Nicholas' Birthday (from October)

For Nicholas' birthday this year we took the kids to the Oregon Zoo. My Mom and Al, Robert's Mom, Brother, Sister-in-Law and their 3 little ones joined us. The kiddos had a lot of fun even though at the beginning of our day Nicholas and his cousin Garrett got separated from our group. It was awful. We all thought someone else was watching them and no one realized they weren't with us until we were at the next animal exhibit. Amanda finally realized they weren't with us and luckily she chose the right path to run searching for them on. Thankfully Garrett had been told that if he was ever separated from his parents that he should stay right where he is because they will come back and find him. So he was waiting patiently with a smile on his face when Amanda found them. Unfortunately, Nicholas was not so calm. His Mommy and Daddy never thought about talking to him about the possibility of getting separated from us. Lesson learned. So after finally calming Nicholas down and reassuring him that he was okay and safe now, we continued with the rest of our exhausting day at the zoo. More exhausting for the adults than the kids. How does that work? Over all, we had a very nice time and the kids really enjoyed it.

Annual Campbell Family Pumpkin Patch Visit

To understand your parents' love you must raise children yourself.

I thought I'd share some of our family's musical talent with you all. This was at the children's museum in Klamath this last Saturday. I'm so proud!! :-) Grandparents- this is not an idea for a Christmas present!

Neighborhood Threat

This is officially the first time I have second guessed us buying this house. Last Tuesday a horse at the big blue/violet house on the corner when you first turn into our neighborhood was attacked by a COUGAR!!! I almost puked when I first heard about it on Friday. We have been receiving email updates about the incident and what is being done about it and so far I am not feeling any better. Honestly, who could? Especially having the thing attack a flippin' HORSE in the middle of the afternoon! On Sunday we received an email saying that a "HUGE" cougar was spotted a few weeks ago about 1/2 mile south of the intersection of Clear Lake Rd and Fir Butte Rd. (this is an intersection we can see from our back door). Plus there have been cougar sightings on Alvadore Road (a little farther up Clear Lake) and another horse attacked on Fleck road just south of Fern Ridge Lake. So basically we are in this things hunting territory. The safe feeling I have had since we moved in here is pretty much gone. How am I supposed to let the kids go outside to play now without hovering over them and constantly scanning the fields around us. I just can't. You see, the other thing is, 2 Saturdays ago, Robert was out of town (it figures) so I stayed up really late watching movies and when I went to bed, the dogs in the neighborhood were going nuts. They were making such a ruckus that I actually got the shotgun and ammo out and stuck a switchblade next to my pillow. So after lying in bed for a while with my eyes plastered open, I heard this horrible sound in front of our house. It sounded like an animal being attacked. I jolted upright and sat there listening but didn't hear anything else. I talked myself into believing that maybe a raccoon had attacked a cat (but there weren't any fighting sounds). Now I am almost positive it was the cougar I heard and that had all the dogs in the neighborhood worked up. As you can probably tell, I am more than a little bit stressed about this. If anyone is out driving this way and you happen to see a large cat, please take aim and step on the gas. I will be forever thankful.

