MN Thompson's

Spring has sprung???

March 20th, 2013

Need to get this post out with recent pics ahead of whatever I end up posting next week. No plans for next week’s entry yet but I’m sure I’ll have something to say. Absolutely thinking of everyone this week and sending warm thoughts out east.

It’s been a busy month. But first…exciting times in the Thompson household. We finally used up all of the staples that I think we bought in college. Amazingly, some of our spices have outlasted those staples 🙂 Who’s hungry now??? We also won another Who’s-Got-Their-Christmas-Lights-Turned-On-The-Longest-In-Our-Neighborhood contest – it’s hardly even a competition any more but the kids still have fun not letting me turn them off until we are clearly the champs!!!

This month was full of band performances, singing concerts, dances, snow ball fights, a pancake breakfast, Make-A-Wish wishes (finished one and have two others going), ski trip (yep, all about me again), CERT membership (me – yahoo – I passed my final exam 🙂 ), and funding for Beth (yahoo! way to go baby!).

Colleen has sure kept us busy this month! She did her duet performance with her friend Alexi again. They brought home a High Gold trophy (woohoo!), and also her entire group won Platinum (woot woot!). For those of you ignorant to dance scoring, it basically follows the periodic table of elements so next year they are hoping to get High Rhenium or maybe even Tungsten if they work extra hard. Her trophy has a bowl on top this year so we’ve been sipping champagne out of it all month while we bask in the glory. This past weekend was another dance for Colleen at the Mall of America. We made a day of it while at the mall and ate, rode rides, shopped, and built a bear for Megan (Fluffy is the green dude in Viking’s attire wearing rollerskates). The night before that Colleen had a band concert. Can you find her in the picture? Here’s your hint – if you can find her friend Julianna then Colleen is easy to find. Julianna is standing up in yellow and waving in one of the pics…and Colleen’s head is right in her armpit – how convenient. You’re on your own if you’re trying to find her in the zoomed out picture showing everybody – good luck (but it’s definitely possible). This is actually a pretty good concert – it is amazing how much better the kids get with each grade.

I think I included maybe 1 or 2 pictures of Christopher and then the rest are all of Megan. Mr. Christopher has been busy with finishing up basketball & kung fu, and working on scout stuff. Tonight we had a den meeting at the nature center. We got to walk in the woods (this morning it was -9F with the wind chill) but we only saw animal tracks since it was so cold. The kids still had fun spying nests in trees and trying to figure out what animals created what tracks. We got to play on the icy lake (just last week it had open water when it warmed up) – and Megan came with us tonight so she was making snow angels on the lake too 🙂 The nature center is awesome – filled with animal skins, skulls, shells, bones, and all sorts of live critters including snakes, fish, turtles, bunny, lizards, etc. The boys loved it!

Megan has been in to everything this month! She can spend hours stacking bottles and cups and glue sticks. She loves balancing them all over the place and setting them up in patterns. We should really look into one of those cup stacking games for her, huh? She also had a crazy hair day (and apparently crazy bug eye day too). Her new food love is artichokes. She ate two whole artichokes practically by herself repeatedly this past month. I can’t remember ever having eaten or seen artichokes my whole life up until now. But what foods aren’t good when dipped in small bites in gobs of drawn butter 🙂 And check out Megan with her new elephant humidifier. She bought it with her own money. Just like Christopher buying a fan for his room. I’m glad when they buy practical things for themselves without complaining but it still cracks me up when they buy things like that. Megan loves the humidifier – and I must say it is by far the coolest humidifier we’ve ever had – so cool to have the vapor come out of a trunk! I don’t think I had ever participated in the building of a bear at Build-A-Bear. Fun stuff and the kids love it.

Check out the picture of the indentation in the snow. Can you figure out what that is? When I was in Vail skiing one night we were in the hottub and throwing snow balls at trees. The trees had some sort of force field going on that night and were able to deflect most every snow ball. So then we see a squirrel run up the corner of the house outside of my bedroom (he obviously had been watching us miss trees all night so knew he was safe). My buddy scooped up a handful of snow and threw it at the squirrel. Amazingly (since he hadn’t hit a tree all night) he nailed the squirrel. I can still picture it falling in slow motion with all of its limbs flailing the whole way down. It landed right in the snow and left that hole with the outline of all of its limbs – too funny!

Ok…enough for now…got a heavy weekend ahead of us. Sending prayers and love and good thoughts to everyone. Take care – talk to you soon.

Posted in Children | 1 Comment »

Old man winter

February 17th, 2013

I think I shoveled 5 out of 7 days last week and we still didn’t come close to getting as much snow as New England got in a day (hope things are getting back to normal for all of you by now). The weather has been anything but predictable here…snow, rain, ice, way below zero, back up to thirty degrees…I’ve stopped looking at the weather forecasts so each morning is a fun surprise 🙂

On one of the really cold days (I think it was -12F at the time) we boiled water and sent the kids out on the back patio to throw the hot water into the air. Pics are cool, huh? Poof! No more water – it barely even hits the ground.

We survived another pinewood derby. Christopher had the 5th fastest car. Megan’s was fast too – but not quite as fast. Christopher and his friends had lots of fun watching the cars zoom past (I loved watching his expressions from photo to photo). In one of the pics Christopher’s car is in 1st (in the far lane with three fins on it) and Megan’s is in 2nd (in the closest lane – red, white & blue). We painted sinkers on hers to look like people’s faces so it looked like hers had 10 people riding in her car. Christopher also got to lead the American flag in and out of the event that day.

Colleen and Megan built a snowman and sprayed blue food coloring all over it. The next day our neighbors had a red snowman in their front yard. Down the street there is a family of snowmen each holding tennis rackets, umbrellas, pinwheels, etc – they are a fun group to pass as we drive to and fro. We still have our Christmas lights up – only a few people on the street are in the annual lights contest – we’ll go to July if we have to – nobody is beating us, no way, not a chance.

Colleen danced again at the Timberwolves halftime. A friend of mine who works for the T-wolves got us great tickets (4 rows up) so we had an awesome view of the game and players. I don’t know how I did it but once again I positioned myself perfectly to not be able to get any good photos. Colleen’s instructor lined herself up perfectly between me and Colleen. The same thing happened last game. It’s a challenge because you’re fighting to get a good, low seat as half-time starts while so many people are exiting and we never know exactly where Colleen will be. She did great and had a fun time.

