MN Thompson's

Are you kidding me???? Hildebrand can’t make it through one more turn to win the 500???? He cost me $3.50 and handed my mega-jackpot to Megan. Darn rookies. Megan also had the driver leading at lap 100 for another 50 cents. Colleen had the highest finishing female driver and the first car out of the race for 50 cents each…the rest of us walked away empty handed 🙁

Happy Memorial Day. It’s thundering outside right now and supposed to be off-and-on severe storms all day. Seems like this is the weather every weekend lately. I like storms – but the rain is making everything grow like crazy and it’s hard to find time to work in the yard in between the bad weather.

Here’s Christopher playing baseball. Love the catchers gear. They use a pitching machine this year and get 10 swings if they need them. Some of these kids have already been playing for a few years and can really hit and throw. Christopher’s game is improving a lot already and he has a lot of fun out there being one of the guys on the team. We just signed up for football in the fall so this will be a 5 sport year (soccer last fall, basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring, kung fu off & on, and football next fall) – he’s still trying to find his sport. I think it will be a riot to see these little kids bouncing around off of each other in that big football gear.

The scouts had their egg drop last week. I got the fire truck to come out again this year. They load the bucket up, raise it up pretty high and then bombs away. Some of the scouts try to make something to protect their eggs – and others just like watching their eggs go splat. Christopher’s survived again this year. Afterwards we had a question and answer session with the kids. One kid was on a roll with mixed-up answers – which brought up great talking points but made it hard not to giggle. We asked the kids to tell us what they knew about fire. He said if your house is on fire you should drop to the ground and roll around 🙂 We asked if the kids had a meeting place if there was a fire. He said he and his sister had a meeting place…in the living room 🙂 We asked what they should do if they were inside their room, the smoke detectors were going off, and his door felt hot. He said he would run to his window and break it (we warned him that he might get in trouble if he’s breaking windows and it was just dinner being slightly burned) 🙂

The same night that Christopher had his egg drop I was supposed to be coaching Megan’s soccer team. I went there for a team picture before the egg drop, gave the other coach the line up that I created, and then rushed to the egg drop. Megan has great soccer skills – she’s got a strong foot (actually, both feet) and understands where to go, but she’s been tentative in the games so I keep telling her to get in there and play hard and that I know she can score a lot of goals. I got a phone call from Beth while we were at the egg drop saying we had to meet them for ice cream because Megan scored 3 goals that night. She may not want me to go to any more of her games this year if this is how she plays when I’m not there, huh???

Here’s Megan biking off to find that pot of gold after one of our recent storms…wish her luck…

Here’s a sure sign of spring crawling across our floor…yuck.

Mom & Dad – you were asking about birthday presents. After several years, just yesterday I emptied the final crumbs into a tupperware container of my 6 lb box of “peanut brittle crunch with decorettes”…hint hint. 🙂

Hey Dad – keep getting better and stay strong and positive. Kick some cancer ass!!! See you all in two weeks.

It was a crazy weather day today. It rained about 10 times today and it would go from sunny (well, almost sunny) to torrential downpours. There were tornados in north Minneapolis too. We were out and about until about 3:30 p.m. and finally decided that the weather looked sunny enough to go for a walk around the marsh at about 7:45 p.m. Sure enough…exactly half way around the marsh the sky turned dark grey and it poured on us. And sure enough, for the second time today we all had jackets except Christopher. It was a warm rain so the kids didn’t mind, and it brought a gigantic rainbow which was cool. Today was the art center’s open house so we were there at 2:00 p.m. and one of the crafts for the kids was making “rain makers” – funny how that worked out…they’re doing their job today!

Last weekend Beth and I had a date night and got to see The Prairie Home Companion show. It was really cool (another sign that we’re getting old). I wanted to see Garrison Keillor before he retires next year (if he actually does this time). We had a fun time and ate at Tom Pham’s Wondrous Azian Kitchen afterwards (which was also surprisingly really good considering its name). It was a mix of asian and sushi and I got to have a sake flight sampler which was yummy.

Here we are at the art center’s open house today. They had snacks, and demos, and crafts for the kids, and some awesome displays of artwork (especially the lighthouses and cardinals) by some very talented local artists 😉

Guess I’m going in reverse chronological order today. Today was our make-up mother’s day (since Christopher was hurling on the real mother’s day). Beth loves going to Convention Grill for mother’s day so here we are at lunch dining on our real malts (chocolate with banana, and chocolate with peanut butter cups), burgers, and fries. Nothing but the best for our mommy. In the bottom center of the picture is my burger – there is so much smoked cheddar and grilled onions piled on it that you can’t even see the meat – tasty!!! All these years I’ve been a little hurt when people say that Megan gets her looks from her mommy – after seeing this picture I’m starting to agree with everybody 🙂

Colleen wrapped up another season of dancing. Here she is with her teacher getting her trophy. She had an awesome year – can now do the full splits, is in the front row for most routines, is the only dancer with a move named after her, and does some fancy thing all the time that she’s really proud of where she pulls her back leg up by her ear while hanging onto her toe. Next year is the year that I get to dance with her – the dad theme this year was Michael Jackson songs – I’m a bit bummed that I didn’t get to wear sparkle socks with the dads this year 🙂

Having trouble finding Colleen in this picture? Just look for the only girl doing the splits perfectly…ouch.

I can’t remember if we told you or not, but the spanish immersion school wasn’t working out so we moved the kids to a combo 1960’s & Amish school…here they are heading off to school in their new uniforms.

Mom – I’m kidding, they didn’t switch schools. It’s hard to believe that we managed to keep all three kids clean (especially Christopher in 100% white) through their school dance performances. The kids did great – lots of good dancing. Christopher’s class even got chosen to do their dance again for one of the other elementary schools that was celebrating a spanish night.

There’s been a lot of bad weather recently. Last weekend we got hail and even found one bigger than a quarter. The kids couldn’t resist running out into the yard to pick up the bigs chunks that were falling…here they are with baggies filled with hail (I’m sure they’ll still be in our freezer for the next year or so).

I have no idea what this picture is all about. The things that the kids are allowed to do in public when their mommy is supposed to be watching them. Here’s Megan’s new wide-eyed look again…