Merry Christmas 2016!

Greetings!

We hope that this finds you doing well and enjoying the blessings of Advent.

2016 has been a year of looking back and looking forward as we celebrated “half way between our 0’s” birthdays. Some of our special memories were made in revisiting places that have been significant in our lives to reflect on shared memories with people we hold dear. Sharing quality time with them also gave us the opportunity to look forward to our future together.

Three trips were highlights of the year. First, Tom spent two weeks in Finland with son Jay and his family. 

Looking back on special memories of father-son trips, Tom yearned to make some more memories. Jay planned special adventures to share with his dad. Grandson Toren joined the guys on a kayak/canoe trip through lakes and streams reminiscent of Tom and Jay’s Boundary Waters adventures when Jay was turning twelve. Roles reversed as Jay took the lead and did the portaging with Toren. 

Other trip highlights include time spent with Jay’s family and Milla’s mom on her farm, a bicycle tour of Helsinki with Jay and Lilja, and a day with Jay in Tallinn, Estonia. It was delightful to again share quality time hanging out with Jay and to enjoy family time. Jay’s a great tour guide. We look forward to enjoying future adventures. (Tom's trip pics)

Enjoying the LaCrosse waterfront
and the American Queen, docked
because the river was too high to
go downstream

To celebrate with Sarah and Sally, we gathered in La Crosse, Wisconsin, for Oktoberfest. Tom’s children were born and raised there, so it was great fun to look back on those years. We revisited their homes, schools, and Grandad Bluff.  (Wisconsin trip pics)

The view from Grandad Bluff

The Lees and Clements entertained us royally at their family Oktoberfest party and shared their secret parade spot with us. What a blast! Sunday worship with Sally at Our Redeemer was very special. Tom’s choir director of 1984 is still leading the choir. He greeted Tom so warmly and they shared fond memories. 

The view from Our Redeemer's choir loft
It was quilt Sunday.

Tom and Ann remained in La Crosse for a few days where Tom reconnected with former neighbors and IBM colleagues. We spent a day full of blessings with Howard and Joyce Garves on their farm. 

The Garveses

The Shillings

The Schillings met us for a lovely dock-side dinner spent catching up and reminiscing about shared Boundary Waters adventures and childhood memories. With the safety of time passed, they shared some new Jay stories. On our next visit Jay will have to go along to get a little pay back. 

Tom and Ann explored the region south of town. We enjoyed Norskadalen, a farmstead museum set in the late 1800’s. It helps us better picture what life may have been like for Tom’s grandparents on their farms in Iowa, North and South Dakota. (Norskadalen pics)

We visited Westby, a Norske town, where we savored lefse and fresh cheese curds. Looking forward, we hope to revisit La Crosse with the girls and Jay, perhaps for an Independence Day on the banks of the Mississippi and some boating, of course. (Wisconsin trip pics)

On our third trip, we celebrated Ann’s birthday in Gatlinburg by looking back on fond memories of mountain hiking, especially our LeConte hikes. We had no idea at the time that our visit would be the last time we will see the village and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as they were before devastating wildfires charred the drought stricken area. (Gatlinburg trip pics) 

Varooom! Tom's remembering his muscle car ride with Jay in 2013

The highlight of Tom’s trip was the Alpine Coaster - flying down an exhilarating steep downhill course with hairpin turns on a 2-minute ride at speeds up to 27 MPH perched on a small bobsled-like car on rails. He rode twice, once at night, and never hit the brakes! Thrilling to Tom, he still gets excited watching his GoPro videos of the rides. Just thinking of it terrifies the birthday girl. 

Pics and Movies of the ride

We drove the lovely Roaring Fork Nature Trail, one of our favorite tours. We were disappointed that the special Place of a Thousand Drips was bone dry, but were delighted by fascinating cairns dotting the nearby streambed. 

