Homecoming 2008

Okay, before I start getting hate mail, I want to apologize for the broadcasting of the football game. We had a major equipment malfunction between the crows nest and the auditorium. We tried for three hours trying to figure out what was wrong. We (Coach Toomer and I) do have it narrowed down to a handful of possibilities. We just couldn't get things to work. I hope by the next home football game, it'll be up and running. I know many were trying to call and let us know, but the crows nest was the only place where things were not working. My bad, but it will get fixed.

Homecoming was very successful. Once again for the third year in a row the Yearbook did not win the best float competition. What is the matter with those judges? Can't they see talent that is right in front of them? Here is Kennan with some of his buddies at the street rally.

The picture above is what the sophomore girls think about being around boys later in the evening. And the one below is McKenzie just learning how to spell her name. Notice how she spelled the "z"? Very good McKenzie!!

The week long celebrations were fun. For Thursday night, the juniors lit the bon fire by shooting flaming arrows into it. 

I was up on the hill watching with Coach Dayton and Coach Linford and it was pretty cool where we were. Since Brady's senior year I have gone up on the hill to video and take pictures of the senior football players lighting the "C". It is fun to be up there with the four football coaches, coaches I feel are the best in the state or any where. I look up to each one of them. 

After the "C" was lit, we three stayed to make sure the fire wouldn't get away and burn the hill down. We even had fire extinguishers. Linford's fire extinguisher didn't work and Dayton's was like a cloud when he used it. When things were calm, we walked back up to the truck and Dayton put his extinguisher in the back of the truck, and it went off and sprayed the whole back of the truck before he was able to put it out. It was so funny. Here is a picture of the sophomore class on Thursday night. Typical boys, trying to impress people with their thinking ability.

The next day during the program, they celebrated Coach Keith Nate's receiving a gold card. It is an honor that the WHSAA gives to coaches or people who have exemplified many years of service in their coaching. It was broadcasted via the internet. I hope you were able to watch some of it. The parade was good and short. The football game was fun and exciting. The boys won 42-0 over Wyoming Indian. Here is Sullivan Teichert breaking into the open for a long td run.

Here is a picture of the crowd at half time. Does it bring back memories?

Wyoming Indian is a team of the future. They have a lot of young players who will be pretty good down the road. The volleyball game was pretty good also. Kemmerer wanted revenge on us, but it wasn't even that close. The JV won pretty easily and the varsity also won pretty convincingly. And of course, later on the dance was held. It was kind of funny because after about two hours of dancing, everybody went home with still and hour left for dancing. It was a great week-end.

Kandyce came home to watch McKenzie play. I didn't even recognize her, she was wearing a hat. 

Mom took a bunch of pictures of Kandyce. Here is one that I liked.

Breanne also came up on Saturday to take Violet Teichert's announcement pictures and also her wedding dress pictures. I'm sure Breanne will post some of them on her blog page. Check them out, Violet looks really good.

McKenzie played in the varsity game as a defensive specialist/server. Her serves have gotten pretty good. She was asked by Rowland Briggs to wear his football jersey. No, it isn't anything serious. He likes one of her best friends. Speaking of jersey's, I guess over at the elementary there was a lot of drama about who was going to wear whose jersey. One little fourth grader said that he only plays pee wee football and he only has one jersey and he didn't really want to give the girl his jersey because he wanted to wear it. Personal opinion, bag the jersey stuff until you are in high school and even then, why?

Kennan had a bit of a disappointment this week. He didn't play a lot in the football game against Star Valley. They didn't have a "B" team because they brought their big 8th graders. Cokeville got beat by only 4 points, but the coaches were not going to play the small 6th graders against the big 8th grade. Star Valley was suppose to bring their 7th grade team so they could play a "B" game. Coach Linford wasn't too happy about what Star Valley did, but he was proud of how the team played.

Ellen is being busy taking pictures of people. The trees are changing colors and it is really pretty here. She went with Breanne to help her take pictures of Violet.

