Come home, Matt!

Yes, it's true! Matt just went on his first "official" date to Homecoming. [Note: his first unofficial date was taking me out to play goofy golf and eat icecream! It was great!] He asked one of his good friends who has just turned 16. Here, the tradition is to date for the whole day....so they started out doing paint-ball sling shots for 3 hours, a scavenger hunt at the store, dinner at our house (Mexican-style), ice-cream sculpting at the house next door where one of the boys is from....then finally pictures and the dance. Since that time, he's actually gone another date with the other girl from his group that just turned 16. Just one of the benefits of being the oldest in your class! P.S. Isn't it great that Matt is finally taller than the girls! : ) (and he doesn't talk like one anymore!)

Camping and hiking
After spending last summer primarily building our home, then moving into it (late August), and the first of this summer working hard on the yard, we decided we should actually have some fun. The last days of THIS August were filled with the following:

First Backpacking Trip:
None of our family, including the scouts (!) have ever been backpacking, except for Brenda when she was in Highschool. We experienced our first family backpacking trip a few weeks ago. We learned a few things:
1. Never use a “general” list of things to pack when you’re backpacking.
Our experienced friends who went with us has very much lighter packs than we did! Brenda’s ended up weighing over 35 pounds, Scott’s was close to 40! Mind you, this was an overnight backpacking trip!
2. Make sure your youngest’s backpack is virtually empty before you leave.
Mom and friends ended up carrying Zach’s backpack most of the way back down!
3. Don’t forget to put a doggy pack on your dog if you are crazy enough to bring him!
Since we didn’t have a dog-sitter, we brought the dog along! He did great, having much more energy than we did on the way up. On the way back, however, he went with the fast group….ended up tossing his cookies (or dog-food in this case) and being carried the last mile down by Scott. Next time, we think we’ll let him pack in his own food on his own back.

First Hike to the Tetons
On Labor Day, rather than labor, we actually did something fun for a change! We woke up at 4 a.m., drove to the bottom of table rock (near the Tetons) and hiked over 13 miles to get to a wonderful view of the Tetons. We went with new friends—Zach and the other boy his age went back down early with his mom after the first of the hike was a little more strenuous than expected. The rest of us persevered—although, be warned: Near the top of the table rock is STRAIGHT UP. It was definitely “extreme” near the top!

Lotsa Company!

Lotsa Company
We’ve discovered that one reason we might have not ever had so many visitors in the past is because we’ve always lived in South Dakota. This summer we experienced our first real batch of company: Starting June 29th, we had company staying with us every week/or weekend until we left on our vacation the 1st of August. After our vacation, we had 3 more rounds of company. It was great fun! The following is our list of visitors: Wk 1: The Whites (great friends from used to be Lubbock, then Brookings, now SLC) Wk 2: The Olsens (Zach’s best friend from SD) Wk 3: The Francis’ (our kid’s best friends from SD) Wk 4: Eric and Ronda and family (Brenda’s brother from Texas) Wk 5: Mike and Christi and family (Brenda’s brother from Nauvoo) Week 6: Shawna and Sandra (Brenda's sisters) with Sandra's 3 girls. Week 7: The Whites visit again from SLC. Week 8: Kevin Gardner (Scott's brother) who came up to run a half marathon. Week 9: The Whites come up for another visit at BYU-I. Hopefully more of you will come and play with us!
Scott's brother, Kevin, after winning his division of the Mesa Falls 1/2 marathon.

Sandra's Daughter Sophie with Frodo. Here she's feeding him one piece of dogfood at a time. He was eating it up! (Literally!)

Mike and Christi's children (Brenda's brother is Mike) visit with our kids Friends from Brookings the Francis' and the Godfreys (Godfreys live in Rexburg now)

Zach's best friend John Olsen from Brookings.

Chicago!

The Sears (Willis) Tower...tallest building in America!

We had a great visit to Chicago and were able to see the sights as well as visit a lot of Brenda's siblings.

Buckingham fountain at night...cool picture, hugh...

Tallest Building in the U.S....and you are stepping out onto a glass ledge at about 1300 feet above the street below!

