McKay's Baptism

In May McKay was baptized. It was wonderful to have so much family there since we were still in Utah. We're so pleased with his choice to follow the Savior's example of obedience and make covenants with his Heavenly Father.

Blogger issues!

I am having so much trouble with this blog site that I'm probably not going to blog unless something changes. Sorry...I spend lots of time working on a blog and then it deletes all my pictures a day later, or won't post after I've published my post.

If anyone has any ideas or has had these problems before, feel free to tell me what I can do to fix it. Otherwise, this is the end of my blogging...too frustrating!

Thompson Family Christmas Party 2007

Liz & Stevesy the dog, Peg with Noah, and Anthony "Tino".

Ginger and Talmage.

Katherine and Jacob. She'll love me for posting this photo with her mouth full...:)

Grandpa Dave and Mary getting ready to pass out the traditional Christmas Eve gifts from them.

Rob & Ike looking so cute!
All the kids got a set of laser guns from grandma and grandpa Thompson. We took them over to the church and turned out the lights in the gym and had a crazy time! Even the adults (I'd say especially the adults) were having fun!

Josh loving Rick! Azalea and McKay getting ready to open their presents.

Happy #6, Emerson!

Here's the traditional customized cake I made for Emerson's 6th birthday in December.
Emerson preferred a party with cousins to laser tag or skating. He loves his cousins! There's Tal and Ike in the background while Emerson blows out his candles. And Josh and Peg enjoying some dinner.

Grandma Thompson, Lucy with baby Noah, and Christopher.

Ninja's-N-Elephants

Halloween was fun, even though Rick wasn't able to be there. Here are McKay and Emerson being the toughest looking Ninja's possible.
Brahm was kind of a stinker and wouldn't let us take any solo photos of him in his elephant costume. He was adorable, though.












Here's grandma in her lovely gypsy costume with Rob's kids, Ike and Chris, and also McKay, Brahm, and Emerson. Grandma always has a
wonderful party and made home made donuts with icing, hot chili and cider. It was so great! We've missed our fun Utah family halloweens. Grandma throws the best parties ever!

They also had GIANT pumpkins, which they later carved into amazing Jack-O-Lanterns that could have easily won first place at any fair!

Harvest Party

Thanks to our wonderful friends, LeeAnn and Lance Beard, we got to attend a Fall Harvest Party! There were potato sack races, two legged races, a hanging donut eating contest (which, as you can see Brahm must have won since he used his fingers!), a rope climbing contest (McKay came in second to his friend Noah who made it all the way up to the tree branches...it's a tall, tall tree), and some delicious bread and soup to warm our bellies. It was very cold and rained the whole time...but everyone made the best of it and had fun!

Apples, apples, and more apples.

In the fall the boys had lots of fun helping grandma and grandpa Christensen bottle apples. I suppose I helped a little bit, too :) It took about 2 hours, but was quite entertaining to watch and help grandpa turn the apple peeler and see it cut the apples into long ringlets. Nothing like a fun day bottling together!!

Utah State Fair...

This was last October at the Utah State Fair with Grandma and Grandpa Thompson. It was really fun. The kids had a blast going down the giant slide in potatoe sacks and riding on the cars around the tracks. We also really enjoyed the animals...especially the awesome smell! McKay was a little bit scared on the airplane ride with grandpa, but we did catch a few smiles.

Doughnut Falls

Okay, so we really need to catch up! This is all of us at Doughnut Falls in Utah, fall of 2007. Rick was home for a weekend and so we made the most of it. It was so beautiful! The boys climbed all over, dug in the dirt, and of course collected lots of rocks and sticks. Brahm threw lots of rocks, which was kinda cute and kinda scarey.

Emma Smith: My Story

For those of you interested, there is a movie coming out this Friday in Utah in theaters about the life of Emma Smith. Outside of Utah I don't think it will be in theaters, but will come out on DVD.

I often think about the women in the bible and other scriptures & in history and wish there was more writings and history on the women! Wouldn't it be nice to know how the wives of Moses & many other prophets & leaders in history handled their daily lives while their husbands were off doing other important things for months and years at a time? How they dealt with unruly children? How they kept food fresh without refrigerators? How they handled that time of the month without precious pads and tampons? How they handled stress? I think about these things and sometimes try to imagine. But, it would be nice to know. This wonderful movie coming out will give Emma's account, as far as we know, of her experiences and life as the wife of a prophet during the 1800's.

Our sister-in-law, Katherine Thompson (aka Katherine Nelson for her music, which is really wonderful: http://www.ldsaudio.com/shop/music.aspx?id=291&type=artist) plays Emma Smith. She said that a relative of Emma Smith wanted to do a movie to help people understand her life better since there are such misconceptions about her leaving the church after Joseph died. Some of the scenes are taken from the movie that is currently playing at the Legacy Theater in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building entitled: "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration". The LDS church agreed to help do this film with the Emma Smith family. That is how it came to be.