Bill is Bill. By the way, if there is anything that you want to watch via the internet from Channel 39, let me know and I will set it up for what ever time that you want. You can email me at bthompson@lcsd2.org to let me know and I'll see what I can do. This Wednesday will be the last home volleyball game for Cokeville. We will be playing Rich County. Should be a good match. Stay tune and I'll have things ready to show.

One other bit of news. My sister from Alaska came down for a visit. She wanted to stay for the homecoming activities, but she wasn't able to get that much time off from her work. She came over to the school and Ellen took a picture of her and my mom and me. 

So now you get to see me. Aren't you lucky?

We're Baaaack!!

And you thought you would never hear from us again. It has been a very busy couple of weeks. School and all that stuff. So here is what is happening in Cokeville. The football team is still undefeated. They played Evanston JV and then Mt. View just last Friday. They killed Evanston and beat Mt. View by a close game. This week is Homecoming, so all you former Cokeville-ites, come and celebrate, oh, that's right, you guys have other lives. I'll try to post some pictures of homecoming. I hope you noticed that Shari was able to watch the live broadcast of one of the volleyball games. I'll have things up and running so that you can watch the football and the volleyball game live. It just depends on how fast we can take the equipment down from the football game and bring it to the gym for the volleyball game. Just go to www.Cokeville.com and click on the CHS Broadcast button, then hit the launch webcast button. Wait a bit, and then it should come on. During the week, I'll have it off for maintenance stuff, but hopefully, by next week you'll be able to watch Channel 39 all of the time from your computer. Isn't technology fun? So make sure you watch football and volleyball this Friday starting at 1:30 pm.

The volleyball team had a great two weeks. They beat Mt. View and Big Piney two weeks ago and then beat Bear Lake and Kemmerer this past week. They then went to Thermopolis and won the tournament there. They played Cody for the championship. For homecoming they will play Kemmerer again. It should be a great match. Kemmerer is a lot better than they used to be.

Kandyce, I think is still going to school at Utah State. Haven't heard from her for awhile. Probably doing what all college kids do............hardy party!!!! No she just called and she is doing just fine at school.

Brady is now a zone leader in his mission. He feels overwhelmed for the call, but he'll do a great job. He is still trying to form a branch in Jelgava. He actually gets to stay in Jelgava as the leader. He's pretty excited about that. He said they had 18 people show up for church last Sunday. He is loving his mission.

McKenzie is doing well in school. She is in the school musical. They are doing Westside Story. Because of her brown eyes and dark hair she is member of the "Sharks" in the play. She is setting for the JV and is a serving specialist on the varsity. Against Big Piney, she served 20 points in a row. I was hoping for a sweep, but just fell short.

Kennan is still playing football. Their team got beat by Pinedale last week. He plays on the "B" team because he is sooooo big. (I'm being sarcastic). He did get a couple of tackles and a couple of knock downs. He plays cornerback and loves it.

Ellen just got back from spending a large amount of time with her sisters. They stayed at Park City and had nothing but fun. Here is Park City from the tram they took.

They have been doing this for the last couple of years. All of her sisters get together and stay a couple of days somewhere and just have a sister's outing. With 10 sisters, I'm sure anybody could join them and nobody would know the difference. They had all of them there but one. And here are all of the sisters but Jane.

 A fun time was had by all. Ellen is in the primary presidency and they just had their primary program for sacrament meeting. It was my first time also. Yes, I am now in the primary teaching the Valiant 10 class. There are 15 kids in the class. Amazing what a baseball bat can do to keep order with so many students. I just love it.

And finally, Bill is Bill.

Ellen wanted me to post some pictures that she took at Park City so here are some that she wanted people to see. Here is a picture of the home that Ellen's mother and grandmother used to live in. This isn't in Park City but she went to visit her dad and they drove around Springville.

Here is a some pictures of the trip to Park City. Lindsay can you tell where Ellen is hiding?