Megan had a music performance at school. We did the same thing at this event – got lined up so her music teacher completely blocked her for most of the songs (you can just see her in the pic right in front of her teacher). I don’t think we could have picked a worse seat – she was pretty much the only child in the entire gym that we couldn’t see! And the place was absolutely packed so we couldn’t move at all. The songs were great – my favorite was listening to her shout “Mama!” and wag her finger back and forth and do all the other hand gestures:

Mama! when you bake,
Mama! I don’t want cake;
Mama! for my sake
Go to the oven and make some ever lovin’,
Shoo fly pie and apple pan dowdy
Makes your eyes light up,
Your tummy say howdy
Shoo fly pie and apple pan dowdy
I never get enough of that wonderful stuff!

She also had a speaking part, which…earns us all ice cream 🙂 Yummy!

I’m two weeks into my five weeks of training to be a CERT member. Last week we learned how to use a fire extinguisher to put out fires. The rule of thumb is that if we can’t put it out in 5 seconds then we should retreat. That’s just a bit different than my fire instruction over the past 10 years but I’m ok with it and glad to be involved 🙂 My annual ski trip to Vail is coming up. Ran up the IDS tower again (50 floors – 1280 steps). I shaved 2 seconds off my time from last year and now am only 13 seconds from getting below 10 minutes total. Racquetball league has been good. Work and UMN are good for us. Kids are good. Purdue stinks. Man are they awful. Had a really fun night out with some friends last night – we stuck with the “sipping” tequila (versus the “shooting” tequila) but it was still a bit rough playing three early games of league racquetball this morning. Hope all is well with everybody. Hope RSS works for you dad – let me know…

Posted in Children, Weather | 1 Comment »

Joy

January 20th, 2013

Our church attendance has been a bit spotty this year (uh, just a bit of an understatement) but we decided last night we were going this morning no matter what (e.g., no matter how close to 0F the temp was). The sermon was great (the weather was 3F – not bad – it’s going to get A LOT colder the next few days) – all about joy and how we should laugh in church and life, and we need to find this happiness all around us all the time – this joy comes from deep within, is part of our being, and helps us feel connected and care for others in the world. Yes, it’s been a tough year but there are still happy moments and there will be many to come. Here is the joyful Affirmation of Faith from today’s service:

We believe in a God of joy, who shows up
In roasted marshmallows and chocolate cake and fresh fish;
In the feeling of sand between our toes, a kitten’s fur, the touch of another person;
In the sun that shines in our faces (even, inconveniently in this sanctuary);
In falling snow;
In the life-giving green of new life and in new birth.
We believe in the joy that God creates in our lives.
We believe in the joy that resides in each one of us.

Our minister told several stories about weddings that she has presided over and that after one wedding she got a comment from someone that they had “never laughed at a wedding”. I know I wrote about it before but I still have good memories of the whoopie cushion that Katherine gave to Christopher at her reception – I don’t know how many whoopie cushions make it to wedding receptions but I’m guessing it can’t be that many…it was a great moment of joy and having fun in the moment.

Here are some other moments of joy I captured from this week.

Megan and I were playing a game against each other on the computer and she named our teams. She kept her hand over her team’s name while I went first, and I could tell she was so proud of her team name…which…after the big reveal of removing her hand, was…team “aSOM”. Totally aSOM!!! 🙂

We got a late Christmas gift this week. 3 slingshots, 2 packs of paint balls, and magnetic toys that have been recalled. We had a good laugh over this one. Payback is a you-know-what 🙂

I’ve been pushing the kids to do more laundry. I caught them doing my and Beth’s laundry – as they were folding they were slingshotting our underwear and having a fun time (which Megan tried to blame on daddy – uh uh, I’m not taking the hit for this one) 🙂

I was reading a story about sperm donation (related to a sperm donor being involved in a paternity suit when the female couple split up who had the baby – bizarre). Anyway, Schipper used to donate plasma in college – he was limited to doing it to something like once a month and the first experience made him either pass out or puke or both…and as I was reading the story we temporarily got confused as to what he used to donate in college – oops. Our confusion got even funnier thinking about which substance would be limited to once a month and would make someone pass out 🙂

We had a scout pool party last weekend. Beth very clearly told Christopher and me to bring a towel and underwear for him. Those were our instructions…”bring a towel and underwear”. We’re no dummies…we don’t need to be told twice…we can remember two things…duh. So I drive him there, and we remembered the towel and underwear just like we were told. Like I said, we’re no dummies and we had it under control. So Beth shows up (she was taking over and I had to leave) and she asked where his clothes were. Clothes? We brought the towel, we brought the underwear…and of course he only wore his swimsuit & swim shirt there b/c it’s only early January in Minnesota. How Christopher and I get blamed for not bringing clothes still doesn’t make sense to either of us – we have been trained to turn off our brains and follow directions – and we’re pretty good at it! 🙂

Ok…switching topics just for a minute. Aaron Swartz was in the news recently. As described by Wikipedia he was an “American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist.” Smart dude, who created some companies and contributions to the computer world, but…he committed suicide (hanging) on January 11th, 2013. In November 2007 he blogged about his illnesses. He was a good writer and I was drawn to how he described some things in that post here – http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/verysick.

Alright, switching back to joyful topics again. Check out the pictures. In hopefully not very random order…Christopher’s new pet Sammy; our beautiful children on Christmas morning posing with some of their new gifts which didn’t come as a packaged set; Christopher doing a combo skiing stop and Michael Jackson pose; the entire height of our ski MOUNTAIN (hill); Megan’s chair in the snow; Colleen’s Sammy Sosa outfit for a school report; Colleen and her friend at their science fair exhibit (on how tie dye stains different types of material); and finally, we had two visitors this morning who came to play with Orca – this picture is right off our patio – yikes coyotes are big up close!!!