If you're interested in seeing the trailer and other information, here is the link for the movie: http://www.candlelightmedia.com/emma/index4.html

Farewell...

Rick's sister, Marianne, left on an ASL mission to Portland, Oregon October 17th. Here she is with her sisters, from left to right: Lucy, Liz, Marianne, Peg and baby Noah. We'll miss you, M'Anne! Aren't they all so beautiful!

Wheeler Farm

Here is an amazing old Oak Tree that our family could easily live in! The kids climbed and played for a long, long time.
"The boys" looking at the cow. They mostly were having fun climbing the fence, I think.
Me and my sister, Anna. She's my homeschool sidekick as well and it was wonderful to have her and her little family here in Utah for a whole week.

A Day at Wheeler Historic Farm

Here is me, my sister Anna, all of my kids, and 4 of her 5 kids on a lovely tractor ride. It was actually really fun. Emerson met a kid dressed just like him, all clad in army clothes, and sat by him the whole time. They made quite good friends for only knowing each other 15 minutes.
This one is just for a good laugh!
Here Brahm makes conversation and pretty good friends with the turkeys. Then one of them nipped his finger and he sobbed. His finger was not hurt at all. He honestly looked like he felt so betrayed by them...his new, special friends. It was sad and cute.

Tour de Salt Lake City

We took the kids on an official tour of Salt Lake City, including the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, the North & South visitors centers, the Conference Center, and the 26th floor of the Church Administration Building, which looks out to the entire city! Here we are in the North Visitors Center in the room with the Christus. It was so neat to have the chance to show the kids this beautiful statue and feel the spirit there.
The conference center was amazing! Incredible! So huge and accommodating. We were just flabbergasted (a word commonly used by my mother)! Really worth the tour if you're ever in the valley again. This is just the main conference room, but the entire building has different things to view.
The infamous Salt Lake Temple photo spot, where Rick and I stood 10 years ago (in February) after we were married. Special day!

Cotton Candy!!!

The whole reason McKay wanted to go to the Zoo was for the cotton candy. J/K We did get to see a white crocodile and some awesome huge gorillas and arangutan's! The new updated Hogle Zoo is pretty awesome! Brahm isn't much into the cotton candy, mostly due to it's stickiness and texture. You could tell he thought he was eating cotton balls. And every time I gave him a piece he tried to give it back and begged me to wash his hands. He's a little OCD about having dirty hands.

"Crappa" and the boys

Here's Grandpa Thompson with the boys watching "Holes". They were so excited, and except for Brahm they sat still through the whole thing. Fun times!

We've Arrived!

Yes, we finally arrived here in Utah. Actually it's been almost a month. We arrived September 1st after a long 48 hours of driving with a U-Haul trailer in tow. My wonderful MIL, Mary, flew out to help us the last couple days, and also drove home with us. She and I took turns driving through the first night, and day, then on the 2nd night Emerson kept crying because he couldn't get comfortable sleeping in the sitting position. I felt so bad that we were making the kids "suffer" so we pulled into a rest stop and slept for 5 hours.

Then we raced home, arriving shortly after noon the next day, smelling and looking just like we'd been camping out for a week, minus the campfire smell (just the "non-showered" smell). We're so glad to be here and are in heaven with so many family and friends around. We miss all our friends and the beautiful trees and green country of Michigan. THANKS to all those who helped us with packing, cleaning, babysitting and other helpful things. We could not have done it without you!

As for Rick, he just arrived in Michigan last night after finishing his month of rotations in San Diego. His experience was nothing short of just surviving---- lonliness, 7 day/14-hour work shifts, and eating Cup-O-Noodles from the hotel's coffee pot for dinner every night! He really is glad to be back in "familiar territory", but is quite lonely and without a place to live at the moment. Strange, but yes, my husband is temporarily homeless! However, he does have clothes to wear.....2 huge wardrobe boxes shoved into the back of his vehicle. We miss him and look forward to a brief 2 day visit this coming weekend for his sister Marianne's mission farewell. That's it for now and we'll blog again soon!

P.S. We're not able to get internet on our own computer in the basement, so I don't have an easy way to download pix to the blog. But, I'll try for the sake of not losing all my "blogger buddies" interest in our ever so eventful lives! :)

Er...Uh..

Nice title, I know. We've been going crazy with the ups and downs of our last weeks here. I'm just about done wanting to EVER move again. We're going to have to sell most of our furniture, and rent 2 separate trailers, and move at 2 different times (as in me, my MIL and the kids once, then Rick a month later) just to get everything to Utah without paying a ridiculous amount of money to have someone move us. So....when I get a chance, I will actually put some photos and updates on here. Until then...ciao!