Camp Beaver 2014

I realize people rarely come to this blog but since you're here... enjoy the fun we had at "the Beaver" this summer.

Thanks to all for coming

LT

"Alright" Cruises

For four years now the sons and daughters of Harold and Elda Thompson have been taking "cruises".  We mainly sit around, tell stories, laugh and enjoy each others company.  We've taken some pictures and video to recall the good times and places we've been.  And with some great music from Heartbound, in particular, Lori Hales as the soloist for a perfect song.  Mothe' and Dad we miss you both.  It's been 16 years since you left us but we're doing "alright".

Hope you enjoy.

LT

March we remember Grandpa & Grandma Thompson's birthdays. I'm putting a link on here of Vince Gill and Carrie Underwood's rendition of "How Great Thou Art" which you may know was Grandpa Thompson's favorite hymn. If for some reason you can't get to it from here I have sent the link to Layne via e-mail. Hopefully he will forward it to each one of you. This rendition sent chills down my spine! It is excellent.
Weed


 Carrie Underwood & Vince Gill

White Mush Sunday

This week I have been flooded with memories of Grandma & Grandpa Thompson.  My mom gave me an afghan and a book from Grandma's collection for my birthday this year. On the inside cover of the book is Grandma's signature in her perfect cursive.  We watched the movie Layne made of her cooking white mush, and after a week of non-stop cravings, I woke up this morning and made some.  I couldn't wait for it to set, either. Cooked a batch right after the roll was formed.  I was fortunate enough to grow up next door to both of my Grandparents.  We caught the bus for school in front of Grandma & Grandpa Thompson's house.  Each morning they would make us hot chocolate or spiced apple cider and serve it to us in tea cups with saucers.  Sometimes Grandpa would sneak us a powdered donut when Grandma wasn't looking.  One morning I was late for the bus and Grandpa met me at the end of the sidewalk with a tea cup full of hot chocolate.  5 days a week I was able to visit with them each morning.  And on the weekends we played basketball or football or softball in their front yard.  At night, we played kick the can or come to court on the farm.  I miss those simple times spent dressing up and giving fashion shows to them as they sat in their chairs in the living room or plunking away on the piano in the living room.  I miss them both so much.

Mande

Thompson Teens

Thompsons, I've uploaded the video we showed at Camp Beaver for those who may not have seen it.  I've also got a ton of really good still shots that I'll send to anyone that wants a copy.  Just let me know. I'll send a CD (too big to send electronically).

It was great see and be with everyone this summer.

LT

Bowen Brett Shaw

So sad to miss camp beaver this year! But so happy to have our (maddee & brett) baby boy here!

Bowen Brett Shaw

born 7.6.12

7 lbs 6 oz 19 inches

We love him sooooooooo much!

Erik & Skye in NYC

Erik and I just took a trip to visit Bry & Teresa & their 3 boys at their new home in New York.  Bryant got a teaching job at West Point Academy so we got to see his campus and visit the city.

Bryant's campus

 16th row behind the dugout at the Yankee's game, thanks to Fred's connections

Top of the Rock

 This is the view from the Thompson's back porch

And here is us hiking in the back yard

Thank you to Bry & Teresa for letting us visit, we had a wonderful time!

Coen and Clyde Costley

We are happy to announce the arrival of our twin boys.  Coen Chad Costley was born May 22nd, 2012 at 3:12pm, he was 7.4 lbs. and was followed 15 mins later by his brother Clyde Jay Costley who was 7.8 lbs.  They both measured in at 18 1/2".

Mindy was amazing and we were blessed with many small and large miracles the day of their births.  These pictures are from my cell phone and not the best quality.  We did have a photographer along with us and her many, many great pictures can be found on my wife's facebook page.  So befriend Mindy Robison Costley now if you haven't already or however that works...

Thank you for every thought and prayer on our behalf, we are unreasonably over-blessed.  Love you all and see you soon.

