August 2022

Now that I am officiating more college matches, I am required to go to trainings and conferences. My first one was to Phoenix and I just happened to be on the same flight as the rest of my rev buddies. We had a great weekend learning new skills for the season and hanging out. The last day we enjoyed a yummy meal at the Crab Shack and then had enough time to catch a movie before our flight home. It was a fun weekend with everyone.

Dax is a funny kid. He had some money from his birthday that he wanted to spend, so I took him to the mall and he spent it on riding this little elephant around the place. He had the best time. He is also our shirtless kid. He takes his shirt off as soon as he gets in the door. He was looking pretty cool with his sunglasses and earphones one day.

I have loved my flower garden out front. Each year it is different, but this year I got some pots and some more shade flowers and it turned out really well. I had to document it because it was so good.

First day of school for these kids came pretty early this year, but they were all ready for it. It is Oakley's last year in middle school and Tyson's last year in Elementary school. They are going to kill it.

When we got married, we didn't think about the timing of our anniversary in the future. I feel the last few years I have had to work on our anniversary. This year I was working a match at BYU, but I was able to get a ticket for Wes, so he came down and watched from the stands. It was the first time he had been to one of my college matches. Hopefully not the last.

Badger Creek Reunion

After our few days at Yellowstone we made our way to Badger Creek. It is a church owned property that both Wendee and Rachel worked at when they were at Ricks. We got to stay in a huge lodge, which was really hot at night, and be with all the Thompson cousins.

We played in the small lake they have there and had fun making a homemade slip and slide into the lake.

That evening, we played games in the field and then took family pictures. We also got to enjoy an amazing sunset from the top of the hill by the lodge.

The next day we were able to do some of the ropes courses that they had around camp. The most fun one was swinging across and trying to fit as many people on this tiny little platform. I think we got 19 people on it.

Then there were a few others that were more individualized challenges like walking across wires and trying to get to the other side. We all had fun trying to figure these out.

The last one was trying to get everyone up and over the huge wall. We ended up getting everyone that wanted to be involved, up and over.

After the ropes courses, we packed up camp and headed to a river nearby. Scott had brought a bunch of SUP's and kayaks and we floated down the river for a few hours. Wes, mom and dad stayed back and drove the cars to meet us at the end. It was a nice relaxing float that we all enjoyed. We even saw a moose right by the river.