Posted in Animals, Children, Katherine, Life | 1 Comment »

Brick wall at 60 mph

December 19th, 2012

Warning – gloomy post. If you’re not in the mood for it skip to the one below it – sorry (shrug), it’s part of my therapy 😉

I’ve finally felt like I’m having some higher energy days. And getting excited about Christmas. I still have lows but some energy has come back and I’ve felt better than I’ve felt in a long while. I was even starting to feel a bit guilty that I shouldn’t be feeling this way knowing how tough these holidays are on everybody. But then I thought I would be thrilled if I knew others were healing and feeling better and smiling more, whenever that happens I’d welcome it for any of us. But then – blam! – I got hit with a few reminders the past few weeks. Felt like I’d been smacked in the head with a 2×4. Ouch. The first one was when I was ordering packages on Amazon. I had to send several gifts to several addresses – and then “Katherine and Erik” popped up as a dropdown option. Wow was it hard to delete Katherine’s name – sucked in ways I can’t describe. Felt like this was so much deeper than just deleting her name. That completely caught me off guard – amazing how these reminders come out of nowhere and shock you like that. I remember when Erik shared pictures from Katherine’s phone a few months afterwards. I was doing fine with those until all of a sudden one of the pictures had Katherine in it – again, blam! Stopped me in my tracks – takes your breath away. My latest reminder was last night when I was opening up packages from Amazon and wrapping them in Christmas paper. I was wrapping the gifts from Erik for my kids and I had to write a tag that said “To: ” and “From: ” – writing “From: Erik” (and not adding “and Katherine”) was so hard. Sucks. Sad. Shouldn’t be this way. Miss her. Lots. So wish I could call her. Or talk with her about normal boring stuff…gifts for the kids, vacation plans, how she’s doing and feeling. Crazy how unreal this feels sometimes.

And can you believe all of the suicides and homicides and combos of both in the news lately? Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas City, etc; multiple-orgasms-per-day lady; Kansas City Chief’s linebacker; Why I Won’t Be Cheering for notre dame article by Melinda Henneberger; nurse for Princess Kate; and it goes on and on, especially if we include these mass shootings. F-d up. Maybe the world really is ending soon – go spend your last dollars morons.

All year the lyrics from two songs have bugged me – If I Die Young (Bury Me in Satin) by Band Perry and Die Young by Kedollarsignsha. Both seemed to glamorize or make light of dying way too soon. And I was surprised they got so much radio play given so many tragedies – but Sandy Hook/Newton took care of that. Ke$ha $ell$ $ea$hell$ down by the $ea$hore. $he’$ $illy and a$ $mart a$ an a$$.

Ok, we’ll end on a more positive note…see anyone you know in this video?

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/video/8081087-mobile-weather-watcher-heads-to-eden-prairie-school/

And finally, Christmas wouldn’t be complete without giant sugar houses!!!

Posted in Children, Katherine | 1 Comment »

We Need a Little Christmas

December 16th, 2012

I had no idea Angela Lansbury had done anything besides Bedknobs & Broomsticks, Beauty & the Beast, and Murder, She Wrote – did you? 😉 Ok, maybe I knew a bit more but I really didn’t know much about Mame. I was listening to the Christmas station on the radio and was drawn to the words from We Need a Little Christmas. Maybe it had a different meaning in Mame but it sure seems to apply to how I’m feeling this year at Christmas…I really want to have a good, fun, meaningful, peaceful, reflective Christmas, and enjoy the times with family and friends – and I want that right now. It’s tough this year. But nothing is different for my kids – it’s just like any other year for them and we’ll have a fun Christmas – and I’m glad they will help pull me through it. Our tree is up, the stockings will be filled, I’ll have to buy a fruitcake to slice – and I’ll be sure to listen to this song a few more times (take time and read the words – I think they are just what many of us need right now):

We Need a Little Christmas

Mame:
Haul out the holly;
Put up the tree before my spirit falls again.
Fill up the stocking,
I may be rushing things, but deck the halls again now.
For we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute,
Candles in the window,
Carols at the spinet.
Yes, we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute.
It hasn’t snowed a single flurry,
But Santa, dear, we’re in a hurry;
So climb down the chimney;
Put up the brightest string of lights I’ve ever seen.
Slice up the fruitcake;
It’s time we hung some tinsel on that evergreen bough.
For I’ve grown a little leaner,
Grown a little colder,
Grown a little sadder,
Grown a little older,
All:
And I need a little angel
Sitting on my shoulder,
Need a little Christmas now.
Mame:
Haul out the holly;
Well, once I taught you all to live each living day.
All:
Fill up the stocking,
Young Patrick:
But Auntie Man, it’s one week from Thanksgiving Day now.
All:
But we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute,
Candles in the window,
Carols at the spinet.
Yes, we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute.
Agnes:
It hasn’t snowed a single flurry,
But Santa, dear, we’re in a hurry;
Ito:
So climb down the chimney;
Put up the brightest string of lights I’ve ever seen.
All:
Slice up the fruitcake;
It’s time we hung some tinsel on that evergreen bough.
For we need a little music,
Need a little laughter,
Need a little singing
Ringing through the rafter,
And we need a little snappy
“Happy ever after,”
Need a little Christmas now.
Need a little Christmas now.

Alright, time to talk about the pics. Follow along the best you can. I took the kids to see Eden Prairie play in the state championship (to the semi-final and final games). Eden Prairie dominated and won their 8th state title!! Skol EP! Colleen and Christopher brought friends and we saw many people we knew – it was fun getting out and cheering and letting the kids run around a bit in a semi-empty stadium (the games were played at the Metrodome where the Vikings play). Skol Vikings!

I remember how excited I would get to “paint” my dad’s face with shaving cream so I’ve let my kids do that from time to time. I love watching their eyes and expressions as they come at me with the shaving cream brush and lather up my face so carefully (ha!). They are so intent and focused – I love it. And Megan will soon outgrow it so I’d better let her do it a few more times!!

We got our first snow on Thanksgiving so the kids couldn’t help but run out and try to catch as many flakes as they could on their tongues. We had a good Thanksgiving – lots of great food and time to relax a bit. The kids have loved getting to smash ice on the pond again – the fun never ends. I’ve heard that’s bad on the fish (something about giving them horrible headaches – hee hee) but I hadn’t seen a fish in a while…until a week later I spied the fish in the photo at night swimming below the ice in the shallow part of my pond. Not sure what he was doing but glad he paused long enough for a photo op.

