Our family continues to grow...

It's hard to believe it is February already! Our family continues to grow. Our most recent addition is Daxton, Eric and Amanda's little boy born Dec 30, 2008. He was 6lbs 3 oz. He is perfect!

Jessie's little boy Gavin will be turning 3 years old on March 13th. Stan and I are amazed at Gavin's language skills at such a young age. Erin's little boy Jaden will be 5 years old on April 11th. Jaden has a wonderful sense of humor and makes us laugh!

Jaden and Gavin (pictured below) are showing off their dancing skills on Christmas Day at Grandma and BaBa's place. 

 

We have a grandaughter named Cicely who is 9 months old. She is Eric's little girl, but we don't get to see little Cicely much. She is beautiful!

Our greatest joy are our granchildren. We are so blessed to have our children and granchildren with us in Minnesota. There is no greater blessing than family. We count our blessings everyday.

Stan and I still work at RR Donnelley in Long Prairie MN.  Stan is a networking Admininstrator and I am an HR Assistant.  RR Donnelley is a printing company. We are so blessed to have our jobs and work for a wonderful company.

We are still busy with our callings at church. Stan is a counselor in the Bishopric and I am serving as a counselor in Primary. We love the Alexandria Ward and feel so much at home here. 

Stan and I have become Fox news fanatics and put Fox news on as soon as we get home from work. We are so concerned about the direction of our country and economy.  We pray everyday that our new leaders will make wise decisions, but we have to say, we are not impressed by the new stimulus bill!

We are so excited about Jim's wonderful idea of connecting our blogs. It has given me the motivation to update The Thompson Network! Thanks Jim!

Our family photo taken at our home on Christmas Day. From left to right we have Jaden and Erin, Stan, Jessie, Gavin, James (Jessie's friend), Arlene, Eric and Amanda.

MT RUSHMORE VACATION

Stan and I have been talking about going to Mt. Rushmore for 8 years since moving to Minnesota. On Thursday, June 19th at 4:30 am we started down the highway heading toward South Dakota with Erin and Jaden. We arrived at 2:30 pm in Keystone, gaining an hour due to the time zone. As soon as we checked into our room we got hit with a thunderstorm so we decided to walk around downtown Keystone. Since it was raining, we decided to sit and watch a saloon gunfight. Stan ended up an unwilling participant in the show, trying to retrieve his watch from a 7 ft giant gunslinger. We had a good laugh at his expense and he was a good sport.

We took a steam train ride to Hill City and got hit by rain and a hail storm heading back to Keystone. Temps really dropped and Erin and I were freezing, but we tried not to complain because there had been a drought in that area for years. We toured the Rushmore Cave and took a historic walk in the old part of Keystone. We went to Mt. Rushmore Friday night and enjoyed the evening program. We were honored to go down to the stage along with all veterans of the military while they retired the flag for the evening, we got a huge round of applause. We were proud!

By Saturday morning we were ready to leave Keystone so we did the Alpine Slide and headed North to Deadwood. We ate at the Midnight Star, Kevin Costner's casino, food was good and reasonable. Erin posing by the costume Whitney Houston wore in the movie The Body Guard. We decided to head to the Wall to see the Badlands and walk around Wall Drug. We enjoyed Wall Drug and Jaden had a blast playing in the backyard. Water set to music shot out of the ground leaving the kids guessing where the next water spout would come from. By the time we got to the Badlands, it was getting pretty late and the sun was getting ready to set, so we spent just about an hour walking around the badlands, that was enough for us... I kept watching for snakes.

On Sunday morning as we headed home we decided to stop and see the famous corn palace. It wasn't my favorite site seeing stop, but it was interesting. Sunday was warm and sunny, perfect for stopping at Falls Park, in Sioux Falls SD to stretch our legs. That was worth the stop and absolutely beautiful! We were home by 10:30 pm Sunday night. We had a great trip!