Roaring Fork Creek

Cairns

We snagged most of the geocaches in the area and hiked two lovely park trails where we looked back on great memories of previous mountain hikes and tested our wings (and legs), proving that we can look forward to more hikes in the future. Returning home across Newfound Gap and on the Blue Ridge Parkway, we enjoyed gorgeous views and another beautiful highland hike. 

View from our Waterock Knob hike

Smoky Mountain pics 

Parkway pics

On our way home, we had a delightful visit in Hickory with Jay’s BFF Jeff Tice and his daughter, then visited Lenoir Rhyne University where we were treated to a detailed tour of their new chapel.     

Other travel this year took us on trips down memory lane. On a spring trip to Lancaster, PA, with the Bakers and Pierces, we saw the Sight and Sound Theater presentation of Sampson. We revisited our favorite haunts in Amish country. In June, we looked much further back into Ann’s heritage while visiting Charles and JoAnn Newland in Eastern TN. He’s the guardian of the Newland family archives. Sharing time with them is always spiritually uplifting, informative, and fascinating. We had fun researching deeds at the court house, a first for all of us. We explored ideas for preserving our Newland family history for future generations. 

 We visited the John Anderson blockhouse museum.
Our ancestor hosted many people, including 

Daniel Boone, gathering to make the trip through

the Cumberland Gap to Kentucky.

While Tom was in Finland, Ann visited her dear friend Joyce Morris, our matron of honor. We looked back over memories and stirred a little new trouble just for the fun of it. Ann was delighted to reconnect with Pierce cousins while in New Bern. What a wonderful family the Stranges are! 

Closer to home, we again enjoyed many of our yearly favorites including Carolina Ballet, cheering on the Durham Bulls and the Mudcats, Artsplosure, the International Festival, and the NC State Fair.  It’s great fun to have Sally’s family nearby so we can watch Ella play volleyball and Anna act in plays. It was sad for the “elementary school season” of our lives together to end as Anna moved up to middle school. We scored a win entertaining Anna and her friends at the NCSU vet school open house. Seeing Lion King with the Bobers was a special treat. Having Tom’s cousin Jan and her husband Gary nearby is a lot of fun, too.
Our Christian community remains central in our lives. We continue in Community Bible Study leadership. A challenging faith journey led us to a new host church for our class. The facility and staff are a blessing as are our studies of Philippians, Mark, and Galatians. Hope Lutheran nourishes and blesses us abundantly. We continue in choir. Serving at Tim Tebow’s Night to Shine prom for developmentally delayed adults and Touched by Hope, a free medical/dental clinic, brought blessings to those served and to us. This year we’ve become confirmation mentors for six 5th graders. We’ve been "adopted" by to two families. God is so good to share the gift of children to love and enjoy. The men’s and women’s retreats are great fun and help us grow in faith. We treasure the precious relationships we build there. Blessings abound!

Two distressing events clouded our year. A young man, who had been cutting trees all day in the sweltering heat, made an unfortunate decision to make an illegal U-turn into Tom’s path that totaled our newest car (2005 Lexus). Ryan, a man of character who had very little materially, is the antithesis of Olympian Ryan whose escapades dominated the news at the time. May God mercifully restore our Ryan’s loss. We’re deeply grateful that we were protected from injury. In October Hurricane Matthew attacked the eastern half of NC. We benefitted from the 8” of rain, but many in the state were devastated by the storm and ensuing flooding. Recovery efforts in low lying areas will be necessary for quite a while.

An October birthday surprise from Oscar and Dory looks back on Tom’s childhood. Oscar made a beautiful frame, partially from wood from their childhood barn. Inspired by a Family Circus cartoon that ponders what good could possibly come out a one room school house, they included a picture of Tom’s elementary school and his 8th grade teacher. Another special feature is a license plate from his birth year that was on the family Model A, the one Tom drove to grade school packing a rifle that he used to pick off jackrabbits in their white winter coats. The one room schools produced impressive results for all the Thompson brothers!

One of the delights of Christmas is hearing from friends and family. We wish for you abundant blessings through Advent and Christmas. May you be blessed with well-being and joy through the coming year.

Tom & Ann