Grandmom sees BEBO

Hi this is New Year's Eve and I am finally learning to use this blog. Chip is trying hard. Tune back in to see if I can really do this after he leaves.

Happy Birthday Rob

Happy Birthday to my "Little" Brother



BTW. Chip and Rob took a green hill after posing for the picture.

Pheasant

On Sunday afternoon the boys and I went hunting. I shot two rabbits and Toby and I together shot a Rooster pheasant. I knocked it down when it flew out of a plum thicket. It landed near Toby and tried to hop off. Toby then finished it off. We are still debating over whose Pheasant it really is. For now we have decided to share it equally. I am still deer hunting but have not seen any deer to shoot.

Toby scores again

Today was Toby's first muzzle loader hunt. We had 5 inches of new snow this morning on top of Monday's snow. It was about 16 degrees. We were very cold.

After lunch we left this area. This is where Toby shot his buck 3 weeks ago.

Those cows would make good prime rib.








Cold, very cold.

Toby is holding his .50 cal hawken he got for his 12th birthday in May. It is loaded with 80 grains of powder and a patched round ball.








Button Buck.

We saw this deer from our truck. After a short walk and a 10 minute sit we saw two deer. We were set up on the field edge about 30 feet above these deer down on the creek. After moving several times to get a clear shot as the deer slowly walked, Toby was able to take a 70 yard broad side shot just before the deer jumped the creek.

Uncle Lee. This deer is within 30 yards of where you shot your deer.

My tree stand is about 20 yards to the right.

Blizzard 2005

It is now 2:00 on Monday Nov 28. We have been under a blizzard warning since 4:00 yesterday. I have no idea how much snow we have because of the winds. It has been blowing 35 -50mph since yesterday. Out side of town you can't see more than 20 feet at most times. Florida sounds real nice about now.









The drift in front of my pickup is about 10 feet high. It completely blocks our road. There is a stop sign next to the power pole but the drift is covering it.












Another earlier view of the road.

No community left behind

We'd like to share how God is using Tom's talent for His purpose. Our pastor has been doing a series title "No Community Left Behind". This series has been about how we can impact the community beyond our church walls. Tom has had the opportunity to serve as the designer for this campaign. So now to the story. Tom met with the pastor this afternoon to go over the next series. Pastor Tim told him a women who recently moved to the area came to church on Sunday morning for the first time and when asked how she found out about our church, she replied "because of the billboard you have up."

This entry is not meant to be boastful but to show how God can use our talents for His purpose in reaching out to people. Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving.

The Cartys

A Bountiful Harvest

I shot this doe on Wednesday.
















Toby shot his first deer Saturday morning 10 minutes after the season opened. It ran about two hundred yards after a lung shot.

Don't you think mine is bigger? Toby doesn't agree of course.

Thank for your prayers!

We are alive! What a wild time these last 2 weeks have been! Here is a quick pic of our hunter (Halloween).

The move is on!

Here's the latest from Rob and Becky...

They showed up Thursday (today) to Ft. Myers and found their power on. No mention of any damage, so I'm assuming if there was some, it was minimal. Their personal belongings are in a truck in Miami and are due to arrive sometime Friday morning. So, the move is on.

Unfortunately, the office has not been so lucky. Still no power, though they have been able to get in. The elevator is out, so the move is delayed until the power returns... whenever that will be. Basically a week of lost work, unable to answer the phone, email, etc. Please pray for a quick return of power so they can get back to work.

They are disappointed to have had to cancel their plans to be in a friend's wedding in Chicago this weekend... just too much responsibility in FL this week to leave it behind. All in all, though, it sounds like they're in good spirits as they are finally making the long awaited move into their new home!

my pumpkinny weekend with Becca

Well, I had a pretty fun weekend. Becca came up to Boston! This was the second time she’s been here. We had a great time. She got here late Wednesday night. I took off a half-day Thursday and all of Friday. Well, I won’t go day by day, but basically: We got to spend some time at the house with Chip, Karen, and Chase. We went out to dinner at “India Quality” in the city with Becca’s sister and sister’s boyfriend who are both Gordon students. We went to the Pumpkin Festival in the city; at this festival, there were over 19,000 carved pumpkins. It raises money for charities and gets people to carve pumpkins and leave them there. It was incredible to see so many carved/lit pumpkins lining Boston Common. Becca has out pics, I’ll try to post them later. Becca and I went out to dinner in the North End in Boston to Giacomo’s. Mom and Dad, this is where we went a year ago. We went to Church where I’ve been going (which is the same place Chip and Karen go). And lastly . . we carved our own pumpkins. These are our results :













On a different note, my car broke down this weekend. So, I am now faced with the decision of whether to put in a new transmi$$ion, buy a used car, or buy a new car. Yuck!