This is the time of the year when Colleen has several dances – we did the Gopher Women’s b-ball half-time, Gopher’s Men’s b-ball halftime, and then her recital at the high school. I do enjoy these programs now – her group is really good, plus I get to see some college hoops and walk around campus which is always fun. Can you find Colleen in the group photo? Hint – she’s the only one looking at me (not much help, huh). While we were taking photos a huge syringe walked by (the team the Gophers played were the Dayton Druggies and that was their mascot) and I found it funny watching it try to duck to get down the stairway.

I have always enjoyed traveling back to Rochester. Such ingrained memories from childhood of walking to the dam, hanging out at Grandma T’s and Aunt B’s, going to auctions, pizza parties with so many relatives, flag pole, etc etc etc. It’s always fun to see the kids asking to go the dam and then wanting to do the things that I always wanted to do. Mater was new to Rochester from what I remember – everytime I see a beat up old brown truck I always call them Mater so it was cool to finally see a real Mater. Loved it.

Miss you Grandma T. Yellow flowers will always bring up happy memories going forward. Driving home in Wisconsin the day of the funeral it was a clear night sky and I saw a shooting star right in front of me while I was driving. Thanks for saying hi Grandma 🙂

Check out the pictures of the cars. That was the day after we got a foot of snow. The snow covered the lines in the parking lot which apparently gave people permission to park however they wanted which included completely boxing people into parking spots with cars on all sides – the good news is that these same idiots can’t be out on the roads driving if I can see their cars all grouped together. Morons. And it’s crazy how one moron does it which immediately gives everyone else permission to turn off their brains too.

The picture of the snow falling in our driveway was the night after I hung up Christmas lights and cleaned out our gutters. Nice timing, huh?

December also brought us to a band concert for Colleen and Salvation Army bell ringing for Christopher’s scout pack (and Megan came too – she’s a great helper). We raised a lot of money – people seemed to be especially generous this year. Or maybe the boys got cuter? Or scarier? Whatever it was, it worked!

And here are some videos. The first one is the md-phd (Jakub) who is leading the lab that Beth is currently working in. He does amazing stuff for children with very serious genetic disorders. This video is one of his recent transplant patients for epidermolysis bullosa.

Jakub transplant patient

And here’s the video Beth’s team made for their final presentation for their cell biology class. You won’t quite get the full effect if you don’t watch it with Beth laughing the whole way through it. I must admit it’s still a bit hard for me to find quite as much humor in this as she does but I’m doing the best I can 🙂 Oh, don’t judge me until you’ve watched it! I’m not even sure that I’m smart enough to say that I’ve even learned anything by watching it more than once – I just hope her teacher lets her bring stuffed animals to her final test!

Beth’s cell biology final video

And finally, since I’m posting other videos…can’t remember if I’ve posted this one before or not but here’s another cake video that a friend posted. And yes, I know my own Grandma’s name 😉

Grandma T cake on fire

Posted in Children, Katherine, Life, Vacation, Weather | 3 Comments »

Turkey turkey turkey

November 22nd, 2012

The pies are made (dreamy high pumpkin pie, apple, and chocolate). The good china has been found. The special olive tray has been cleaned 🙂 The Macy’s parade is on right now (after all these years Al Roker still doesn’t look normal to me as a thin dude than as his former self). It’s tougher this year and although Thanksgiving is missing something this year everything else is coming together and moving forward as it always does. It’s on my dream list to hold a rope to a giant balloon in the Macy’s parade one of these years – I’ll have to actually look into that sometime – who’s with me???

Purdue actually won a basketball game last night. Amazing. I’m debating whether to send Aunt B $3 all at once to save me postage this year. Actually, the football game could be ok depending on which Purdue team shows up but basketball will be ugly for the good guys this year. It’s especially tough losing to a team that dresses up in clown pants for their warm-ups 🙂 But I should congratulate IU on making it into the top 5 of this one:

The question: Who is perceived by college coaches to be the biggest cheater in the sport?

•John Calipari (Kentucky): 36 percent
•Scott Drew (Baylor): 34 percent
•Ben Howland (UCLA): 12 percent
•Jim Calhoun (Connecticut): 7 percent
•Tom Crean (Indiana): 3 percent
•Dave Rice (UNLV): 3 percent

Heh, heh. Happy Thanksgivig Aunt Beth 😉

Christopher wrapped up football last month. He had a lot of fun playing this season. We’ve got him bulking up in the off-season so send him protein powder and Denny’s coupons for Christmas. In the last game of the season they waived the “striper” rule (kids over a certain weight have a black stripe on their helmet and aren’t allowed to carry the ball). So it was awesome to watch him line up in the backfield and break through the pack for about 5 yards. That was cool. It seemed ironic that this last game was dubbed the “Friendship Bowl” and it was in that game that all safety rules (e.g., stripers carrying the ball) were waived 🙂 Basketball has already started for Christopher – they should make all the tall kids wear stripes to give Thompson’s a chance!

E & Wen came up at the end of October. It was a great trip. They zipped up and back so they didn’t bring kids on the trip, and we left our kids at home a few times (so nice to have Colleen old enough to keep some control in the house while we’re out), so it was finally nice for the “grown ups” to go out and talk and catch up on things. We did some nice meals (112 Eatery and Tilia) and also went to a football game at the Goofers new stadium. Purdue got destroyed in the game but it was an incredible stadium regardless and a beautiful day. Before the game we were taking a picture of Wendy outside of the stadium when a cop on a motorcycle stopped us. I didn’t think I had been acting that drunk but you never know (it would have been an impressive acting job b/c we were alcohol free). He told us that wasn’t how we should take a picture – so he propped his motorcycle up in front of the stadium and told Wendy to get on it – it made for a great picture! While on campus we got to see Beth’s labs and had her pose in front of a giant bubble-gum, lego-type structure – I think she said those were the planets but I didn’t have the heart to tell her they added a few too many (honey, I’m kidding, it was a joke, settle down, I know this science stuff is serious). Beth’s lab was cool – test tubes, and centrifuges, and microscopes, and pipettes everywhere. We got to spy on some cells too – fun.