Of course the leaves are changing.

Ellen said she really liked this old building.

Just playing around with the foliage in Park City. Look familiar Lindsay?

More Boring Stuff

So it has been a week since I posted last. I just have to let you all know what is going on in the big town of Cokeville, Wyoming and the Thompson family. Our biggest challenge has been in helping Shari come up with some good (notice I said good, not cute) boys names. Of course she will reject every name I've given her, you know like Billy Bob Benjamin and Bob Billy Benjamin Davis, or Jakob William and Ammon Scott William Davis. It must be something about the name Bill or William. Shari, it has to be a manly name, not cute. By the way, William is in the top ten most popular names EVER!!!

Kandyce is doing well at school. We don't hear from her, but we know she is alive. Brady is doing sumo primo on his mission. He had a baptism last week and was to have one yesterday. He is loving life there in Latvia. Here is a picture of his baptism. They were cleaning out the limbs and garbage before the performed the ordinance. We have been praying that he and his companions and the other elders in his district will be able to form a branch there in Jelgava.

Breanne is also doing well as you can see from all of her posts. Bre, you need to get a new computer. They have some nice ones at apple.com.

Kennan and McKenzie are doing well in school. Of course here is the annual picture of the kids on their first day of school. (Sorry it was late posting, they've only been in school since August).

Kennan played in his first junior high football game on Saturday. I didn't get to see it, but he said he did alright. It was more of a jamboree. All of the 6th graders make up the 7th grade team. He said that on defense, he was the cornerback and the opponents quarterback (a very big kid according to Coach Briant Teichert) ran around the end and the only one between him and the goal line was Kennan. Kennan ran up to him and the kid lowered his shoulder and ran right over the top of him. But Kennan held on to the kid and pulled him down for the tackle. It knocked the wind out of Kennan, but he was really happy. Coach Teichert said that Kennan made such a great tackle that he (Kennan) got a little emotional. He had tears in his eyes, if you get my meaning. Kennan's first home game will be Tuesday, stay tune for more pictures and updates.

McKenzie is the setter for the JV team and is a serving specialist on the varsity. They played Evanston last Wednesday. The freshmen and JV won, but the varsity lost in 5 really close games. In game four McKenzie scored the last 4 points to win the match. She had two aces during that run. For the weekend the varsity went to Pocatello to the Highland tournament. They did really good. They finished 5th out of 17 teams. Out of the top 6 teams, 3 were from our pool on Friday. They beat some big 5A schools. We get a little following when people find out that we only have 90 kids in the entire school (7th thru 12th grade) and we can compete with the big boys (I should say girls).

The boys football team played Shoshoni and won 42 to 0. It was 35-0 at halftime. I don't know all of the details, but I'll try to find out. If you are really interested, I think I've found a way to get Channel 39 on the internet. I'll be doing some test runs this coming week to see if it will work. Then you that are far from home will be able to watch Channel 39 on your computers. We'll see.

Ellen and I are fat and happy. I mean we really are FAT and happy. I'm not eating as much as I used to, but I need to exercise. I do have a big problem with my foot and I'm scared to start playing basketball in the mornings because of the pain it causes, but I have to start some time. We miss our married kids and grandchild, but we know they are happy where they are and they know they will always be welcomed when they come home. We'll even let them bring their husbands. They are always welcomed here.

Just an after thought. We were playing Madison High School yesterday and the girl who was helping with the books kept yelling at the setter, "Lets go Shar. Come on Shar." So I asked her what the name of the setter was, she said "Shari". I told her that I had a daughter named Shari. She laughed and I asked her if there was a Breanne on the team, she said yes, the middle hitter. I told her that I had a daughter named Breanne. I then asked if there was a Kandyce, she said no. Holly Grandy was with me and she asked if there was a McKenzie on the team and she said "no, but Shari's older sister's name is McKenzie." Was that ever a Twilight Zone.