie and even after that was over they still weren’t back from the concert! We all decided will just have to see them in the morning and get in bed and THEN they walk in the door. We all get up again and chat for a little bit about how amazing the concert was. Lucky ducks! Then we go to bed. Dad snores really loud!

Saturday morning Ann made yummy yummy French toasts for us! The Seelos’s have it made! Aunt Susie is amazing! 10 kids and she’s cool calm and collected! Mom and Aunt Susie talked all morning about grandma and grandpa and told us stories about growing up. Their house and backyard are so fun! We jumped on the trampoline, played 4-square at the park, had otter-pops, and had so much fun together. Then around 11pm we start on the road again to make it to Sarah’s graduation in Idaho!

whew! that's all i could get tonight Lindy! lol, i'll narrate the rest tomorrow, but i knew you would be looking! love you!



























































The
Mom just relaxin'
pushed a button on mom's i-phone and found that i was looking at my self!
Breakfast at the Seelos's means a lot of food!
Our last day with the Seelos's (Monday) we wok up early and made Eggs, Beccon, and CREPES!!
This is John! He almost makes breakfast ever morning and taught me how to make the crepes!

Highs and Lows

My week has had it’s ups and downs but over all it was a good week.
Guess who came to church?!? Jared and Amani (his fiancé)! I texted Jared and invited him this morning to go and surprisingly he was really excited about it. It was so good to see him AND for him to be really happy. Girls make boys change and I think Jared has changed a lot for Amani; in a good way. For example he opened her door and he was dressed nicely, he wasn’t the normal dirt under the fingernails Jared. He’s matured a lot from what I could tell, but I didn’t get to talk to him that much. Maybe this decision to get married will be just what Jared needs to realize the important things in life. I don’t know.. but we’re moving in the right direction! Maybe Amani will want to get baptized! Great things could happen! =) Staying positive here!

Boy though, I was nervous when the first speaker in sacrament started out by saying, “for those of you that have served your mission, keep serving! For those of you who haven’t gone, Go” and then the rest of church seemed to be themed on obedience. What can I say! It was meant for Jared to hear. I wonder what Amani thought of the whole thing. I’ll have to ask him. Anyway, answers to prayers that he came to church! Yay! That was a high of my week.

A low point was that I was told by an 8yr old, for the first time ever, that I’m a “jerk”. That was not a happy time. Man alive, I was floored. And all because I asked him to fold his clothes while I made dinner. The next day, to my surprise, he told me I was the best nanny ever (pretty sure Anne had something to do with that). With kids you never know what’s going to come out of their mouth.

I got the job as a caregiver. =) AND guess what I hear after the interview! That the son of the boss, who’s going to pima, and was there at the office when I had my interview, was “checking me out” (says Nicole, my coach that got me the job). Now I know why I was hired… whoopy…(roll eyes)

Anyway, I’m excited about that. I’ll stat training as a phlebotomist on August 15^th. Super excited for that. Things are going SOOO well.

On July 21^st we’re driving up to Idaho for Sarah’s graduation! I’m So glad I get be here, at home, to spend time with her before she leaves on her mission!

That’s pretty much everything that’s going on with me! Love you ALL!

What. A. Crazy. Day!

I knew it was going to be crazy, and last night I tossed and turned just thinking about it (didn’t fall asleep until after midnight). In my mind I couldn’t work out how I was going to get everything done. Normally I wouldn’t work for the Cavett’s on a Friday but come to find out, Anne did want me to work. I told her about my CNA test a while back but she had forgotten about it. My test started at 1pm (plus they said be there 20min early) and Anne said there was no way she was going to make it home from work that early.

Thankfully Riley said she would come to work with me and I would just leave for my test then come back. Simple simple, right?! BUT…it got way more complicated when Anne texted me and told me the boys were going to be at a karate camp until 12pm AND that I was supposed to pick them up there all the way on tanque verde right next to the kirk bear library. I’m SO worried that I wont be able to get the boys and get them home and THEN get to my test on time. On top of that, Connor has a private tutoring session with coach Steve at 4pm, Cayce has a play date with Ben at their house from 12-4pm and Riley has to be at an YCL meeting at 3pm at the Rustands house. A lot going on!