Surprise at 10 on the news

I wonder how many people in Utah were like Fred last night.  He's watching the news at 10 on channel 4 waiting for the sports to start.  All of a sudden he sees a kid he recognizes and starts yelling for Helen to "come and see who's on the news!"

The link below should let you see it.

LT

http://www.abc4.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoid=3442709

Visitors from the West

We received a phone call Saturday night from Trina saying she, Clark and Jeannine were in town! We were so excited! They came to church with us and then over for lunch. It was such a fun visit and the kids loved them! Mycah loved Jeannine and made her walk her to class and everything!

Thompson Cruise

Hales found some friendly neighbors to visit with at the Veyo Pie shop

Helen had to skip breakfast so she got 2 pieces of pie

Lovely ladies with flowers from Hawaii

Snowy trip to Mt Meadows

Babuh cooking white mush Monday morning

At the monument

At the pie store

Interesting afternoon discussion

All in a row

Vearl was the Casino night champion.  Paul and Runar were his counselors 

We had a wonderful time.  

LT

Seaman Family: part 2

Ali playing on the junior high volleyball team. She has also started playing the violin.

(Sorry my posts are out of order; it's my first time. Just read in reverse.)

Danny has boundless energy and will soon perform in "Joseph, and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat."

Lizzie (7) and Hannah (4) certainly have their rough and roudy times. Liz enjoys karate and being a spy, while Hannah puts on her own make-up for her daily princess fashion show.

Megan is 21 months old and needs that sweet smile to make up for her excessive clinginess and random screaming fits at night.

Clark and I are busy trying to enjoy and keep up with these kids.

We can't wait to see you all at Camp Beaver 2012!

Seaman Family

Our family is busier than ever, and we have more reasons to be happy than ever before, too. With 6 kids that each have their own activities, things are always hopping at our place. Here's a list of names to help you keep them straight (from oldest to youngest)

Clark, Daylyn, Katie, Alison, Danny, Lizzie, Hannah, and Megan

Katie and Ali have been busy with volleyball and are starting on basketball season. They both played setter on their volleyball teams.

Erik & Skye Thompson Family

We've had an exciting year. In July we welcomed our 3rd boy into our family, Kael Bingham Thompson. He is a wonderful little baby and his big brothers love him.

Kire is 5 and started kindergarten in August at South Weber Elementary. He loves school and is so smart. Of course he had to wear one of his 10 Star Wars shirts to match his backpack. This summer he took swimming lessons and also learned to ride a 2 wheel bike.

Jack is 2 and is all boy. He loves sports, wrestling & baseball & football. He is a character too. He makes us laugh everyday.

Kael is now 3 months and is still such a good baby. Everyone thinks he looks just like Jack.


Last month we took a trip to St. George to see Judd coaching. We went hiking and the boys loved climbing the red rocks.

For Halloween the little boys were both Dragons and Kire was a skeleton.

Erik is still the head football coach at Northridge High school and teaching there. They just won their first playoff game and have had an awesome year.

The Garret Andersons

And a Happy Halloween to you too!

Let's just get it out of the way right now that Garret & Tiffany are most likely doing the same as when you saw them last.  Nothing has changed.  Tiffany bums around the house in Denver while Garret travels to Utah nearly every week to bring home the bacon.  We are blissfully happy, life couldn't be better, blah blah blah. Now that we're all updated let's see what the kidlets have been doing, k?

Jack is in the sixth grade and just finished up his second season of tackle football.  He caught the only completion for BOTH seasons during their fourth game this year.  The kid is money.  I don't get why they don't pass to him every time.  He also had fun taking down kids twice his size (which is almost every kid, by the way) on defense.   As one super cheesy/lame football commentator said once.... "They forgot to measure his heart."  

 

He was also elected Student Body Vice President due to his genius campaign posters (such as the one below) and super funny speech.  Oh, and because he is Chrissi, Shelly & Stacey's nephew.

