My friend Monas house

These pictures are from Monas son, Vikram, his room....I love all the colors that she has on the walls.

This is at the top of the landing right off of the master bedroom, it is so cozy.

Upstairs hallway

Entry way, it is so welcoming!!

Part of the family room.

Eating area and kitchen.

Even her laundry room is decorated.

A sculpture in the upstaris hallway.

While we were in Vancouver, we stayed with our friends, Mona and Anoop. Mona owns her own decorating business called, Elegant Interiors by Mona. she is very talented. It seems that the decorating craze lately is having an all white house, but I love all the color that Mona uses in her home. She has exquisite taste!! She has such an eye for detail. We always feel so welcome in their home, thank you Mona for putting up with the Thompson clan again!!!

Spring Break in Olympia

The reasons that I want to move back to the Northwest!!! I miss this sweet family so much. Caralynn is nine weeks old now and she is adorable! She is smiling the cutest smile, she is also feisty like her mom!
The best looking Grandpa that I have ever seen! WE want to take her home with us!

Our fun loving Bristyn....she really does not like us right now!! First of all, we took her away from all of her friends for spring break, can you believe that? We must be the worse parents in the world, she actually thought that we would let her stay in Fort Collins by herself to hang out with all of her friends! We drove here to Olympia and it took about 18 hours in the car, she didn't talk to us for the first 12 hours (now that I think about it, that was kinda nice!!). When we were looking on the internet at homes, she started crying, she does not want to move. I am really torn about this. My family and close friendships that I have are here in the Northwest, but Bristyn is so happy in Fort Collins. She told me that we can move, but that she is staying in Colorado.

Is it Spring YET???

I am totally yearning for Spring!! I love the color green, and to me it is such a Spring color...right now in Colorado, everything is still dead and brown. I need the lush green of the northwest!! This Saturday, we are heading to Olympia to visit our daughter and granddaughter, I can hardly wait!!! Bristyn and Brenton have Spring break next week, we were going to go to Las Vegas, but I miss my family so much and I need to see that sweet baby!!

Since I haven't blogged in weeks, I thought that I should mention that Bristyn tried out and made the Fort Collins High School soccer team. They are off to a great start already. This is a picture of Bristyn pigging out on the best chicken noodle soup that I made, sometimes, I am a good mom!!!

Happy Birthday to the BEST husband in the world...Mike turned 42 on March 7th, and all I have to say is that he is getting better with age!! I LOVE HIM!!! Even though he lectures me about my spending habits!!

A little bit of red...and a bit of the "blues"

As everyone knows, our granddaughter, Caralynn, was born on January 8, 2010. We are so excited to have her in our family....the only bad thing is, our daughter, Britnee, lives in Olympia, Washington and we live in Fort Collins, Colorado. We moved to Colorado almost 4 years ago, to help our son, Bradley, get through some pretty tough situations that he was in. Bradley is doing very well now, and as a matter of fact, has moved back to Vancouver, and is attending Clark College. We even got a letter from Clark stating that he is in the top 5% of the student body in grades. My dilemma...do we move back to Vancouver and be near our family or stay here in Fort Collins? I know it is very hard for teenagers to move...Bristyn is very torn, she is 15 and does not want to move, it took her 2 years to get used to Fort Collins and doesn't want to go through moving again. Brenton wants to move...and I just want to be near my older kids. I know that we won't always be near our kids and grandkids, but I so miss Vancouver and I also have some very close friendships there. I NEED HELP!!! Oh, and Mike, he will do whatever the rest of us decides!! He is the best husband!!

INTRODUCING.....

Sweet baby Caralynn Rose Garwood. Our daughter, Britnee, had her baby this past Friday night, January 8, 2010. Caralynn weighed in at 8 pounds 8 ounces and 21 inches long. She is a beautiful baby, and I am not saying that because I am the proud Grandma...or as the kids are calling me, G-Maw! She has a head full of hair and she looks alot like what Britnee looked like when she was born. We are over joyed with the birth of our first granddaughter. I flew out to Olympia yesterday and will be here for the next two weeks to spoil my daughter and granddaughter. Words cannot express how blessed our family is with this baby, Heavenly Father has truly blessed us with Caralynn.

