Faith Today Show

Hello, everybody. Just a quick post to let you know that Chase and some of his friends are producing a weekly Christian Podcast/video show called Faith Today. It is designed to be a humorous, but deep look at what's going in the world through the lens of Faith in Jesus. Please check it out!

Fourth of July with the Thompsons

We celebrated the 4th with Chase's family this year. Lots of great food, and good time together.

Papa and all the cousins

It's always tricky to get a group of kids to all smile and look at the same time. :)

They are almost all smiling

Celebrating July birthdays - Tripp and Kassidy

Fast walk only, nerf gun wars inside with 7 kids?? Umm.... do kids really know how to fast walk? :) Good thing that nothing broke and no one was hurt. I wonder why Mimi got a headache?

Movie time...much quieter!

Kassidy Grace!

She's growing up. My little three year old will be four next month! My how time flies. What a joy she is to our family. She loves to talk on all her pretend phones, play with her babies, and her brother and sisters. She will make a good and helpful big sister to little Phoebe!

She loves playing outside and with our dog Maple.

And she loves her little friend Lydia.

What a joy she is to our family!

Family Vacation!

Because of Chase's dads generosity in letting us use his Marriott points, we were able to travel south for a week in Pensacola Beach, FL. Thank you Papa! It was a wonderful family vacation where great memories were made!

We had lots of beach stuff to tote to the sand but it was worth it. That's my spot by the way...surrounded by all the sand toys. :) One day, we made a great sand castle with a moat but I did not have my camera that evening. I think Kassidy loved playing in the sand even more than playing in the surf.

Chase taught the kids to snorkel and skin dive. They ALL loved that. They would spend hours exploring all the marine life. Thanks to Laurie's mom (who lives in Pensacola) we discovered a remote beach on the bay side of the Gulf Islands National Seashore that was FULL of sea creatures. Hermit crabs were everywhere. They found a live sand dollar, a blue clawed sand crab, schools of fish, a star fish and even a Chloe sized sting ray! Yikes...time to come back in closer to the shore!

They also collected lots and lots of shells.

Yes they are holding a live star fish! We put it back after looking at it.

And of course we swam EVERY day. Chase is certain that swimming is just as good as bathing. I'm not so sure of that...but I just went with the flow...which meant fewer baths. Well fewer baths for the kiddos but not for me. :) We had a wonderful place with three pools. One pool had lots of fountains and was made for younger kids. This was very fun for Kassidy. And their friend Emma got to come over and swim with them one day. That was a neat treat!

Our trip turned out to be quite educational. We were able to tour Fort Pickens and the kids earned a Junior Ranger badge for the activities they completed. It was a fun place to tour and explore and very rich with history.

The view from the top of the fort was amazing. We could see for miles and see the gulf and the bay which was very cool.

My parents were able to come down for part of the time we were there. We enjoyed having them there and having some yummy meals together. We ate at Flounders and McGuires together, yummy!! Both were great experiences with great food and a neat atmosphere.
Thanks for treating us Dad!!! We are blessed with wonderful generous parents!

On the way home we stopped at the Naval Air Museum. John Caedmon especially enjoyed this! I was so glad to have Chase along with us on these educational stops. He is so good as explaining history to them and he is so interesting and full of stories as he explains the exhibits to them. Our vacation was packed full of American history, the history of flight, marine life science and discovery....I LOVE that!! And the best part was they had so much fun with it all. Learning is NOT at all boring!

Traveling home we all felt about like this! Traveling to the beach is not really restful when you are six months pregnant and have young children. But GREAT memories were made and we very much enjoyed the time together as a family. It was so worth the effort and we are so grateful to have opportunities like these. Thank you Lord for family and for times of travel!

Time to Blog Again

Wow, what a whirlwind life can be! It's been almost a year since I last blogged. Now I find myself in a new season of life - pregnant. We are joyfully waiting for little Phoebe to arrive sometime in August. Joyful, but not necessarily comfortable. Birthing new things is not an easy task. It's not always comfortable and often comes with pain. But it is very good. So now, God has called me once again to reflect on what he is doing. To ponder and remember and recall. I am not known for having a good memory. Maybe this will help! So here we go, time to remember and reflect on the things God is doing and teaching our family. And I think there is room on that bench for a couple more Thompsons, don't you think??