Any pieces of new/used car fixing/buying would be much appreciated!

Sorry if you got an email claiming that I posted a picture on our blog and were let down when nothing had peen posted. I’m testing out a few different ways to post (e.g. “hello” for pictures and posting through MS Word).

I wish everyone well

Safe in Florida

Rob asked me to put up a blog to let everyone know they are all ok. There is no power for 1/3 of the population of Florida, including their apt and home. The news in the Miami area is that the power company hopes to give residents an estimate this week of when the power may come back... not an encouraging thought! Rob says... "At least this time it's cooler. Last time it was a heat wave and just miserable." I guess that's the difference between FL and Massachusetts... their "cooler" in the evenings is still warmer than our daytime highs!

The rumor mill, however, says that the Ft. Myers area (new house) could even get power back as early as Tuesday.

There's tons of adjustments to make to the planned move for this week, so Rob is keeping busy. The lock on the old office door is electronic, and without power, they can't get in... they're trying to find a solution, but nothing yet. Please be praying for the details of the move to be worked out. No word yet on whether Becky's store will be open for business by Tuesday, when she's scheduled to work.

Drew seems to be dealing with this just fine. Last night he slept on the floor at a friend's house (Rob, Becky, and Drew headed there from their apartment in the middle of the night), and he slept just fine. Tonight Rob and Becky are using flash lights in their apartment and Drew is, once again... sleeping.

There doesn't seem to be drastic damage in either area, though there's roof shingles all over the apartment complex parking lot, some smashed car windows, downed fences and electric lines, etc. North of their home seems to have gotten hit harder.

All in all, everyone's fine... just details to work out regarding the move. Thanks for your prayers!

Chip... for Rob, Becky, and Drew

Not so much fun in Florida!

Be praying for us as we make decision on how to care for ourselves and our belongings! Here is a picture, containing dots where our apartment is in Miami and our new home is in Ft. Myers...

See here for updates...

Fun in Florida!

There are many more pictures available on our website, via snapfish. I have also added a new video. "The Slice" will be coming out later today with updates...

Do these 2 look happy or what?









Becky and I went to our new house last weekend and did some cleaning. It seems Drew wanted to help wash windows. Don't worry Grandmom, the rag you seem him sucking on was not actually used!

Yesterday, Drew decided to stand! Ok, well, not by himself, but... Becky had him sitting next to our coffee table because he likes to play with the handles. Becky walked over to the kitchen, looked over her shoulder, and saw Drew's little head peering over the coffee table. After grabbing the handles, he pulled himself right up!






This was taken about a week ago. Think he needs a haircut?

He's Still running

Since I am about the only one still hunting I thought I would share an update. This morning Jesse and I sat in a stand on Spring creek. This stand is about 75 yards from where Dad set up his ground blind. Toby was in another stand. He saw nothing except a calf that came to his grunt calls. At 8:45 Jesse tapped me and pointed north. I looked and saw nothing. When he pointed again I realized I had looked past a large 8 point buck. This deer was larger than any I have shot. He was at 35 yards and looking right at us. I think he saw Jesse pointing. As he looked away I drew. Knowing something wasn't right he started to leave giving me a quartering away shot. I used my long pin and released. The arrow went quite a bit low. It actually hit him in the lower front leg. I could not believe I had shot so low. After retrieving the arrow I realized that by the time I released he was actually 41 yards out. Definitely too far for my sight pin. At home I took a shot at the same distance and shot in exactly the same place except that I missed the leg two inches to the right at home. Right after the buck ran we had a spike come in to about 15 yards responding to my grunts calls. He never offered a shot. Later we saw three very nice bucks about 150 yards. They completely ignored my grunt calls. Hopefully my next update will include pictures of the big one.

Harvest Fun

Sam & I spent an afternoon helping a famer
in our church. This is the corn that has dried down to 16% moisture









Sam and Scott are in the combine. Scott's son Kelly is ten. He is in Sam's class. Kelly is driving the tractor pulling the auger wagon.




I am standing in front of the one of the largest farm tractors John Deere makes. I got to drive this monster. It is so easy that a two year old could do. You shift gears by clicking a lever with your thumb.















