Here it is!!!

Here is the long awaited performance of Kennan at the Christmas play as he portrays Dancer.

Enjoy.

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

This is a typical Christmas Eve and Christmas day at the Thompson household. Here is the home all decorated nice and fancy. Yes there is an actual fire in the fire place.

Also, here is the tree that I told you about in an earlier blog. Isn't it gorgeous? We used icicles for the very first time. Ellen wanted to try it. After finding icicles all over the house, it might also be the last time.

Every Christmas Eve, we as a family, go sledding someplace in the Cokeville area. We chose The Siphon because there really wasn't a lot of snow and they plowed our lane to the dirt. The Siphon is just behind our house. Kandyce and her friend had gone up earlier in the week and it was pretty good. The goal is to see how far you can go. This is the hill.

Here are some of the contestants.

Here we are heading up the hill. As you can see, there isn't a lot of snow.

McKenzie just finishing her bumpy ride.

This blurry person is me. I am going so fast the camera just barely caught me in the act. Almost the speed of light.

With this speed, I was able to finish numero uno. I am holding the number one sign, if you can't tell. Geez!

Here is what goes on at the top. I'm just getting ready to push Kandyce off of the top of the hill. She just doesn't know what I will do. Such an innocent look on her face before she goes crashing down the hill at speeds that only radar can detect.

As you can see from the next two pictures, you just fly off of the hill into a dark hole. That is what makes it fun. You know there is something at the bottom, but you don't quite know what. McKenzie is the first one and Ellen is in the second one.

This is a night shot so you can see us walking up the hill and see how far you can go. It was one rocking good time. If you stay in the trails, no worries, if you go outside, watch out for the sagebrush.

After we sled, we go home to have some hot soup and hot chocolate. Then the kids get to open up the presents from each other. Of course we have to have the pajamas for Christmas.

Once the pajamas are put on, then a rousing game of twister is next. Notice the intensity in Kandyce's eyes as she is putting on the hurt. After the games, then I read the story of the "Connivers" and the Christmas story out of the Bible. 

After all of the stories, then it is off to bed. The next morning was a grand ole Christmas. After opening all of the presents, we as a family then eat crepes for breakfast. This year I went and brought grandma for the day and she stayed for the Christmas dinner. The family got an Xbox and Guitar Hero. Yes that is grandma rocking out to my amazement.

And that is what a typical Christmas is like here at our family. We were able to call and talk to Brady, then Shari called and Breanne called later in the day. We try to remember the real reason for Christmas and what our Savior has done for us. Until next time.

Just Before Christmas

Trying to catch up on some things with the family.

Grandma's house is already to have things fixed up. We have everything connected. She called Rocky Mountain Power to tell them that things are ready and they said that they will be ready ........................................................................................................................after the holidays. They are so busy right now they don't have time, so Grandma won't be able to move in until after Christmas and New Year's. She is pretty upset about it all. I would be too. We were hoping for before Christmas, but what can you do? Once the power is turned on, then the people will come in and tie things up. So that is the news with the house.

Last Sunday, our family and Briant Teichert's family went over to the rest home to sing Christmas songs. We had dinner first, then practiced a little, then made the trip. It was a lot of fun. It was like a mini Tabernacle Choir there singing. McKenzie had a beautiful Jon Schmidt Christmas song on the piano ready, but they didn't have a piano ready for us. So we sang everything a cappella, a copalla, a copala, ah heck without the piano.

The elementary Christmas play was on Monday and Kennan was the star. He really did a great job singing. People just couldn't believe it. I'll try to get a clip ready so you can watch him sing, but he did a fantastic job. This was his reindeer outfit. He forgot his antlers.

Today was the high school party. We did white elephant gifts, watched a movie, and then had Sully Claus give out the presents. Santa couldn't make it because he was over at the elementary and Panther Claus is at a national mascot convention in the Bahamas. So Sullivan Teichert dressed up. Here is a picture of McKenzie getting her present.

Kandyce and her friend came up to watch the play and go sledding. Yes we do have a little bit of snow. Kandyce will be here for the rest of the holidays. It is always fun to have her home with us.

By now you all know that Shari had the boys. They are soooooooo cute. They look like me, all hairy. Ellen will be heading to Georgia on the 6th of January. She is really excited to see the babies. Now maybe we'll get tons of pictures.

Brady is doing just great. He has a new Russian speaking companion from California. They are both zone leaders. He has only 6 months left on his mission. I don't know if I told this but the other day in Spanish II, Coach Linford was watching a Cael Sanderson wrestling video because he had about 5 minutes of class left. He noticed McKenzie getting really somber. He asked her if everything is okay, she said yes, then he asked her if she missed Brady. She started to cry a little and said yes. I thought that was kind of neat that watching a wrestling video made her think of Brady.