We also went to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (after a fantastic brunch at Tilia – great crowd and atmosphere there). It’s always fun to see the Cherry on the Spoon. The kids got to play on a huge moving sculpture – and we walked a mile in the cold to ice cream at Sebastian Joe’s afterwards. Ice cream is awesome. Walk was cold. Wind was chilly. Conversation was great. Next to ice cream was one of those fun stores that has crafty stuff and witty gifts and something for everyone. We’re in that store in the pic where Megan is wearing the beard hat and it’s funny that behind her in the pic is a package that says “bitch slap those germs” – none of the kids have been saying that phrase around the house luckily!

Beth and I saw Jackson Browne in concert the same weekend E & Wendy were in town. They stayed home with our kids while we went out (we had the tickets before they planned their trip up). The concert was great – thanks again Wendy for helping me prep 😉 Jackson and Sara Watkins were amazing and powerful. We sat in the 3rd row and vowed always to sit up close to anything in the future – it completely changes your experience! I was worried as it got closer about how I would react to certain songs. I’ve definitely found meaning in lyrics to several of his songs since the time Katherine died and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to hear some songs (e.g., For a Dancer). But it was all great and special and I think what I needed. Throughout his tour this year he’s only played For a Dancer a few times and I had told myself before the concert that maybe it was meant to be if he played it. A lady in the row behind us yelled for that song, but he didn’t play it (he played Something Fine instead). She yelled again, and he didn’t play it. And then, she yelled that request a third time but this time she yelled, “For a Dancer, remember the tattoo”. He played it then – and it was beautiful/meaningful/touching (Fountain of Sorry has some lyrics that really get to me too and hit me for a second in the concert). I had mentioned getting a tattoo to help me to remember to live a good life and take away positives from Katherine’s life – to force me to remember more frequently – so it was interesting that the request from the row behind us included the song I most relate to and a tickler about a tattoo. No decision yet on a tattoo – first I need to define what it is I would want that to remind me of. What am I chasing now? Who do I want to be? Where am I headed? What’s most important? I’m also not clear on what it is when I say things like “it was meant to be if he played For a Dancer”. What sign am I looking for? That Katherine’s ok? That she’s in a better spot? That she’s watching us? If so, when is she watching us – hopefully not all the time. That she hears my prayers and thoughts – again, hopefully not all of them. Do I get to pick and choose when she sees and hears me or does she? That we’ll all be ok and stick together as a family and keep talking and eventually be happy and strong? It’s tough. I go back an forth on what I want some of those answers to be. These holidays are especially tough. My thoughts are with everyone in NH and MA. I finally let off some steam last night – first by punching a tray of delicate dessert crackers (hey, Beth mentioned that she may want to crush them and try making a pie crust so this was my way of helping) – and then by talking. I think it was the combination of both methods that eventually made me feel a bit better – don’t keep it bottled in everybody – find ways to talk and share and let it out.

Ok, enough sharing, time to lighten things up again.

Halloween came and went to. Wendy helped the kids make disgusting finger cookies while we were at the concert. Yuk. But fun 🙂 Megan was Harry Potter. Christopher was Dark Vadar again (yes, “Dark” – he still prefers this over “Darth” but now recognizes that everyone else says it differently – and incorrectly). Colleen was an egg for Halloween. She went with a friend who was bacon. Kind of ironic since Colleen can’t stand eggs or bacon. They trick-or-treated in her friend’s neighborhood. Christopher went trick-or-treating with a friend of his (chasing the ever elusive neighborhood that gives out the huge candy bars!). So it was just Megan and me going through our neighborhood. We had a fun time. She thought it was a hoot and would come running back to me with a big grin on her face when someone would say “hey guy – great costume” – she found it funny when they couldn’t tell that she was a girl dressed up as Harry 🙂 After we went around our block she wanted to walk further so we went down a street that has some town houses and I asked if she was sure this is where she wanted to go. She was on a mission and wound around, skipped many doors, and finally, oddly went straight to a certain lit up house. I gave her a bit of a warning but she said that was exactly where she wanted to go for her last house. So…she rings the bell and a lady comes out. Then the lady sits down, and asks Megan to come closer. And then the lady starts calling her dogs from in the house one by one. And she starts telling Megan about the dogs – their names and special features. And when I say special features I mean things like “here is my dog pookie-wookie who has 5 legs” (named has been changed with equally silly name to protect the guilty). Seriously – this dog had 5 legs!!! Megan got up after a few minutes and walked back to me and said “that lady was weird and kept telling me about her dogs). I couldn’t stop laughing – see, that’s what happens when you don’t listen to your daddy 🙂 Although I never would have predicted it playing out quite like that. I think we’re going to hit scary dog lady’s house every year from now on!!! 🙂

And, finally, what would a post be without more dance pictures. Colleen and her team are getting really good. Those pictures are from the gopher’s women’s basketball game. We go to the gopher’s men’s game soon too. It’s fun getting out and going to the games. Colleen works on new moves all the time and continues to do things that my body will never ever come close to doing. It’s great to see her having so much fun with this. She has her sights set on the high school dance team in a few years. We also went to the Eden Prairie football team’s game last weekened, which they won – so now they are in the state championship game tomorrow night. They’ve been in it 8 times and have won 7 of those times – hopefully they make it 8 tomorrow night! Last weekend they beat a team that had beat them 16-0 just a few weeks ago so they have really turned it on now.

Ok, time to put the turkey in the oven!!! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Posted in Children, Katherine, Life | 1 Comment »

A year of birthdays

October 14th, 2012

I’m just now catching up on birthday questions for April, July, and September. The kids have had a good year. Thankfully life goes on for them and they get to be oblivious to distractions and reminders that seem to jump out at me all the time. Here’s what’s on their minds…starting with the one I’m most behind on.

