Thompson Family Camping Extravaganza!

My mother-and-father-in-love celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year.  We celebrated by going on a family camping trip together.  Five days at Joe Wheeler State Park in Alabama.  It was great.  This wasn't our typical camping trip.  It had to be special.  We schemed for months.  Whispering.  Watching for opportunities to gather info in stealth.  We wanted to have lots of surprises along the way.  I designed a t-shirt and Christy got a great deal on printing them.  Katrina gathered photos from each family and put together a really cool slide show.  Travis borrowed a projector so we could watch the slide show (and movies) on the big screen.  This was so much fun.  We set up a concession stand with popcorn one night.  One night we had coins to use to buy movie candy.  One night we used the projector light to put on a shadow puppet show.  It was hilarious.  I know my kids will talk about that for years to come.  We rode bikes and scooters, played ball, hiked, went to the beach... We even got in a little craft time for missions.  The Thompson's never had to prepare a meal.  Travis did lots of research for our gift... an Add-a-Room for their new camper.  We had special guests that came up for a surprise visit!  (Joe, Marian, Jerry, Nancy, Bonnie and Billy)  The only thing we really wished for was the Hawaii Thompsons.  We really missed them. 

Dreaming

Cooling off

Hacky Sacks for Africa

Camping with Friends

We had a great time camping at Henry Horton State Park
with friends this Memorial Day weekend.

The kids goofed around on the playground.

I got some sweet and silly pics of them both.

The next day the squirt wars began.

Then we played "sponge cup..."

...and made up some Survivor-type challenges for the kids.

Don't let your feet touch the ground.

Water flowed freely.

S'mores fueled the fun.

Found this cool vine to sit on while on a hike.

Discovered there were horses near the primitive camp sites.

Sweet times.

Memorial Day Weekend Camping Trip

We had a great time camping with our friends, the Binders. The kids stayed busy around camp playing, catching caterpillars and granddaddy long legs, going on hayrides, learning new camp games, eating s'mores, painting pictures, watching a flint rifle demo, etc...




Reed read a book to Caiden and Cate. We keep this book in the camper all the time so it's always a special treat when they "discover" it. It's nature photos and camping pics. Reed's making up the story.

We had the best Spring Break!

Monte Sano State Park

Here are a couple of shots from our camping trip. More pics to come after I've had a good night's rest in my comfy bed. Can't think now...must sleep.

A good reason to go camping...

... getting to see God's creation up close.

Weekend in the Woods

We had a great weekend camping at Cedars of Lebanon State Park with our great friends, the Binders. This is one of our favorite parks.



We did some letterboxing (treasure hunting). Along the trails we spotted some abandoned fairy houses and came upon a troll bridge. The troll almost got Heidi at the bridge.



Cate found the dollar bill the troll had left in a cave as bait but she managed to escape without being caught.



We found the tree that Peter Pan uses to get into his hidden cave.



The kids collected feathers, chestnuts and rocks to make a fairy house back at camp. They had a great time painting rocks and pictures to lure the fairies to our house.



We saw lots of walking stick bugs, spiders, rolly pollies, caterpillars (calerpitters as Reed says) and grubs. A good time was had by all and it was really hard to pack up and head home.

Hey Y'all!

Well after reading the blogs of my friends and others who inspire me I've finally decided to try one of my own. My friends and family all know that I love to take pictures of my kids so now I'll have somewhere to show them off. I also love telling everyone the cute things that Cate and Reed say and do. We love a good adventure. I plan on using this blog to keep an online journal of the Thompson Turtles. We love camping, exploring, hunting treasure, hanging out with friends and family so I thought I would start with a few favorites from this summer.



Cate & Reed are in my mom's secret garden.

Cate and Reed at my dad's with Reed's first catch.

Cate and some of her cousins get
adventurous at Nanna and Grandpa's.

And finally a picture of the "Thompson Turtle," our camper. Camping with good friends is one of our favorite things to do.