Breanne came up a couple of weeks ago to help Ellen do her digital scrapbooking. Breanne has such a talent. She stayed overnight and went to the ward Christmas party. I'm hoping that Greg and her will come up over the holidays to visit.

The sports teams had two games cancelled because of bad weather. They were both with Dubois. They played the North Gem gems (inside joke) at North Gem and the girls JV team was the only one that came away with a victory. The wrestlers are doing awesome. They took 8th at the Evanston tournament, and took 5th at the Star Valley duals and took second as a team at the North Summit tournament. They are such studs. FYI, I was able to get enough sponsor money to buy some new equipment that we are going to test for our sports schedule. I will also be doing all of the home games via the internet, so please check the sports schedule at http://www.cokeville.com/ and watch Channel 39 on the internet. I'm excited about it. But the equipment won't get here until after Christmas, I hope.

One last thing, somebody told me that you can have your blogs printed out in a book form. If so, please let me know how you can do that. What a way to keep a diary and have fun doing it. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas.

Update on Grandma's House

Okay, here is an update of the things (with pictures) that have been going on at Grandma's house. I'm afraid that she won't be able to get in by Christmas. The people came to fix the inside of the house, but they said they can't do anything until ALL utilities are connected to the house. The contract never said anything about that, so we have been working really hard to get things ready. Then we find out that Rocky Mountain Power works on their schedule and nobody else's. The water is ready to connect, the power is ready to connect on Monday as well as the sewer line. Once all that is connected then Rocky Mountain will come in and turn on the power (on the day which they would like to do it) which will then allow us to call the workers to come in and fix the inside of the house. So here are some pictures. Here is the front of the house waiting to be put into position.

This is the back of the house being put into position. It was amazing how close they could get the house to the foundation so they could put a railing under the house to move it into position.

The next day they came and jacked up the back of the house and put it on a railing. Then they used winches to pull the house across the foundation to put it into place. This picture shows the house almost to it's proper position.

Now you can see the two houses close to each other. The left is the back of the house, I'm facing south. The right side shows the house is on the tracks and they are just removing garbage so they can link the two houses together.

I'm looking through the back window showing the front of the house as it is coming together.

This picture shows how the house is supported under it. There are a lot of these little triangle things that hold the house up. Some are on the cement and others are on cement blocks in different parts under the house.

Before they could connect the two halves, they had to raise the roofs. They are hinged roofs and they used a jack system to crank up the roof.

Once the roof was raised, then the worker would nail the boards together to hold it. Each one of the boards were nailed together on both halves. This took up most of the day.

This next shot shows the two halves together. The next day, the workers came and finished sealing the outside of the house together.

This is the front of grandma's house. It is definitely a lot bigger than her old house. The lower right you can see her driveway. It is further back on the lot and goes right next to the old garden. She told the workers they could drive through her raspberry bushes, they did and there is no more raspberry bushes. The workers were also very clean. They made sure they didn't leave even a tiny piece of garbage. That is all I have for now. I need to take a few showing the trenches they had to dig to put the water line in, the sewer, and the power. Also Ellen will need to go inside to take some pictures to show you a little of what it looks like. By the way, Carole, her bathroom is tan with brown counter tops.

We had our annual gingerbread decorating competition again. This time is was between Kandcye and her friend Clay against mom and Kennan. It was a very competitive competition.

This is a close up of Kandyce's and Clay's house. They were more frugal with the candy, but mom and Kennan stole most of the candy to make a candy walkway.

Here are the winners. I was the judge and I just couldn't pick who would win, so I cheated and called it a tie. Mom and Kennan.

Clay Bolton and Kandyce. Just a friend from school who wanted to see what Cokeville was all about.

Kennan is finishing playing junior high basketball. He plays both on the 7th grade team and the 8th grade team. He plays one quarter of 7th and the rest on the 8th. Here he is stealing the ball against Farson. They beat Farson both times they played, their only wins of the season.

Of course Coach Toomer and I are the officials of the games and no there was no special treatment. I am a very fair and impartial official. Besides, I get paid a lot of money to do it.

Musical & Thanksgiving

Last week was the school musical. They did the play West Side Story. It was the first time that they ever did a serious play. It was okay, but I really like the comedies. McKenzie was a "Shark" because of her brown eyes and dark hair. Her dancing partner was Bronson Teichert. She did a great job. The whole cast did a good job. Laurel and her boys, Heather and Cassidy came up to watch the play. Here she is doing a dance to the song "America".

Here she is with her partner Bronson at the end of the song and dance "America".

We went down to Provo for Thanksgiving. We left Wednesday to go watch my nephew Brandon Davies play basketball for Provo High School. He has signed to play for BYU next year. He got into early foul trouble and didn't play a lot until the fourth quarter. It was like one of the officials was after him. He couldn't even breath without getting a foul called on him. I felt sorry for him. But he did a good job and it was fun to watch him play. By the way, he is 6' 9".  Here he is with Kennan.