View from the top of the Sears/Willis Tower

Nate's Mission Call

Here's a video of us opening the letter- Nate apologizes for stuttering during the whole thing.
For those of you who realize that the place we opened it is too pretty to be in Rexburg, you're right. We actually had to go up an hour to Harriman State Park to open it because Matt is at a violin camp up there. Enjoy.

Tallies for the mission guesses

Just for fun, we tallied up the guesses to see what was most guessed-

Surprisingly, Canada was the most guessed, with 4 votes.
Next up were Mexico and Ecuador, which got 3 votes each.
Africa, Chile, Italy, Australia, Florida spanish speaking, and Tennessee both got two votes each.
But none of those guesses were actually right...

Hiking R Mountain

On July 3rd we hiked up R Mountain. Not a huge hike, but we started small. We only had to kill one Rattle Snake! Frodo also hiked with us and did a good job keeping up. This is Nate on top of the world. Oh, you can also see Rexburg in the background on one of the pictures.

Even more guesses

Here are some more guesses just coming in- we've heard that most calls around here come on Thursday, just as a heads-up.

Heather Nygaard says somewhere in Asia
Jackie Nygaard says Mexico
Kaleb Nygaard says Louisiana
Josh Nygaard says Russia
Celeste Walker says Tennessee
Candace Walker says Canada
Bryce Walker says Africa
Jedd Walker says Chile
Natalie Walker says Italy
Elise Walker says Michigan
Michelle Mejia says Chile or Puerto Rico
Reid Robison says France
Sandra Wesemann says Australia
Lucy Wesemann says China
Eliza says Boston
Kevin Cluff says Canada

Matt's awesome 16th birthday party

For Matt's 16th birthday, he had a big boy/girl party with 15+ people there. It was pretty awesome, but boy were they noisy. Matt also got a barbie in one of his presents, curtesy of dad. boy/girl birthday

Some New Guesses

John Schipper- Ecuador
Eric Cluff- Uruguay
James Feldermann- Siberia
Alexa Cluff- Canada French speaking
Sarah White- Africa
Loretta Tomshack- Los Angeles Spanish speaking
Grandma Cluff- Ecuador or Thailand
Grandpa Cluff- Florida Spanish speaking
Kevin Gardner- Australia
Matt- Poland or the Czech Republic
Scott- Argentina
Laurie Cluff- India
Brenda- Korea or Salt Lake City Mandarin speaking

And just so you all know, Nate's call was sent Monday morning! Only time will tell when the letter will actually come.

Where in the world is Nate going on his mission?

So Nate has had his mission papers in for about 1 1/2 now, and we're expecting a call in the mail any day now (probably Thursday/Friday.) We've recently asked people where he's going, and here is what everyone is guessing. The person who guesses the closest gets their own mailable treat sent to them- or, if it's not mailable, we'll find some food-hitchhiking way to get it to them.

Joseph White says Ecuador
Alice White says Georgia
Isabella White says Spain
Alexandria White says Mexico
Hannah White says Nebraska
Victoria White says Tennessee
Kendra Cluff says Italy
the Steeles says Rapid City, SD
Jason Logan says California
Jared Logan says Europe
Tyler Logan says Afganistan (is that even possible?)
Julie Logan says Romania
Tim Logan says Florida Spanish-speaking
Candee Coverley says New Hampshire
Rod Coverley says California
Daniel Coverley says Maine
Jr. Coverley says Brazil
Jackson Coverley says New York
Lisa Robison says Alabama
Susan Weimer says Ohio
J.D. Griffith says Rome, Italy
Shawna Woodworth says Finland; Birmingham, Alabama; or Billiings, Montana
Jed Woodworth says Japan, Denmark, Mexico, or the "best mission", Morristown, New Jersey.
Ben's Woodworth says Utah
Jane Woodworth says "Uhh hhh" (Utah)
Kendra Gardner says China- then, on second thought, she said "Colorado."
Katy Gardner says Canada
Mark Gardner says Ukraine
Grampa Gardner says Texas El Paso spanish speaking
Grandma Gardner says Monterray Mexico

It's not to late to make your guess- feel free to email us.