Christopher (April)

My favorite food is…pasta
When I grow up I want to be a…scientist
My favorite restaurant is…Noodles
My favorite possession is…hamster (Fluffy)
My favorite color is…teal
My favorite song is…I Have a Feeling
My favorite book is…Ranger’s Apprentice (currently on book 7)
My favorite movie is…no clear favorite…a lot are tied…Gilligan’s Island is a favorite series
My favorite holiday is…Christmas (because I get lots of presents)
My favorite season is…winter (sledding!)
My favorite thing to do is…watch movies
If I could do anything tomorrow I would…sell $2500 worth of popcorn for Boy Scouts (to help my pack and to get prizes!)
It would be a really good year this year if…I get Skylander Giants for Christmas

Megan (July)

My favorite food is…mac & cheese
When I grow up I want to be a…fire fighter (because I like helping people)
My favorite restaurant is…Punch Pizza
My favorite possession is…My dog Orca
My favorite color is…blue
My favorite song is…I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad
My favorite book is…Junie B. Jones
My favorite movie is…Shark Boy and Lava Girl
My favorite holiday is…Halloween (because I get candy)
My favorite season is…summer (because my birthday is in the summer)
My favorite thing to do is…swim in my pool
If I could do anything tomorrow I would…watch Shark Boy and Lava Girl
It would be a really good year this year if…I didn’t have school

Colleen (September)

My favorite food is…spaghetti
When I grow up I want to be a…dancer
My favorite restaurant is…Punch Pizza
My favorite possession is…phone
My favorite color is…yellow
My favorite song is…Good Time (by Carly Rae Jepsen, Owl City)
My favorite book is…Hunger Games (Susan Collins)
My favorite movie is…Hunger Games
My favorite holiday is…Christmas (presents)
My favorite season is…fall (because that’s the season of her birthday)
My favorite thing to do is…dance
If I could do anything tomorrow I would…go to dance class
It would be a really good year this year if…I got an iPhone 5

Colleen surfed the Internet and found a rainbow cake. They gooped everything in the pan (see crazy picture with Megan that looked like a clown puked in a cake pan) and then decorated it like a normal chocolate cake. The girls at Colleen’s birthday party screamed and loved it when we sliced into it and it was all crazy and colorful inside. Cool idea! Great implementation! We survived another sleep over with eight 12-year-olds. They had fun inside and out. And were playing ghosts in the graveyard and screaming like crazy at 10:00 p.m. along with a campfire. No tie dye this year so my hands are still normal color for a change following a birthday party 🙂

Christopher got to play football at half-time at a Vikings game. That was pretty cool seeing him run out onto the field at the Metrodome. I think they ended in a tie but it was a cool experience. The other fun part was waiting to see how he would react when the cheerleaders tried to give him a high-five. Oh, how he’ll wish he could be in that spot again in a few years 🙂 Christopher’s #70 in the picture, in the red team, and is about the only one whose number you can read. You can see that some Vikings players are already out on the field getting warmed up.

The kids also had fun building a cool fort in the woods. I took pictures of it from two different sides. I trimmed a tree and they were quick to gather up all my branches to hide their fort. I remember in Ohio when I would bring the Army shovel out into the cornfield to dig holes and make forts and paths. I’m sure they are loving that as much as I used to – fun times.

There’s also a picture of when I let Christopher & JT build the campfire. They did an awesome job and told me how high the flames were going to be. They sure were right! Wow – I think that’s the biggest fire we’ve ever had. And they haven’t even discovered gasoline yet 😉

Beth took the kids to a really cool science day at “the U” (University of MN). They all had fun stories to tell when they got home. They got to play with cool bubbles and spinning platforms & wheels and hold giant hissing cockroaches (only the girls would hold those – Christopher, JT and Gabriel wouldn’t do it!!!).

We got all dressed up and had our church pictures taken for the directory. Our time slot was something like 7:30 p.m. but they were running late so we didn’t get out of there until 9:00 p.m. and had promised the kids ice cream. So there we were at 9:30 p.m. eating ice cream in our Sunday best. Fun. Parents of the Year award nominations are due soon – get going on that. There was only one employee – an Asian gentleman a bit older than us and he started asking us questions – yelling from behind his counter to our booth (and of course we sat as far as we could from our kids since the place was empty). It turned out that he lived near us in Eden Prairie so he asked our kids where they went to school – they did a good job answering him despite his accent. Turns out his son also went to the Spanish school, and I asked his son’s name. He said “Noman”. Seemed like a cool Asian-ish name to me so I think I said to him “Noman?”. He nodded and then I yelled to the kids to see if they new a Noman (Colleen told us later that his son looks exactly like him so she knew him right away). The kids kind of agreed that they new Noman but Christopher came walking over to our booth. He whispered to Beth that he didn’t know any Noman’s but he did know a Norman. Ok, so I’m getting older. Ok, maybe I was channeling mom, or channeling Katherine at the time…but apparently I was the only one in our family who thought maybe Noman was a cool Asian name. Beth started giggling and could barely contain herself since I had been yelling Noman across the place. Ice cream dude heard me perfectly – we both were speaking the same language – we bonded. All the other giggling Thompson’s should grow up and find some culture so they can communicate better. Who ever heard of an Asian ice cream parlor guy with a son named Norman anyway – how boring.

Orca chased a squirrel right into our fence a few days ago. Bad way to start your day if you’re a squirrel. Lucky for him he was just outside of Orca’s electric fence boundary so all she could do was bark and bark. He was mad and squealing and trying to get his head out but was completely stuck between two overlapping fences. I clipped some wires and our animal loving neighbor stopped by to help free him too. Stinks when you’re put in the situation of rescuing animals that can be so annoying. But we did the right thing. Hopefully he tells all his friends not to mess with Orca and to find another yard to roam!

So what would you do if you saw a huge wasp nest hanging from a branch in your yard? Stay away from it? Tell your dad about it? Or stand under it and throw rocks at it? Of course you would choose the option with the rocks – duh! Lucky for Christopher and Megan it turns out the nest is empty. Crazy kids. They were at the top of the hill too so they would have had a long way to run from anything angry coming out of that nest. Live and learn I guess.