Tanner is now in the fourth grade and has finally (after 6 years) decided that Pokemon might not be as awesome as he once thought it was.  

He has also turned into a reading FOOL this year.  He read the entire Lightening Thief series in about 4 weeks.  He would walk around with his nose in his book like he used to do with his Nintendo DS.  We often go up to bed at 11:30 or midnight and find this going on:

 

But how can you get mad at your kid for READING?  You can't.

Brynn started Kindergarten this year and was sad today was a snow day because she "misses school."   She's doing the usual 5 year old girlie stuff like gymnastics, dance and getting her Dad to do anything she wants.

She also has taken to posting signs on her door and laying out her clothes (complete with accessories) the night before.  This only worries her mother a lot.

We hope you all are doing well and we look forward to Camp Beaver this year!

Weber High 1933 Yearbook

One of my neighbors was doing some research from the Weber High class of 1933 and noticed lots of pictures of Grandpa and Grandma Thompson. She copied them on to a Cd and gave it to me. They were both "kind of a big deal " in their day (our day too!) I thought I would post some of their pictures for all to see. Grandma was Studentbody VP and Girl's Association President too? Why should that suprise me?

Weed

My sweet Gr & Gr

I couldn't resist posting these pictures!

Aren't they so cute?

Love my Gr & Gr Hales.

They are still so in love.

I didn't even tell them to do this!

Forsyth artwork

Let me begin with a reflection on the elastic nature of time. I know scientists have some things to say about this, and there’s that space-time continuum, which I don’t really understand. What I’m talking about is the amazing way that time flows very slowly in some situations, (like when you’re doing something you don’t like, and the clock seems to stop), and in other situations it makes you dizzy, speeding by so fast. I can’t figure out what happened. I know I was planning to post something to the blog on September 16--how did it get to be October 3? Maybe I was abducted by aliens, and lost 2 weeks. I could go out and look for crop circles, but it’s been raining a lot in New England, and the leaves have started to fall, so there probably won’t be any signs left.

Here is a picture that Mark drew (it may be taken from space). He thinks about Germany a lot, first with Sara serving her mission there, and now Jared as well. Jared is serving in the city of Frankfurt now, as an assistant to the mission president. He seems very busy. I know parents love to go pick their missionaries up at the end of the mission. That seems to be discouraged these days, but it may not be an issue for us, as I’m assuming that Jared will either get called to be an area authority seventy and have to stay on, or else get translated, and they’ll just divide his missionary clothes up between the new arriving elders. We feel a bit intimidated by him sometimes.

Lori and family in Westford, MA

The Allreds enjoyed a month in Uganda last summer. We are riding a boat and looking for hippos and elephants (we found both). We loved the time together and absolutely love Africa. We are so excited there will be two more temples there.

Sean is straddling the equator. The weather in Uganda is perfect all year around and hardly changes from January to June which means shorts are the way to go.

Here is Rachel with some of the Rwandan school children. They loved each other and this shows the true family of God which may be found in all variety of shapes, sizes, and colors.

Jessica is here with one of the many beautiful women of Uganda. They were so quick to laugh and smile with us. They are changing the world with their goodness.

Nathan is gathered with some future world cup soccer players. They had a great game during recess and were happy to show this white man their skills. They sang a song or two for us and we taught them "Popcorn Popping" and "I am a child of God". It was awesome.

Adam is ready for action in a tribal hut in Kenya. The boys are taken from their mothers about age 11 to live on their own. We do not practice this in the U.S.A but there are days...

Our family joined Jessica and a group of 15 BYU students in Uganda this summer. This is our group on a Safari in Queen Elizabeth Park. We are all smiling because we have just found lion tracks and a few minutes later we actually saw a small group of lions in the distance. I tried to get closer for a better photo and the guide called me back frantically. He said that the lions in Uganda like "white meat". Ha, Ha