Kelly loads my truck with the corn
















The corn is dumped into an auger which moves the grain into the bin for storage

Autumn in New England

First of all... Rob, thanks for the new header... it looks like that must've taken some time!

Secondly, I just wanted to include this picture of Chase from last week. We've been having a great warm fall so far, but the leaves are beginning to change, regardless. Just wanted to share this picture with you all... I just edited it and didn't want to create a new Snapfish album just for it. The color of the leaf is natural, if you can believe it!

Comments Notification

Drew is napping... (Have I mentioned how clingy he is becoming?)

I was getting frustrated becuase I couldn't ever tell if there were new comments or not, so...I installed a little tool to change this. Comments will now show how many new comments there are. So, if this is your first visit since I added this, it will show all comments as new. Once you view the comments, and refresh the page, it will no longer show "new" comments note. Comments will "slide" out to the bottom. To post a comment, scroll to the bottom of the comment list.

If you don't like it, let me know.

Also...

• Have your heard the audio posts on the main Thompson page?
• We are moving Oct. 26 and 27 to our new home in Lehigh Acres, right next to Ft. Myers. The RMI office is moving the exact same time. We are paying a moving company (very cheap!!) to move both the office and our home.
• I have posted new pics and video. Can you guess who plays the leading role in the video?

Rob

Drew Sitting

Drew is now sitting. He also really really wants to crawl. He gets up on all fours and rocks like crazy. His knees are moving back and forth, but he hasn't figured out about moving his arms. He even gets up on his hands and feet, with his butt high in the air! It is so funny to watch...

Happy Birthday Chip!

www.rminet.org/flash/happybirthday.swf
Check it out!

Happy Birthday Chip!

Say Happy Birthday to the "OLD" Uncle

Buzzed!

Chase got his first buzz cut this weekend! Just in time for the Patriots game. Besides watching his Pats, he LOVES playing with his ball. 'Course to him, everything is "Ball, ball".

Toby & Sam

Toby's first game. He played safety on defense. They lost but he had a few tackles and one interception. When we get our film developed I will send more pics. He has another game tomorrow.





This is Sam on Rusty. He is competeing in an event called Stock Seat Equitation. He is judged on his riding style. He earned the silver medal

RSS Feed to Reader

Ok, for all you tech geeks in our family…

You can add our family blog to an RSS reader by using the following address.

http://tomthompsonfamilyblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml

So you ask what an RSS reader is. In general, RSS allows a website to syndicate its content. Blogger allows us to syndicate our blog.

RSS is a growing technology. There are many places to add a ‘feed’, but the place I added it is on “my yahoo”. I use “My Yahoo” as my homepage everytime I open IE so I will always see the latest posts.

questions...

i'm not too bright... and i haven't spent much time looking at this, but is there a way to post without having to go back to the "dashboard"?

also... how do i add dates to the family calendar?

i spent all last week in training last week and many of the evenings were taken up with class... i didn't get much time with karen and chase. this weekend we tried to make up for it some, so i still haven't been on my email much. perhaps i'll get some time this week to look into this more.

Canoe

I bought a canoe today!! I've been looking online for a used canoe, I finally decided on one. It was a decent price. It's not top of the line, but it gets me in the water! It's fiberglass, so it's heavy, but I can stil carry it myself. Chip went with me on my her maiden voyage. Then, I dropped him off for a little solo action. We went on the lake here in town (< 5min. from home). As you can see, it has wood gunnels that are in pretty decent shape. It's built mainly for lakes, but it's short enough (14') and fat enough to make it pretty decent for river running, which is what I'd like to do most.

Sam's Horse Competition

Sam competed in a horse competition yesterday. He was in two events. We do not yet know how he placed in the trail ride. In this event he had to guide the horse through a trail. He had to get the mail, weave through cones, ride through a fence line, back up, over posts, and through a gate. In the second even he was judged on riding style. In this event, called stock seat equitation, he earned a silver medal. It was a lot of fun and Sam really loved it and can't wait to ride again.

Email Notification

FYI...I have set up email notification. You should all receive an email each time something is posted to our blog. If this is not the case, let me know.
Rob

My 2 cents

I think this is a great idea. Sending an email notification would be nice, but making this our "home" screen on each of our web browsers is a good idea as well. This picture was taken over the summer so it's not totally recent, but its mostly just a test.

Exclusive club

Now that I finanaly got invited this is a test to see if I can add a post along with pics