Soccer ended yesterday for Megan. Christopher’s football playoffs start tomorrow. We also went to the Eden Prairie high school football game Friday night. Eden Prairie was ranked #13 in the nation so we were expecting to see a good show. They got beat – blah. Colleen really wanted to go the game and hang out with friends so she had a good time and I think saw some of the game. The rest of us sat on blankets and snacked on fries and hot cocoa to stay warm. It was close enough to walk so Beth left a bit early with Megan in the car and and then I walked Christopher, Colleen and two of her friends home at 10:00 p.m. Late night – too bad it didn’t end with better results. Supposedly news crews had been in town following the team around this week because they would have been a top 10 team in the nation had they won. Cracked under pressure! Hopefully this won’t turn into one of those blah sports weekends – already Eden Prairie lost, Purdue lost, and notre dame won which isn’t good. Gophers lost which helps (otherwise I have to hear about that on Monday). The Vikings are playing now – hopefully their winning ways continue. And tonight we are going to sit in a suite to watch the Lynx play in their first finals game this year. They won it all last year so it would be cool to see that happen again. I co-coached soccer with the marketing director of the Timberwolves and he happened to have room in the suite tonight so that will be fun. It’s unfortunate that the Lynx don’t get more good press given their winning ways but I guess it’s a tough draw getting more interest in women’s sports. The kids will have fun regardless and the price is right 🙂

Yesterday was also the Eden Prairie fire department’s open house. It was good to go back and see everyone. I got a lot of really nice comments and it was good to catch up with people. It’s tough being away but the right decision as I’ve said before. Christopher’s football practice went long so we missed the first car fire. Every year they light two cars on fire and then call in the engine to pull up and put them out. We get there and people keep asking me if we saw the first car fire. It turns out (and I haven’t been able to find it on YouTube yet – but it will be there I’m sure) that they lit the first car on fire, called the engine in to service, and then the car started rolling. Yes, the wheels should be chocked. But they weren’t. The car apparently rolled towards parked fire apparatus (including the safety chief’s vehicle), missed them, missed a light post, and came to stop (still on fire) about 60′ away. In the photo of the car on fire you can see off to the left in the distance where the first car stopped (it’s still there and started where the other one is on fire in the picture). I can’t wait to see the video. They were lucky. Crazy things happen all the time on the fire ground, and sometimes drills are harder than the real thing even though they shouldn’t be. It must have been crazy to be on the department, have a crowd watchnig you, and see a fully engulfed car rolling away towards your fire truck. Yikes! We saw the 2nd car fire – not near as much excitement. This could be the last year they do this which would be unfortunate. A few years ago the no fun patrol canceled the fire engine rides because of child seats, etc – no fun given the controlled environment. Live a little, have some fun, let those flaming cars roll!!!

Posted in Birthday, Children | 2 Comments »

Back to School

September 15th, 2012

Can’t figure out why my head won’t stop spinning. Maybe it has something to do with…the kids are back to school. Beth is back to school. Retiring from the fire departmnent after 10 years (tough but the right decision as this point in my life after this crazy year). Soccer, football, dance, and scouts have all started back up. Pulled off organizing another successful scout rocket launch. Plus coaching soccer for Megan’s team. Wrapping up being a confirmation mentor this past year (yahoo Parker!). Working with another wish child (we reveal what her wish will be to her this coming Tuesday – with the help of a real life princess 🙂 ). Work is as crazy as always. Katherine and everyone else still on my mind a lot. Yah, maybe all that has something to do with my head spinning, huh?

We wrapped up July and August with a trip to Grand Marais with E & Wen (and family), visits from both sets of parents to MN, and then a quick visit by Kristin & Tom (and Big A) to MN for the state fair. Yummy cheese curds, buckets of fries, Sweet Martha’s cookies, cotton candy, juicy turkey sandwiches, milk, shakes, you name it – ugh, I’m still stuffed!

Grand Marais was cool. It was nice to go up with some good friends. It has been great to have people caring and looking out for us. It was supposed to be a different trip this year – that part of it was tough but part of the journey now. We had some great experiences with nature and I got up alone one morning to take in a beautiful, peaceful sunrise. That was E’s hope for the trip but the weather didn’t cooperate with him – the day after they left the sky was crystal clear and I enjoyed the sunrise and being alone at 5:30 a.m. on a huge lava formation by the great lake.

Beth and I are going to see Jackson Browne in concert next month. I really connected to some of his songs especially since March. “For a Dancer” is one such song that is hard but good for me to listen too. Come to find out that Jackson Browne’s wife committed suicide about the time this song came out many, many years ago (although I read that the song was written first). Crazy world. Here are those lyrics:

Keep a fire burning in your eye
Pay attention to the open sky
You never know what will be coming down
I don’t remember losing track of you
You were always dancing in and out of view
I must’ve always thought you’d be around
Always keeping things real by playing the clown
Now you’re nowhere to be found

I don’t know what happens when people die
Can’t seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It’s like a song playing right in my ear
That I can’t sing
I can’t help listening

I can’t help feeling stupid standing ’round
Crying as they ease you down
Cause I know that you’d rather we were dancing
Dancing our sorrow away
(Right on dancing)
No matter what fate chooses to play
(There’s nothing you can do about it anyway)

Just do the steps that you’ve been shown
By everyone you’ve ever known
Until the dance becomes your very own
No matter how close to yours another’s steps have grown
In the end there is one dance you’ll do alone

Keep a fire for the human race
And let your prayers go drifting into space
You never know will be coming down

Perhaps a better world is drawing near
And just as easily, it could all disappear
Along with whatever meaning you might have found
Don’t let the uncertainty turn you around
(The world keeps turning around and around)
Go on and make a joyful sound

Into a dancer you have grown
From a seed somebody else has thrown
Go on ahead and throw some seeds of your own
And somewhere between the time you arrive and the time you go
May lie a reason you were alive but you’ll never know

Posted in Children, Life, Vacation | 4 Comments »

INMANHNYCMO (IN-MA-NH-NYC-MO)

August 5th, 2012

Whew! We’re back. Three weeks on the road! Amazing trip. We started the trip by stopping for an hour or so in Rochester, IN to see Grandma T. Actually, our first stop was to pick up Giordanno’s pizza to-go outside of Chicago. We do that frequently on these trips – and then the fun part is trying to eat a slice of Chicago-style stuffed pizza while driving in Chicago traffic! Whil we were with Grandma T we went through pictures that we brought and then I tried to turn on the auto-photo frame on her desk. It wasn’t going through pictures so after pushing lots of buttons it started showing pictures. And of course it started with pictures of Katherine mixed in with our family. The pictures were great, just sometimes I’m caught off guard seeing Katherine. A month or two ago Eric posted pictures on Facebook that had come from Katherine’s phone. The pictures were great and the kids were always laughing and smiling, but then all of a sudden a picture popped up with Katherine in it – totally caught me off guard. Starting in northern Indiana there was no power to the traffic lights (I would argue that there shouldn’t be traffic lights on a HIGHWAY anyway but Indiana doesn’t quite understand that yet). As we pulled into Rochester we noticed huge trees down or uprooted and branches & leaves everywhere. Found out we just missed a huge storm. The plan was to stay the night in Fort Wayne…we got there a few hours later and our hotel there didn’t have power (so we found a hotel that did!). From Rochester all the way into Ohio as we drove through small towns there were huge trees down everywhere and no Burger King or McDonald with power (amazing we survived). I’ve always loved driving through small town Indiana while listening to John Cougar Mellencamp…seeing everyone out and working on cleaning up their small towns while JC was playing added to that ambiance.

