Picnic with Grandma Thompson

We have been slaves to the enormous project of building a vinyl fence with our two neighbors. We're doing all of the work--including a new mow strip--except for placing the posts. If you roll your eyes and think, Well, that's all the work, you haven't pulled out our old fence posts or tried to dig trenches for forms with a neighbors as fastidious as ours. (He's a great guy and we're going to have the best-looking mow strip ever.)We've had some great family help, which we deeply appreciate, and Travis has spent every spare daylight minute working on it. He doesn't have a lot of spare daylight minutes, so that means there haven't been bike rides with the kids or playing catch with Michael or autumn hikes  . . .. BYU ballgames are being watched on the DVR late at night, his desk has becoming an embarassment at work, and so on. I realized that our only outdoor autumnal family activities are going to be working on the fence, so I've got to get my myself and my kids on some walks, hikes, picnics by myself, while my poor husband works (indoors, in the dark.) My mom came up for a day last week and we took Sarah and Lucy for a picnic at Glassman Pond, which is a tiny pond about a half-mile from The Condo. We took Michael fishing there once, and just ask him, we haven't been back to fish. Not because it wasn't fun, we just haven't gotten to it. Like everyone else, I love the changing leaves. Fall is my very favorite season, and we had a lovely picnic. 

Happy Birthday to Dad Dastrup

I love this picture of Dad Dastrup--Grandpa Max Dastrup--holding Lucy on her blessing day. (It's not the clarity of the original, taken by Aaron, because it's a compressed email file.) The focus is intentionally on Lucy, but I love the soft presence of Grandpa holding her on his knee. I think this picture is representative of Travis's dad. He's always there, rock solid and fixed where he needs to be. He's helping to support and anchor everyone else, but he doesn't want the limelight or too much fussing. He wants to quietly be surrounded by the people he loves, and to quietly serve them. The following two pictures are only two examples of the many times he has finished my ironing pile for me. Once was when I was coming home from the hospital with Lucy, and the other while we were getting ready to put our Indiana house on the market. Travis wears a shirt and tie every day to work, and then several white shirts for bishopric duties. My ironing board is usually out with a large ironing pile just waiting for me to have time to attack it without little people pulling on me. This quiet act of service means so much to me. I love you! Happy Birthday!

Music Lesson Thursday

Thursdays are my busiest day. There tends to be some cello cramming early in the morning and for a few minutes after school. Anna doesn't need to cram because she practices almost perfectly from 5-7 every morning. In theory Michael and I practice from 6:30-7:30 a.m. Early morning practices, as opposed to having to do in the afternoon, have been a bit spotty since, well, my pregnancy with Lucy, but September has been pretty solid. We rush to eat dinner at 3:30; otherwise it's 8 p.m. when we can eat or I have to pack a dinner to bring with us--and this just isn't going to happen. Then I take Michael to Kaysville for a cello lesson, leaving Sarah and Lucy with Anna. I race home from Farmington to load my three girls in the van along with Anna's violin, and drop off Michael's cello. Ideally she has played for twenty minutes so she is warmed-up for her lesson, but this doesn't always happen while she's babysitting. I drive to Farmington and drop her off for an hour lesson while I find some way to entertain everyone else (and often feed Lucy). This feels so easy after five years of attending lessons with Anna. I was spending too much money window shopping at a nearby Home Goods and Marshalls, so we've been playing at a playground in my friend Emily's neighborhood. I hope she won't tell the Neighborhood Watch on us. We're also going to show up on my cousins Scott and Elisha's doorstep one of these times--just in time for dinner--I mean a visit. It's an exhausting, but satisfying afternoon and evening. No one can believe it's bedtime when we get home, and unless I'm really grouchy, everyone gets to bed a little later on Thursday nights. I plan to enjoy the playground as often as we can until cold weather forces us to do some more window shopping. One might ask where Travis is for all of this running. He's still at work most of the time, but every now and again he makes it home to take Anna, and that's always a welcome surprise for all of us.

Lucy at 9 months

Thompson Family Reunion

In June Sarah, Piper, Mia, and Sammie were signed up for a summer camp run by some girls in Grandma Thompson's neighborhood . For five days, two hours each day, they enjoyed games and activities organized by these girls. We didn't have an official reunion or trip planned as an extended family, so we planned other fun activities all week with whomever in the family could be there. Of course Travis wasn't there and many people were working, but we planned things for the kids each day and gathered for dinner in the evening. We enjoyed a beautiful evening at the Christensen's cottage at Sundance, took the kids swimming at our friends the  Diederich's pool, and we even planned a treasure hunt. The number of activities we planned would be considered lightweight by Dastrup standards, but as Thompsons, we were pretty proud of ourselves. Wonderful to see the friendships between cousins strengthened every time they're together. Wee Scout Sandgren is such an adorable addition to our pack of girls, and sweet Finny is very outnumbered with all of his little girl cousins!

Cousins

We're so glad Emily and her kids Caleb, Daisy, and Johnny made it up to Ogden during their visit from their new home in the Washington D.C. area. Grandma and Grandpa Dastrup brought Benjamin up also, and the big boys had a great time together. So did Sarah, Daisy, and Johnny, as you can tell by the smiles in these pictures. Wish Emily Joy and Grandma and Grandpa were in the pictures too, but we're glad we took the time to capture these cute cousins together to remember until next time we get to see them.