Beginning is easy--Continuing is hard

I am so happy to say that I am actually doing what I always saw myself doing as a wife and mother. Growing up, my sister, Alissa, and I would spend a few weeks each summer with our Gramma and Grampa Campbell. We have such fond memories of those weeks (as I know my other siblings and cousins do too). A few of those memories are- the smell of freshly baked bread and the taste of a buttered slice still warm from the oven; the always full cookie jar; the tupperware drawer and uncooked macaroni noodles; watching Cosby Show reruns; movie nights with fresh popped popcorn and Junior Mints; giggling in bed, not ready to fall asleep, until Grampa would holler down the heating vent at us to be quiet; walks around the neighborhood; fresh carrots out of the garden or sliced up in water in the fridge; playing Aggravation and Blitz with Gramma and GGma; going to GGma's and playing Skip-Bo; Murpy and Trixie; snapping grean beans; spending what I'm sure was ear piercing time at the piano trying to make up songs; and so many more wonderful memories it would take forever to name them all. Anyway, I always saw myself baking bread for my own family, canning grean beans, having a big garden and just having that laid back atmosphere in my home. I started some of that over the last month or so and I am so excited and proud of myself for actually doing it instead of just thinking about doing it. My sister-in-law and I canned green beans, pears and stewed tomatoes together. I also froze corn and froze homemade applesauce from the apples on our trees. It made for very long and tiring days but was also so rewarding when finished. Then, I made fresh bread last week (I cheated and used our bread machine) and was so excited to cut slices for Nicholas and Nathan while it was still warm. I buttered the slices and gave them to the boys eager for oohs and aahs and "this is yummy" but what I got was "I don't like this kind of bread" and barely nibbled slices left on the table. What a disappointment! Next time I will take the time to use Gramma's recipe and attempt the kneading and raising. Sometimes, shortcuts just don't pay off. :-)
My sister-in-law and I have decided that we definitely need to get a big garden going in our back field so we don't have to pay for all the food to can next year. I invite any and all friends and family to join us in this venture. I know times are tough and produce is outrageously priced for the most part. We have a large back field that is doing nothing but sit there unused. We love having company at our house so it would not bother us in the least to have people stopping by to work on the garden when time allows. We plan on prepping the ground this fall hopefully within the next month. Right now we plan on having green beans, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, peppers, blueberries, raspberries, (maybe strawberries), pumpkins and zucchini. Depending on the response and help we get, this could be a very nice garden for everyone to enjoy. Robert will be able to do a watering system so anyone interested would just need to help with planting, pruning, weed and pest control, and harvesting. With enough of us helping, it shouldn't be very time consuming or hard (I hope). This is something Amanda and I are going to be doing with or without anyone else but if you would like to be a part of it to reap the benefits of the harvest, let me know so we can plan for more plants and space. You would also be welcome to have a space of your own if there is something in particular you would like to grow. Please don't be shy or hesitant. We are truly open to this and would love to open our garden to you. Not having to pay for all that produce would be wonderful.

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare

Cousin Kyle and the boys watching an airplane after feeding the horses.

My husband is a wonderful man and I love him dearly but we are such opposites on how we attack a project. The above Ancient Ayurvedic Proverb fits us nicely. I have great (Robert might use another word) visions on how I want things to look in our yard and in our house but mine normally end up being the daydream because I can't tackle most of it with two kids hanging on my legs. Robert, on the other hand, will decide spur-of-the-moment that he is going to tear something down, build something or remodel something. Usually without thought of how THE WIFE will react when she comes home and finds a new project in the works. So his vision that is created during the already started project becomes my nightmare. I truly try so very hard to keep my mouth shut because I know that when he finishes one of his projects, it is always very nice and I am always very happy with it. I'm just a planner and organizer and I want to know how the project is going to turn out before it is started and when the estimated finish time is. I want to scour magazines and books and websites for ideas and figure out costs and a timeline. But I also have a hard time with motivation and making decisions because there are so many different visions in my head of what I want, making it difficult to decide on just one. So I suppose you could say that we are good for eachother in the sense that I am forced to make decisions quickly and not given a chance to have a lack of motivation. And sometimes (though I can't think of a single instance at the moment) I am able to convince Robert that maybe we should wait to start something until the first project is completed. Anyway, the thing that started this today is the boys playstructure. We have known that we wanted one for them but didn't know what exactly. One day in August, Robert came home with a tractor and started drilling post holes. Now we have seven very tall posts concreted into the ground, two of which are connected by a beam with two swings hanging from it. The kids are having a blast with it. Nicholas has figured out how to swing on his own and Nathan likes to fly like Super Man on his tummy. Robert is still trying to decide what he wants to do with the other six posts in the ground. He has grand ideas but nothing finalized yet. I'm a little nervous to see what it will become. I think this playstructure will be a project that lasts a very long time because I think Robert will always come up with something bigger and better to do with it (the other night he mentioned possibly connecting it by a bridge to a fort built on the roof of the shed). Like I said, my nightmare. I would have been happy just buying the one at Costco. :-)

Here we go!!

I am so excited to be a part of the blogging world. My cousin Andrea was saying how she thinks in blogs now, always considering what would make a good blog entry. I feel I do the same but haven't had my own to just babble on, which is pretty much all I do- babble. As I'm sure everyone will notice in my future entries, my mind is not all there- half is concentrating on being a good mother to my sons (I surprisingly have not yet pulled all my hair out) and the other half is trying to communicate through e.s.p. with my husband (no luck yet but I'll keep you posted). Anyway, have fun trying to keep up with my scattered thoughts. I know I will have fun posting them.