We ate at Laurel's house. You might call it the place for the leftovers to have Thanksgiving dinner. Jayne and her family was their, Tiffany and her boyfriend, Kathy and her family, Grandpa Davies, and Aunt Veline and all of us were there. It was fun and the dinner was good and the pies were delicious. Here is Kandyce and I waiting for the meal to be done.

We went to the movies later that day. Some went to see Bolt and some others went to Madagascar 2. The next morning mom and I went and did the early shopping, if you can call 7:00 a.m. early. We really did see any reason to go early so we just went out and about. A lot of the things they had on sale could have been bought online. There were a few things that they lured you into their stores, but all in all it was just an ordinary day of shopping. Kandyce did help me to buy mom something for Christmas. She will be sooooo excited, I can't wait. Kandyce took time off from her boyfriend to be with us, but of course through the magic of technology, they weren't separated that much.

McKenzie has ball games on the road this coming weekend. Kandyce and her boyfriend are coming up to watch Kennan play on Saturday. At his last game he scored a couple of three pointers. His coach told me that Kennan got ruffled by the other teams defense. It was a good learning experience for him. Mom is getting excited for Christmas. According to family tradition we will be putting up the tree tomorrow night for FHE. It is that time of year. Brady had roast beef for Thanksgiving. He and the other elders cooked it, I wonder how it tasted. We'll find out Wednesday.

One last bit of news, grandma's house should be here tomorrow or Tuesday. Fun fun. Here's is one more just because.

Grandma's House

So we've been talking about grandma's house coming down and a new one being put into its place, now we figured we better post some pictures. So here goes. It will take a while to upload the pics to our blog. The first picture is of the house when grandma was living in it.

This next picture is after taking the windows out (they were new windows) and also taking the roof off. Also the front door (it was new, too). Notice some cabinets off to the side. Some people came in and took some cabinets to use in their garages or shops or what ever. I went upstairs to look around and behind the drawers I found a glass doorknob (worth about $500) and two fire extinguisher grenades. Here is the fire extinguisher.

These are glass bulbs that are thrown at the base of a fire and break to put the fire out. They are rare because they are made to be broken. One has the color really faded, but the other when cleaned up looks brand new. They officially stop making them in 1910, but some companies still made them up to 1945.

Ellen didn't make it when they started to knock the house down so we didn't get any pictures of them actually knocking the house down. This is just after the fact.

The next picture is the pile after hauling some of the stuff to the dump. It took just over 1 1/2 days to haul it off. I took a half a day off to help haul things. It really wasn't that bad. The weather has been very cooperative.

The next two pictures are after they hauled everything they could to the dump. All of this stuff fell into the basement. The walls of the basement were over a foot thick so we couldn't knock it down with the equipment we had. So they burned everything in the basement. The fire department came just to make sure that nothing got out of hand. I guess it was quite the little marshmallow roasting party.

This is just a pic from the street so you can see what it all looks like. Notice the two bushes that were in front so hopefully you can picture where the front door used to be.

So the company came in and dug out the dirt to start putting in the foundation. Grandma isn't having a basement in because she doesn't want to have stairs in the house. Maybe you can see how big the house is going to be. If you look to the bottom of the screen you can see the ties that form the north of her garden. The house is definitely longer.

You may wonder what ever happened to the basement. Well, Stan was talking with the framers and they asked him what he was going to do with the basement. He said he was going to have to haul in dirt to fill it up. They said that they would love to put the dirt that they dig up and use it to fill in the basement. So that is what they did. They had so much dirt that they have plenty left over. Now they are putting in the forms for the pouring of the cement.

This last one is after they poured the cement. They came today to finish pouring the cement to form the foundation. Hopefully we'll get some pictures of that.

Grandma is sooooooooooo excited for all of this to happen and so are we. She has been so patient in living where she has been. When we were hauling off the wood, we found some of the old logs (it used to be a log home) that at some time or another that had caught fire. Why the house didn't burn down, we don't know. Then in the northeast corner of the house, most of the logs were rotten. Once again how the house just didn't fall in we don't know. It is amazing how fast things have happened. The first of October is when mom decided to build a new house and now the company says that they will bring the house on December 2nd and she should be in the house before Christmas. What a Christmas present.

FYI the house was built in 1924. Uncle Ron was born in the house in 1926. My great grandmother raised her family there (11 kids) and also 6 grandkids. I found some homework in the attic from one of the grandkids. I think the stucco was put on the house around 1948 and it was remodeled in 1984 or about. My great uncles (Dave and Aaron) said they had lost a baseball mitt when they were kids in between the stucco and the logs, but we never found it. Grandma did find a 1941 nickel under the front porch.

Stay tune for more on the house. By the way, the school musical has been this week and we'll post some pictures of McKenzie and maybe a little video too. They did the musical West Side Story.