Riley and I decided to get the boys early from the camp (around 11:45am). That works out, we get the boys and we all get home by around 12:10 and then I rush off to the testing place all the way down Broadway (next to wings over Broadway! Yumm that sounds so good right now!) Anyway I get there and get checked in and I take my written test first. After the written test, I take my skills test. SO nerve-wracking! The skills I got were perineal care, dressing the bed-ridden patient, input, and isolation gown and gloves. Pretty easy stuff and I’ve practiced all of them a billion times but when I was told to perform them with my test proctor leaning over my shoulder I froze up, totally forgot all the steps, but I did managed to pull it together and I think I did okay… I’ll get my scores on Monday!!

After the entire test I rush back to work around 3:30pm. Poor Riley is so late and I can’t even take her to the Rustands because I have Ben over for a play-date and Connor is having his chess tutoring. So Riley calls mom and she comes and picks her up. Then I start doing all the chores around the house and try to think of something (SUPER Fast) I can make for dinner. Soon tutoring starts and Ben’s mom comes to pick him up. That’s when Ben’s mom says “I’ll see you guys again in about 45min.” I have no idea what she’s talking about and I text Anne and she’s forgotten about a birthday party that Cacey is supposed to go to. Anne says to have the boys all ready and dressed so they could go as soon as she got home.

Then a little later when I’m in the middle of making dinner she calls and says she’s not going to make it home in time. She asks me to take Connor to their grandma’s house. Pick up Ben (the friend). Go to target to get a present for Tyler the birthday boy. Then finally take them to the birthday party.

During all this I’m having my own little craziness. I started thinking about driving school (that i have to go to the next morning) and remember I needed to get a money order by tomorrow morning at 7:30am. I call Mom and panic when she says banks normally close at 5pm and don't open till around 9-10ish! Then I call the wells fargo in the fry’s plaza on 22^nd because I thought they stayed open later than 5pm (which is what time it was right then) and I was right! Thank goodness they stayed open till 7pm because I wouldn’t of been able to get one otherwise.

Anyway, Anne asks me to do all this PLUS I have to get to fry’s and get my money order before 7pm when they close. So I rush the boys in the shower, I rush them to eat dinner, and I rush them out to the car. I take Connor to the grandma’s house. I pick up Ben and introduce myself to Ben’s Dad and he was a little anxious about me (someone he had never seen or met before) taking his son to a bowling alley for a birthday party. I explain that Anne got stuck at work and that I was their Nanny. He asked how old I was and “jokingly” asked to see some ID. Then he asks who’s staying with the boys and I (of course) say that I would be, even though Anne said to just drop the boys off. After the Dad feels comfortable with all the details and everything I rush the boys to Target, find a gift. Rush to fry’s, get my money order. Then Finally arrived at the bowling alley! It actually was Tucson bowling right next to the seminary building! (That part worked out great because it was right next to fry’s!)

The Boys start bowling and it’s quite fun cheering them on and giving them high-fives and stuff so it’s not a problem that Anne doesn’t show up until 7:45pm. The only thing was after that I still have to go back and switch cars because the next morning I had driving school. Once I get on the road again Dan calls me and asks what in the world is going on! “Where is everyone? Where the boys are? Why I’m still working at 8 o’clock at night? All these questions. Then I get to the Cavetts and find that, in my rush, I had forgotten to unload the clean dishes and put away the clean laundry and some other stuff so I still have some work to get done at the house. keep in mind I had very little time at the house since I was gone taking the test. I finally get done and get home around 9pm.

On top of all this, Emily has been wanting to do something with me and I canceled last time when we had something planned and I couldn’t cancel again so after I get home, change out of my scrubs, and eat some dinner, I head over to her house. It was nice to chat with Emily and have some girl time! I’m glad it went, but I just barely got home and it’s 11pm and I’m exhausted. What. A. Crazy. Day!

It was crazy, but I still know I am very blessed to have my job, as a nanny, and I do love my boys!

The hike was CRAZY!

