Nolan Cluff Family Clan

Dear Siblings,

Aaaaaaah!  I already messed up the newsletter because it has been longer than one week, but I blame my crazy life!  Things have been hopping since school started three weeks ago, with 12-hour days at the school.  One weekend, I took everything out of my classroom where I had been for four years, and moved into another classroom.  That’s the equivalent of moving out of a house where you’ve been for four years, and doing it in two days.

I was grateful to get this letter from Robert, as my thoughts have been with you many times over the past 24 months since Mom died.  As I’ve felt a growing distance from many of you, I have wondered how Mom is feeling about how we are supporting (or not) each other.  She was my great friend, but she was also my source of information about my siblings…if I wanted to know how someone was doing, I would call her to find out.  I can’t do that any more, so as Robert said, we’re looking for a better communication system for our family.

I think we should give some thought to how she would want her family to honor her memory, and I believe that it would be by carrying on what she considered her greatest role…that of advocate, enthusiastic cheerleader, and friend to each of us.  I hate to say it, but I don’t think we can rely on Dad for this.  We need to do it for each other.  (Can you tell that I feel like an orphan?)

I try to think about how I have been a friend for you, and come up miserably short.  I haven’t even talked to some of you since the funeral.  I feel sick about that…particularly where my younger sisters are concerned.  For some reason, I feel like Chris, Cheryl, and Connie are particularly vulnerable and need greater support and love from their older siblings.  And I haven’t been offering it.

By way of family news (after this long introduction), we have a little!  We just learned that Sara is expecting in April.  This will be her fifth.  She has beautiful babies, and her family is well cared for.  Alissa (8), Christian(6), and Amber(4) all do very well in school, and Alivia(1) is almost walking.  She has had some difficulty because she was born with one hipbone out of the socket (a fairly common occurrence, come to find out).  But the problem seems to be taken care of now.  Scott is manager of an Office Max in Prescott, and also a busy Elders Quorum president.  Sara keeps everybody in line.  She’s been sick this pregnancy, which is unusual for her.  We have her in our prayers every day.

Ben and Cami just blessed little Thomas Nolan last Sunday.  He is a happy, cherubic little baby!  Their family is doing well, also.  Matthew is in first grade (Grandma got to be his Kindergarten teacher, which she dearly loved).  Anna(4) and Jacob(2) are busy playing and learning.  They bought a big house a few months ago, so we meet over there a lot.  It’s only a mile or so away from our new condo.  Ben is still making the big bucks as a programmer, is the stake clerk (or something), and Cami keeps an immaculate house with all these little kids (something that I was never able to do very well).

Xela and Mike are busy in school.  Xela is doing her last semester before student teaching, and hopes to land a job next year teaching English.  (That should be easy here in Utah.)  They are both helping Arian(4) learn how to read.  She can already read quite a few words.  Arian and Brittany both enjoy their horseback riding lessons that Xela gives them every week.  We love Mike…he is so mellow and happy and just all things nice.

Our newest newlyweds, Karen and Rich, are busy too.  Karen is teaching Earth Science at a Jr. High in South Jordan, and Rich is finishing up his studies in nuclear engineering.  They plan to leave Provo next summer for graduate school back East.  They are enjoying married life, and just hope that their car can hold out just a little bit longer!

Alexis is working right now for a company that receives incoming calls about security systems.  She has a boyfriend named Jeremy that she really, really likes.  He is a BYU student studying political science.  They were planning a wedding next year, but it looks like it will be getting moved up.

Brittany is in 6th grade, and is at the top of her class.  She is learning to play the flute, takes horseback riding lessons, and is getting ready to enter YW soon.  She recently got a more grown up hairdo, and her ears pierced, so she is looking less like a tomboy.

Garth is still working for BYU and PHS.  He was elected president of our HOA.  (Do you love all these acronyms?)  He constantly supports me and helps me in every way.  I am teaching Kindergarten, after school, and will be taking on the science fair this year for our school.  I have a great class of 5-year-olds this year, and there are only 20 of them!  Miracles never cease!