I.LOVE.THESE.PLATES!!!!

The first time that I saw these plates in the Pottery Barn catalog, I knew that I wanted to have them. I didn't even say anything to my husband about them, but he must have looked through the catalog and he tried to order them, but they were sold out!!! WELL, for Christmas, my two really good friends, Jessica and Dana gave me a gift certificate to Pottery Barn, so we drove down to Boulder, and they were completely out of the plates, I was soooo sad!!! I came home, called Pottery Barn and they gave me some numbers to call of stores across the nation....I tracked down the plates in Santa Barbara, and the bowls in Chevy Chase, Maryland. They arrived yesterday in the mail. I absolutely love them!!

Happy New Year

BEFORE

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

AFTER

Happy New Years!!! This year, I have decided that I need to be more organized.....I think that I am pretty organized, until I open my pantry or my kitchen drawers. Not to put the blame on anyone else, but it is not always me who puts the food away in the pantry. So, on January 1st, I decided to clean out the pantry and my kitchen drawers. I love opening the pantry and seeing how nice and organized it is, it makes looking for items alot easier. Next up on my list of things to clean out, my closet!!!

Santa Claus is coming to town...

Just wanted to wish everyone a Wonderful, Merry Christmas! May everyone be blessed at this joyous time of the year.

Snowboarding at Copper Mountain

This past Thursday, Brad came home for the holidays, he has a month vacation from college!!! That night, we surprised Bristyn with an early Christmas gift, a snowboard!! That is all she has been asking for for months. It is totally Bristyn, it is so cute!! On Friday, we went and spent the night up in Frisco. On Saturday, we went to Copper Mountain for a day of snowboarding, it was a blast. Bristyn and Brenton are getting pretty dang good at it, and Brad is a beast on the mountain, like he says, he is a mountain man!!! Couldn't tell from all that facial hair!!!! Today is our 23rd anniversary!!! We are having our entire family over for dinner this evening to celebrate Christmas, but Mike and I are planning on going to Denver one day this week to spend the night, can't wait!!!

Tougher than he looks!!!

We are so excited for our Brenton. This past season, Brenton decided that he wanted to wrestle, and frankly, the sport grosses me out. As everyone knows, Brenton is our mild, meek and timid child, but, as we learned, get him out on a wrestling mat, and he is a maniac!!! At the beginning of the season, we were VERY worried when we watched him wrestle, but as the weeks went on, we saw a huge change. I guess getting picked on by your older brother all of these years, paid off!! He wrestled in the 80 pound division, and he wrestled varsity for his school. He was so good about keeping to his diet and not putting on any weight. This past weekend was the district championship and Brenton came in 4th place, it was awesome (and very stressful for me to watch!!). He was the only 7th grader from he school to make it into the championship finals. By the end of the season, I was yelling and cheering instead of being grossed out, half the time, I kept thinking he would get ring worm or something!! We are very proud of him and what he accomplished. In January, he will start training for the Regional competition.

December

Sorry this picture is so blurry, it didn't look blurry when I uploaded it!!!

Britnee, Mike, Bristyn and Brenton.....in Estes Park

Seriously, my husband is hot!!!!

I haven't been able to blog for the last couple of weeks because we have been so busy. Our daughter, Britnee and Chris have been here for the last 2 weeks. While here, my family (but not me, I had to work) went up to Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Forest, they had a great time and saw a ton of animals....I have to say, Brenton took all the pictures that day and they are all so good. We also had a little baby shower for Britnee, where she got spoiled again. Mike took Chris fishing, Chris had never gone before...he might not want to go any more since going with Mike!!! Mike loves his fishing.....we did alot of shopping and just hanging out together. Yesterday, my day was filled cleaning and decorating for Christmas. I love how our home looks when it is Christmas time, so cozy!! These pictures of some of the decorations are not the best....I am in desperate need of a new camara...whenever I snap a picture, my camara lets out a little smoke...NOT GOOD!!! Maybe that is what I will ask for for Christmas!!! Oh, and today when we woke up there was about 8 inches of snow outside and it is still snowing!!!