I can’t even begin to explain how crazy and insane the hike was.

The first day Nikki and I got to the church at 7am and we packed up and started driving to the place where we were going to be hiking out of the canyon.

(riding in the back of the truck)

Then we all got in one truck and met up with everyone else at the trailhead. But… we got lost… The young single adult guy that was in charge of this whole hike (Dallin), had his GPS and the map and everything and we still got lost. Just drove down the wrong dirt road and wouldn’t know it was wrong till we ended up at the wrong place and would have to turn around.

(Finally ready to go!)

It took till 1pm before we met up with the other half of the group and started the first day of hiking. Dallin had said at our packing meeting that at the beginning there was going to be a lot of thorn bushes, and we all didn’t realize what he really was talking about or we weren’t listening, but there were thorns galore!

I felt like the hyena on the lion king that falls into all the thorns bushes! (you remember that part?) Lol, but luckily I was wearing long nylon hiking pants and I didn’t get that scratched up. Some of the girls wore shorts and had blood dripping down their legs from all the scratches. One girl fell into them, and started to cry! Keep in mind this is the first 2 hour of the hike and all of us are thinking, “Why in the world did I sign up for this?”

After we tackled the thorn bushes (they were locust, I think) we arrived to the ponds. Dallin had also warned us about how we were going to have to swim across some ponds, and again we really didn’t understand how hard and cold that was going to be.

(that's me pulling our packs across!! BURRR)

The ponds were pretty clear clean water but it was FREEZING water! When I jumped in I felt like I couldn’t breathe! It was so cold, and at first you couldn’t move or anything. I’m not scared of the water but the cold made me feel like I could have drowned right then and there. While dealing with the cold we were all trying to keep our backpacks dry as well. Nikki and I bought a pool float to ferry our packs across. We were lucky that all our stuff stayed dry (thank goodness!!!) Some people just waterproofed their bags and swam across and had a wet sleeping bag that night.

Anyway, we all got through the first pond and are soaking wet and that’s when a girl named Alesha started getting really cold and kept on getting cold and couldn’t get herself warm. She started shivering really bad and then said she felt sleepy. BAD SIGN! She was going into hypothermia! So we had to wait around a long time helping her warm up. Making her walk around, drink hot cocoa, and stay awake was really all we could do!

So this is the first day, the first few hours and we’ve already had all of this crazy stuff happen! Our pace was SO slow.. we definitely weren’t making 1 mile an hour. We probably only went 500 feet in 1 hour just because the ponds took so long to cross and then get warm after. Plus at the bottom of the canyon it was all boulders so we have to jump from boulder to boulder with our 40lb pack and soaking wet tennis shoes.

(These are the boulders!)

Around this time is when we got separated into two groups. The young adults that were doing fine in the front of the group and the adults that were tying to help Alesha get warm. We got so far separated that there was no way to communicate with them. Dallin was in the first group of people (so was I) and all he wanted to do was speed up the pace to make it to the campgrounds. So we speed up without knowing what all the leaders were going to do with Alesha. Dallin assumed they were going to turn back because she was having such a hard time in the first two ponds and there were 3 more to swim through plus there were a lot of waist deep crossings after that.

Even though everyone was going as fast as we could go we couldn’t do the 7 miles that we were supposed to. Dallin decided to stop at 7:30pm and set up camp. That’s when we realized that we hadn’t stopped through all our hiking for lunch water or snacks! NO WONDER NONE OF US COULD MOVE! I drank less than a cup of water that day and only ate some eggs for breakfast before we left at 7am. Bad huh? Once we stopped everyone realized they were starving and very dehydrated! Everyone in our gourp was okay though; all of us stayed pretty positive. We all ate our lunch and dinner that night and then we were out for the night (except Michael who had a wet sleeping bad, poor guy).

The next morning I thought Dallin would have us up hiking by at least 8am but it was 9am before most of us got out of our tents. Luckily we hadn’t left early because guess who caught up with us? Alesha and all the leaders! We couldn’t believe it! I guess they got Alisha a wet suit and had made it through all the swims!

