The Thomsons: October 2013

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Happy Halloween 2013

We have some blurry, actions shot from our pumpkin carving time together. We even roasted the pumpkin seeds, so YUMMY! I love that the little cousins are getting old enough to participate with us. They did great cleaning out the pumpkins. They may have tried to eat it once or twice. We left the knife carving to the adults.

The ladies went to Witches Night Out at Gardner Village while the men stayed back home to watch the children. We had a good time. Lyssa was Glenda the Good Witch; very fitting. We topped off the night eating at Archibalds, a favorite restaurant of ours in Gardner Village.

My Mom came up with the ingenious idea to make all the little kiddies minions from the movie series Despicable Me for Halloween night. We TOLD Sheehan he would be Gru, their leader (no discussion on that, just an order). They were so cute!! People loved seeing them walking and jabbering around. Fortunately, we have Alyssa, who is super talented, to make the adorable beanies for the kids which really completed the outfits. The girlies even have bows on their beanies.

We took Lincoln to a pumpkin patch and we all picked out our own. We also did the kids maze, corn slide, and the looked at the different animals they had like the pot bellied pig, mini donkey, and a kangaroo!

Lincoln liked playing in the leaves that Sheehan raked

Monday, October 21, 2013

Kitty for a Day

Well we had our renters move out including their adorable orange tabby cat, OJ.

I was kinda attached to OJ and liked that Bagheera had a friend. So, I made the decision to get another cat, whether Sheehan liked it or not. So we found Ash on KSL. She was not the nicest kitty, but she was sure cute. She kinda liked to hiss and attack Lincoln despite his trying to play with string with her. She hung around for about 2 days then she escaped out the window never to be seen again.

Moral: We won't be getting any new animals for quite some time. I am now content with just Bagheera and our crazy Lincoln boy.

I do feel bad that we never found out what happened to Ash. I hope she was picked up by a neighbor or something. She just disappeared. I guess she really hated us.

Friday, October 18, 2013

The Pumpkin Patch

We took little Super Man Lincoln to the pumpkin patch in Springville. We met up with Devin and Alyssa (with families), Mom, Grandma, and Auntie Ondra. Lincoln loves animals so he loved the pot bellied pig, mini donkey, and the kangaroo! We played in the corn pit (we kept finding corn kernels for several days in Lincoln's shoes, chonies, you name it.) The kiddies did a little haunted house, slides, and mini corn maze. We then picked out our pumpkins. Lots and lots of FUN! I love when the family is all together.

Friday, October 4, 2013

David Thomson's Passing - California weekend

Our family had some sudden news at around 2:00 am that Sheehan's Dad, David Thomson had passed away at the age of 54 earlier in the night on September 27th, 2013. We worked things out to be able to attend the services in California. Sheehan had gained a great relationship with his Dad over the last couple of years and it meant a lot to hear his Dad say how proud he was of Sheehan. He always ended his phone calls saying that and "be sure to give Kiersten and Lincoln a hug and a kiss from me." We know will see him again someday.

David drove the 500 miles to our house from California in his little red Toyota truck to help Sheehan with some projects at the house.

When David come up to to Utah to help with the house

Waiting in the Provo airport

On the airplane (Lincoln is a frequent flier now)

At LAX waiting for Lincoln's stroller and car seat

Back in Provo after the trip

We flew to California and were able to get a rental car (I find getting a rental car so fun. I love test driving cars). Lincoln struggled a little on the plane ride although it was only 1 hour and 15 minutes of flying time. It was nice to have Sheehan there to trade off with Lincoln unlike my last flight solo with him in May.

Lincoln enjoyed looking out the window this time around which really helped entertain him. I was SOOO glad we didn't drive. I don't think we would have made it past Nephi.

We were able to make a lot of visits in our short couple of days. We were able to see Aaron Craig (Sheehan's best friend) and eat dinner with him and his family before he left for Afghanistan. We visited Grandma Marilyn and Grandpa Pat. Lots of extended family were able to come to the services from the Thomson-Hinman-Snyder side of the family. 6 out Colleen's 9 children were able to attend the service. We were able to go out to breakfast as a big family with all six siblings and Grandma Patty and Payne.

Rental car fun

Ihop breakfast before our flight home

A huge positive note that came out of an otherwise sad weekend was meeting Sheehan's brother Micheal and his wife Annie. All 4 of David Thomson's children were able to attend the funeral: Micheal, Shay, Sheehan, and Shanette. It is wonderful that despite the circumstances life has given to all of them, all 4 of them came together to support the family and build relationships with each other. As the pictures show, we all had a great time together. It all felt very natural, like as if we'd all been getting together for years.

While we were in the High Desert we took advantage of visiting our first apartment to get a picture and stopped to get some ice cream at Rite Aid down the street, an old favorite date of ours. Dollar theater movie and double scoops of rite aid ice cream. We didn't have much money then and had a cloth pouch with change in it that we would use to pay for the ice cream. Fond memories!