My summer vacation

In June we traveled with most of our kids and grandkids out west for a mega family reunion honoring the descendents of Agnes and Chris Lallatin. We visited log cabins:

Daughter Carrie's

Brother Spencer's

cavorted with Jammie and Carrie's yaks and horses

saw temples, tabernacles and assembly halls in Vernal, Brigham City, Ogden and Salt Lake where we played in the creek that flows through the meadow on the rooftop and down the side of the conference center and listened to a pin drop in the tabernacle before enjoying a short concert on the pipe organ.

We saw lots of balancing rocks, chimney rocks, rock arches, cliff dwellings, and caves.

Of course, the whole reason for the trip was a two day reunion of the descendents of Agnes and Chris Lallatin, the children of German and Scottish pioneers to Utah.

It was instigated by Aunt Gwen, the last of their children and organized by my cousin Lorene and my brother Spencer and his wife Donna. As soon as my children heard about it and that it would be at the Kunz cabin at Bear Lake, they all said "We want to be there," since Aunt Gwen served as their surrogate grandmother when they attended BYU from Florida and they love her so much. Here's all the Thompson kin from me and my two brothers Spencer and Chris who made it. Do you recognize them all?

Of course, Aunt Gwen was the guide to the ancestral sites in Meadowville, south of Bear Lake, and nearby Soda Springs on the Oregon Trail in Idaho.

I'll show more about Meadowville later this month in honor of Pioneer Day. In Soda we did the traditional stops at the geyser and Hooper Springs to drink the bubbly water.

Here's a picture of all the Lallatin descendents that made it to Soda Springs, the family hometown. We're sitting in the high school gym where many of them were basketball players or cheerleaders in their youth. About half of the people in this picture are Thompsons, not a bad turn out when you remember that my mother was one of 10 children. My dad Robert taught music in the high school in the late 30's and early 40's where he met my mother Vivianne Lallatin, married her, and moved to California. I was born there and the rest is Thompson history.

That evening, Gwen was crowned the queen of the royal family by her nephew Gerald, who is actually older than she is since she was the "surprise" baby of the Lallatin family.

and the eleven grandchildren of Agnes and Chris Lallatin in attendance were awarded metals of honor.

On Saturday the Thompson branch of the family was in charge of feeding 150 people fajitas and explaining the Spanish connection to the German Lallatins since most of the Thompson clan speaks Spanish. So Kim, our information specialist from Australia, explained how German settlers in Texas brought their oompah polka music from Germany, the Texas Mexicans liked it and copied it to create the Tex-Mex Norteño music so popular in northern Mexico and southeastern US. Robert, our dance expert, taught everyone to dance Mexican style to the music. To top it off, we had two piñatas, one for the children and one for the adults.

Here are some other Thompson pictures that grandma wanted me to include, including the surprise "extreme make-ever" that Kim and Chrissy did to Eric and Debbie's bedroom as a house warming gift for their new house.

WHOA! Do you recognize these interlopers to the Thompson-Lallatin fun? Maybe that good food and sunshine we enjoyed at the reunion at Bear Lake would put some meat on their bones and improve their skin color! Does anyone have a spare bathing suit to loan them? (Thompson-Lallatin was my family name when we lived in Mexico.)