So after the leaders caught up we all got our little lecture about staying as a group; we needed to hear it! (Especially Dallin!) So through the next day we stayed really close to everyone. Alesha was put in the front and we went as slow as our slowest person. That was good, but also bad at the same time because the 3 miles left over from the day before and the 4 miles we were supposed to hike were taking forever to hike.

When the Leaders cought up to us! Alesha is in the gray jacket standing up on the left side.

putting out the fire

keeping Alesha Company =)

(feeling much better after a good nights sleep and some fruit cups for breakfast!)

To make things worse it started to be really windy…. Then it started to rain… and then hail! Staying dry was out of the question and our only concern was hiking the 7 miles we had to hike before we could get OUT of the canyon. Of course we’re all scared that Alisha would get hypothermia again and there was really nothing we could do except for stop and make a fire to heat her up, but doing that would slow us down way more. After it started to hail the leaders make the decisions that we would hike out that day instead of staying another day in the canyon. All of us were happy about that because it had just been miserably cold and all of us were done.

smiles in the pictures of course but it was really cold!

staying positive!

thinking "please don't fall in"

We trudge through the mud, we slip and trip and fall over the boulders, we swim across freezing water and finally get to where we were going to have to climb straight up out of the canyon.

We stop there and the “drivers” all hike up and out to get the trucks while us hikers wait for two hours till they get back. That’s when I really get worried about Alesha because she was cold. She’s so skinny and she’s got wet clothes on and she’s shivering and she will get hypothermia again. We all know she will if she sits for any length of time. So I pull my stove out and make her hot cocoa again and Dallin tried to get a fire started but all the wood is wet and it’s taking forever. That’s when one other girls says she saw a cave back a little bit off the trial and we all decide to go back and wait there.

Nikki and I

drying out clothes out

The problem was that Alisha would have to cross the water again. It was waist deep there and she couldn’t do it. She said no no no, but we forced her to and finally got her in the cave. While I was trying to get her through the water Dallin had gone ahead and had the fire started by the time we got there. We all huddled around the fire for the next hour and then it was time to hike out and hope the leaders were back with the trucks. Before we leave, I make Alesha eat a ramen cup and do jumping jacks and stuff just so she would be okay on the climb out. She made it out great after that and we all survived!

Our last steep climb out of the canyon

It was really muddy!

There were no real bad injuries but we were all pretty beat up and sore. We all were happy and proud of ourselves for making it out alive. I never thought I would have been able to do a hike that was that hard, but when you’re stuck at the bottom of a canyon you don’t really have a choice… lol, it was fun though. It was super hard, but rewarding at the end.

I felt bad for Nikki, who had come on the hike because I had said how awesome the last hike was and how much fun she would have and then it turned out to be so hard. She was a trooper though and handled it well just like everyone else. She did say on the way home that she was never going on another backpacking hike again. =(

When we got back to town it was snowing and cold cold cold. When Nikki and I got back to Erin and Jeremy they were so happy we were home and had been so worried about us because they knew if they were having bad weather we must have been having even worse weather. It was crazy!! The pictures look lush and green and beautiful, and it was but it was still the hardest hike I have EVER done!

I still can't wait for the next one! (I say it was the hardest one every time, heehee)

AWW I LOVE MY LIFE!!!

I just found out my grade in my biology 202 class and it’s an “A”!! Straight A’s this semester! I. Love. That.

I am also going on a super duper intense hike next week with the institute group. The first think our leader said is, “this hike is not for everyone…” which makes me really excited it’s going to be challenging! I just love life and am so grateful for all my blessings! I can’t wait to get home and start working again for the Cavetts this summer and start swimming again and to be home with April and Aric, Tyler and Kylee, Kimberly and Ryan, and all my family!! I’ve missed you guys so much!! I love you too Lindy and Kyle (wish I could come home and spend time with you too!)

I also want to say thank you to Erin and Jeremy for EVERYTHING they have done for me these last two semesters! I’ve learned so much from them and I don’ think I could have made it through the ups and downs without them (especially getting those rejections letters!) I love them soooo much and will miss them over the summer a LOT!