Thompson Family Reunion 2009

It was that time of year again when the Thompson's get together and spend a few days with each other. Ethan and Becky were in charge of it this year. They found a house big enough to rent for the week up in Grass Valley, California.

Matt, Evan and I left two days before the actual reunion started. We left Tuesday afternoon with Matt's Dad and brother. We woke bright and early after arriving late Tuesday night. It was probably early morning on Wednesday even. We had breakfast with our Aunt and Uncle and got ready to go watch the Oakland A's play against the Detroit Tigers. We met up with some of our Aunt and Uncles from the Thompson side that wanted to go to the game since this was an extended day for the reunion. Ethan found $2.00 tickets per person for the game and since the A's is Matt's favorite baseball team we had to go. It was such a fun game to watch. We were down the first couple innings but took the lead and won! There were two home runs where they scored two runs each time. I called them before they even happened so I had a lot of fun. It was nice weather so it was a perfect day. It was chilly in the shade so it was nice in the sun. Evan enjoyed it so he allowed us to stay and watch the entire game but Grandpa did end up taking him out because he was so tired. Grandpa wanted to take him out even if he wasn't tired. Evan has so much fun with his Grandpa. He took Evan to play on the playground inside the stadium a bit. After the game we went our separate ways since we couldn't go to the reunion site till Thursday late afternoon. The plan was to go to the Oakland Temple while Matt's dad and brother would watch Evan for us by site seeing in San Francisco but we were late to the session we needed to take. We only had 15 mins to the next session and we still needed to change our street clothes to church close and we forgot to get cash out so we could rent clothes for the Temple. Their sessions are every hour so it would of been too late for us because we had to drive to our hotel in San Jose. This was the second time this happened to us with this Temple so I was sad. One of these days we will be successful! It's the Temple Matt's parent's were married in so it's something we really want to see. Since those plan didn't work out for us we got to site see San Francisco with them. We got to see the Pixar Studio and I finally got to see Golden Gate Park where my Uncle's life was taken in a bizarre way. I never met him because he was 21 years old, just off of a mission. He was out there with a bunch of college students out on tour. It was a Sunday so they were just walking the beach. A summer storm rolled in and the waves got so big that it took everyone out into the ocean. A human chain was created to get my Uncle back to shore but a whirlpool came about and took him and another guy. They never found him or his friends body. I'm grateful for the Gospel in knowing that we will see him again because families are forever. We spent the night in San Jose because our plans were to walk through the Winchester Mystery House before we headed up to the Reunion site. I had to put it in a post of it's own because there's just so much to say about it. Make sure and read it!

Once the tour of the Mansion was done we met up with Matt's mom and sisters that came up another day so we could go up to the reunion site together. The reunion was great! It was so nice to relax. Evan had so much fun with the little cousins. We were up in the area where gold was sited so we go to visit Sutter's Mill on the 3rd. It was so hot that day. Evan gets the red face from me. We both don't take heat very well but he's still cute! I was surprised he let us hold him in the full family picture because he didn't want to be held. In our family picture he fought us till we just let him stand in front of us. He was really happy when we let him play in the water.

People panning for gold! On the 4th we went to another gold site, Empire Mine State Park. The workers would ride on this to get into the mine. It goes 11,000 feet but it's filled with water right now. It's Leanna's birthday on the 4th so we had some fun activites for everyone.

Here is Evan with some of the cousin's playing the happy birthday song to Leanna with those noise makers.
We had a pinata for the kids and the adults. Matt had fun keeping everyone from hitting them. This was Evan's first time with one.

We played volleyball with a regular ball and with water balloons. That was a lot of fun!
Sunday we relaxed and had fun playing quite games in the house to end the reunion. Monday we said our goodbye's to everyone for another year. Before going home on Tuesday, we spent some time with the Haymore side of the family. I'm blessed being married into Matt's family because they are the greatest! I love every chance I get to spend time with them.
Thanks for a great reunion Ethan and Becky!