Next stop on the way to MA was Howe Caverns. We did Mammoth Cave in KY the year before and the kids really liked it. These caves were cool too for a quick stop – neat that first you take an elevator way down into the ground. A stream follows you throughout the path and you even take a boat ride 200’ underground. In KY the year before they were very concerned about bats dying from white nose syndrome (you had to walk through this soapy mixture before/after going into the caves). At Howe Caverns they said all the bats were already dead and they weren’t taking any precautions anymore – bummer.

So…next stop was Eric’s place. We stayed there a few nights and got to play with Sara and Rose and hang out with Eric. It was a great stop and was nice to catch up on stuff. The girls are awesome and fun and full of energy and never stop and are chatty and creative and we enjoyed mini-golfing and hippo-tubbing and zip-lining (now my kids really want one!) and bouncy-castling and fort making and arting it up and playing all sorts of games and toys. At the same time it was tough being there – memories everywhere…pictures, her car in the drive, picturing her looking out the window in their kitchen, the memory box on the wall, etc – good memories but that’s the most time we’ve spent in their house and like I said – it was tough at times. But good. So glad we went there and spent time there with Eric and the girls and getting to know the area better and talk. And maybe next trip we’ll even figure out ways to capture Sara in pictures too (she runs as soon as that camera comes up – grrrrrr! 🙂 ).

And the next stop was NH. We spent a few days there with just my parent’s and then a few days later Sara and Rose joined us. We sure kept busy…ice cream and bumper boats and ice cream and Rockport, MA and ice cream and a clam bake with one of Beth’s high school friends and ice cream and blue berry picking and ice cream and moving mulch in the yard and building a wall and edging and ice cream and playing badminton and ice cream and a Revolution game and ice cream and bopping each other with the inflatable hammer and ice cream and candlepin bowling and ice cream and King Kone and ice cream and riding in the cougar and ice cream and celebrated birthdays and ice cream and pie and veggie lasagna and found the secret room and ice cream and played ping pong and ice cream and raced cars in basement and ice cream and watched tv and watched tv and watched tv and ice cream. It was a great trip – lots of fun with the kids and seeing mom & dad, and Dan & Jackie with the kids (and congratulations again!!!), and lots of time to talk and catch up on things. Very glad we came out and saw everybody and could stay a bit longer. It wasn’t always easy but we’re doing ok. Things seemed to work out great and fall into place right when we needed them too. Great weather and an amazing trip. It’s so hard to sum up all our feelings and emotions in a mini blog post (so I didn’t really try ) – love you all and always thinking of you.

After NH we headed to St. Louis with a quick detour in NYC. I hadn’t been there since before 9-11 so it had been a LONG time. I love the city – and the people and the sites and the energy and the pace. We only spent 1 night there but somehow the stars aligned and we saw everything (and more) than we had planned – everything was fantastic about the trip – Empire State Building, FAO (kids loved the candy section of the store), M&M store, Times Square, just walking around, seeing street performers doing music and also street dancing, subway singers got on our subway car, 9-11 memorial, pretzels from street vendors, Sony store (kids had a blast playing and experimenting (amazing that this was free!),great food everywhere we stopped, riding a train, the Statue of Liberty and ferry ride, and of course zooming through Beautiful Bayonne and seeing what’s left of the old army base and eating a real Italian ice. We stayed at a friend/coworker’s house the night before NYC and the night after NYC (and then got up at 5:00 a.m. and hit the road early the next morning and drove 16 hours straight to St. Louis. It was also great to see them and just hang out a bit and unwind. A whirlwind of a trip but it worked out perfectly. We are blessed to have such a strong family and support network. We are getting through all this – still have our days and will for a long time but it’s so important to have each other and keep talking and sharing.

Posted in Children, Life, Vacation | 2 Comments »

Ready or not, here we come

June 29th, 2012

This was a milestone week…the first time ever we’ve seen boy-band posters hanging in the girl’s room!!! And so it begins 🙂

Summer has been off to a busy start. Baseball and soccer just finished this week and the kids have already been through Vacation Bible School, football camp, and dance/cheer camp, plus we just held a birthday party for Megan this past weekend and also had almost 30 people at our house from my work (kids were included – it was a fun time to catch up with everyone). They have all loved everything so far. The picture of Megan smiling while she dribbles the soccer ball happened right after the ball accidentally bounced right off her head so she was laughing at that still 🙂 In VBS they even got to snorkel in the shark infested water that goes over the see-through tunnel that people walk through at the Mall of America’s under-water-world (Colleen says she got to wave and be in lots of photos for people). Now that Beth isn’t working we’ve been taking advantage of more date nights…in the past month we’ve hit Bar La Grassa, 112 Eatery, Broder’s Pasta Bar (it’s much nicer than it sounds), Sebastian Joe’s ice cream, Marvel Bar, and Origami (we did Omakase there with a friend where we sat at the sushi bar and had the sushi chef bring us whatever wonderful creations he had the urge to make for us). I’ve eaten a lot of sushi before but I had many firsts that night – it was all amazing except for the part where as soon as I put some sort of eel in my mouth I almost instantly couldn’t feel half of my tongue – that was another first for me but I seemed to make a full recovery within an hour or so – yikes!. It’s been a lot of fun and I’ve got to check some places off my list that I wanted to try for a while 🙂

Flowers are starting to bloom in the yard but it looks like we’ll just miss most everything popping for the first time and putting on a great show. We also finally are having a good year for raspberries so our dog watcher may get less money and more raspberries for payment 🙂

Ok…had to post this quickly…ready or not, here we come…off to see (great) Grandma T…

Posted in Birthday, Children | 1 Comment »