We bought a new condo at the beginning of last year, and it is in a retirement community.  (No, we’re not retired, by any means).  They let us in because we were old enough.  So far, we have 3 neighbors that are related to Moses Cluff.  Small world!

We hope this letter finds all of you in excellent health and circumstances.  Be sure to vote in November!

Love

Jeanne & family

Dear family,

Today is Labor Day.  It is also Mom’s birthday.  I believe she would have been 78 this year.  I miss her, and I miss the family that was the center of her whole existence.  Now that Dad has remarried, I feel that in a very real sense that the torch has been passed to us, their children–to continue that family relationship in whatever form we will.

About a month ago Marleen came to Utah to bring Stephanie to a conference in SLC.  While she was here, she and Jeanne and I went out to dinner.  At that time we discussed some things we might want to do as a family in the future.

[Editor's note: Edited for content]

Secondly, in the two years since Mom passed I can count on one hand some of the times I have visited with some of you, and so Jeanne has proposed (and others seconded) that we resurrect the old original family round-robin letter.  The family letter that we were last doing was a lot of work and expense for whomever was doing it.  The advantage of the round robin is simplicity–just take out your old letter and add a new one and mail the pouch on.  The danger is that it will get stuck.  But if everyone commits to get it back on the road within one week we should be able to hear about each other’s lives about 4 times a year.  Email is another possibility, but I’m not sure if everyone has email or reads them very often, and there is something about a physical letter that represents a little higher commitment to the process.  [snip]  Again, if anyone has any other ideas, please let me or Jeanne know.

So this will be the first letter of the round robin.  Let’s go Robert-Jeanne-Ron-Marleen-Howard-Chris-Cheryl-Connie.  [snip]

Briefly, the main news with the Robert Cluff family is that we are empty-nesters.  We took Brian to USU in Logan about a week ago, and we’ve been moping around ever since.  Thank goodness Tim and Naomi are nearby so we generally have a crowd on weekends.  We continue to work at finishing our basement in our spare time.

Amy has just passed the halfway point of her mission.  She spent the first few months in a tiny country town (Las Cabras) in Chile which she just loved, and then transferred to a large town (San Bernardo) just south of Santiago.  She likes the big city less, but was just made a trainer and so is very busy.

Tim is just starting his second year of law school.  He worked for an intellectual property law firm during the summer, and just took (and passed) a 6-hour test for the patent bar.  It’s been a lot of fun having them just 4 houses down the street from us.  (Grandma gives the boys piano lessons, Grandpa shares garden produce, etc.)

Lisa and Jake continue to sink deeper roots in Boise.  Jake just became a partner in the law firm he works for there.  We went up in August for Brianna’s baptism and were able to visit Aunt Martha.  Her daughter Toni and her husband are living with her and helped her overcome a very serious illness earlier this year.  Rachel’s allergies seem to be improving, but they’ve learned that little Erich’s allergies are even worse than Rachel’s were.

Nathan also took and passed a monster test to become a certified skilled nursing facility administrator in Washington.  They’re hoping that with passing the test and finishing his year of internship that he will be re-assigned to a facility in Utah.  You are probably aware that they had a baby boy Tyler in late July.  You may not be aware that they’ve discovered that one kidney is undersized and he is getting infections from urine refluxing from the bladder.  They are hoping that he will be able to out-grow it.

Naomi and John live in Riverton, about 10 miles north of us in Salt Lake County.  Cody is in the 1st grade and Bailey is getting cuter all the time.  Kyle (18 months) is running Mom and Dad ragged.  John is enjoying his work as a financial planner.

As I said, Brian is at school.  He was ordained an Elder just before leaving.  He’s at USU because he got a 4-year Presidential scholarship there.  He plans to study computer engineering (and girls).

We look forward to hearing from the rest of you.

Love,

Robert