Christmas at our house

I'm headed off for surgery today to remove an obnoxious 11cm ovarian cyst that messed up my whole summer, I'm a little nervous and it doesn't really hurt anymore but as of an MRI taken 2-3weeks ago it was still there and with deductibles flipping over Jan 1st I guess I may as well go ahead and get it done. Anyways, here is a cute Christmas video.

Rubbing off on me

Utah is rubbing off on me already, I am not of the consensus that the bigger the bow the better, I'm not really the bow type at all but alas, my little Sara is, she found this headband with HUGE flower in a store and I admit she looks dang cute in it so I caved and bought it for her.

from Utah with love

Yep, we moved to Utah, why? because we prayed about it and felt that this was the place to be for now, there were several other places I was wishing it would be right for us to be but this is it and after a week of being here it feels right. Its cold for sure and it will take some getting used to but there's a lot I like about being here, we are one house from the end of the street and across the street is this park

that is nice, even though we have a swing set in our back yard it is nice to walk across to the park for an hour or so. It is a lot more relaxed here and a big plus - Sara is going to pre-school starting in January! 4 mornings a week for $138 a month, its a program run by the school district. Also, being close to family, BIG PLUS, grandma is just a few miles away and Eric's oldest brother with high school age (insert great baby sitting age) kids is even closer. So far I'm still unpacking and finding my way but so far so good. Another plus about Utah is a lot of people come here so we hope that you will add us to your list of stops and if you don't have an ulterior motive for coming here then we would be quite happy to be your only reason for visiting, our place is a little smaller than our last but if you desire to stay at casa de Thompson we do have accommodation's in the basement.

Whats New?

so.... we moved, this was our yard this morning.

1st grader

So we made it back from our travels, the day before we left we all started with nasty colds but we made it back and are finally recovered. Kate started 1st grade on Monday, there is only 1 kid from her kindergarten class in her new class which is a bit of a bummer but her teacher seems real nice and so I'm hoping it'll be a great year. Here are the back to school photo's, Kate was very excited to wear her new shirt that Uncle James gave her which led me to finding out that there is a little girl in her class whose dad is also from Manchester, small world!

Ready to go! a little nervous.

Finding a friend on the yard and getting in line.

New classroom, looks like things will be OK, lots of new friends to be made.

Family Day

Sunday brought me a difficult decision, go to church or spend the day with my family, I love going to church but I decided on the latter, my brother only has his kids every Sat afternoon until Sunday afternoon and so we played hookey and went out to Park Fold Open Farm, a cute little farm with animals to feed and a few different play areas. Before we were ready to leave Kate had a quick game of darts with Mikey and Sara and Gabrielle played inside the house.

At the farm they had pigs, donkeys, goats and reindeer to feed. The girls were a little too scared to put the feed on their hands and feed the animals, they went for just throwing handfuls of it on the floor. Mikey wasn't scared at all.

Sara and Gabby in the straw maze and Kate by some quail, q is often for quail in alphabet books so at least Kate has actually seen a real one.

There were guinea pigs to pet, all the kids loved this. Kate had Cinders and Sara held Maple.

Mini tractors to ride, such fun.

Boys will be boys!!

Uncles and cousins.

On the big tractor ride.

Fun playground at the park, Kate especially loved the tyre thing.

Pony rides.

And we ended the day with a late lunch at my dads golf club, this is the whole of my family that I have left on this earth, it was a good day.

Low Key Day

Yesterday my dad was golfing and my rental car went back on Friday so the girls and I were limited to what we could do on public transport, here's how it went. We took the bus to Ramsbottom, a cute little town a few miles from my house, Sara enjoyed the bus ride.

Ramsbottom is small and quaint, my type of place, there was an old sweet shop there where the candy is in big jars and you pick what you want and they weight it for you, Sara got a 50p mixed bag, Kate got 50g of smarties (kinda like M&M's) and I got 200gramme's of army & navy sweets, those bring back memories.

Next to the train station in Ramsbottom, this is a heritage railway, we took the train from Ramsbottom to Bury, its a quick 15minutes but a fun little ride.




After we alighted the train in Bury we met the cousins to go swimming and took the bus back home, a low key but fun day out.

Wales

These are from our trip out to Wales, for those of you who don't know my older sister was killed in a helicopter crash in 1993, the helicopter crashed into a Lake -Llyn Padarn- in Wales and each year my mum (who passed away in 2004) found solace in going out to the lake, my dad still tries to go each year and this year we were here to go with him. On each of their trips my mum and dad always stopped at this little town called Llanfairfechan, there is a little cafe right on the beach, its usually very windy but we managed to have lovely weather. The girls got an ice-cream and then played on the beach.

Our next stop was Llyn Padarn to leave flowers at the memorial for my sister and the 2 others killed in the crash. I got the girls a sunflower each and they wanted to leave theirs in the water.

Next stop (which I'm sure the girls had no interest in) was Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch the town with the longest name in Europe.

Next I wanted to take the girls to a castle, a real castle so off we went to Beaumaris Castle one of the 400 castles in Wales. At Beaumaris there are ducks and swans in the moat, in the pic with me and the girls a duck was getting very close to Sara and freaking her out. We ended the day at a little park on the other side of the castle wall, the camera battery died so no pics but I think that was the girls favourite thing of the day!