Close Encounters of the "Bear" Kind

Hello all,

Haven't blogged in awhile and I have LOTS to say! First off, I'll tell ya about the title of the blog. Two days ago, my shihtzu dog was barking at 2 a.m. in the morning and wouldn't shut up for anything. So dh gets out of bed to see what's going on. Yep, you guessed it a HUGE black bear in our front yard dragging the garbage can across the yard and plopping himself down and eating out of the bag! Wow, what a site. DH jumps in bed and tells me about it, I watch it from my picture window (not even 10 feet away from the bear). So I decide to get a BRIGHT idea and go out onto the deck and take some pictures!! Well, it didn't even realize we were there. After 15 minutes of watching it on the deck, dh thinks it's going to be a pain to clean up ALL that garbage and proceeds to the kitchen to get pots and pans and bag them together to stop the bear. You think that worked?? NO, it just got the bear ANGRY as it started to walk towards us. We run into the house and lock the door then watch it some more out of the picture window. As bright as we are again, we decide to go BACK out to the deck to watch it and hear some other noises behind my car, you guessed it! Another bear!! The first bear stands on it's hind legs it goes at least 7 feet tall and leans against the front tree and makes some noises! The other bear left but did leave some nice teeth marks on our garbage can. As the other bear is still now standing 7 feet tall against the tree, we go inside and wake the boys up to tell them what's going on and they watch from the picture window. NOT outside!! Dh and I proceed to wonder what we should do because it is TERRORIZING our garbage everywhere. We go BACK outside on the deck and dh throws something at it. It looks up at us and start walking towards us again!! Yeah we're not bright but it was adventurious! After 15 minutes, it walks away and goes down over our hill and we can't see it no more. We tucked the kids back into bed and go back to bed ourselves. The next morning there is a HUGE pressed down patch of grass where the bear must have taken comfort in all night. Wow, exciting. I'll attach pictures but all you see is the EYES!! This was all happening when our HUGE spotlight was on too. It was as bright as daylight out!!

This was the same day as my little babies birthday. I can NOT believe he is 7!! He is just so preciously adorable and I can't imagine him being 7 years old. He is still my snuggler, cuddler and most self sufficient little one I have!! I will also attach a picture of him on his birthday!!

Dustin is still doing really well in school. He is doing well in football, he's quarterback now. They lost today but he did score a touchdown in a quarterback keeper! The opposing team had 4 td's and we had 3 td's. We only have 2 more games left of youth ball and Dustin will go to Jr. High School ball next year. That's when I give up my position on the board for youth league. I will miss everyone dearly and the interaction with different organizations is great but it's time to move on to bigger and better things.

Cameron is having a hard time adjusting to Jr. High! He is just learning how to get his own schedule down and take his responsibilities on. They have something call EdLIne in our school district where we can track there grades and homework from day to day and it gives us ALL the teachers email address to contact. Believe me, I will be doing this. In one week Cameron went from and A to a C in two classes!! NOT going over well in our household!! How do we teach responsbilities? ONly thing I can do is hold him accountable for his actions and help him along!!

Dh got a new job this week. He's foreman of his shift! He's over seeing 30 something people for the afternoon shift. Big Big change for him. He has to dress up and he's home later in the afternoon but he does have his own desk and freedom comes as it goes on. We did get him alot of new clothes for his job at GoodWill you'll never believe the deals we got!! All of his dress pants are Dockers and he got Nike Polo Shirts/ Columbia/ Ambercrombie & Fitch / American Eagle. Lots of things...he's very happy with his wardrobe now.

As for me, work is going fine. Nothing exciting just trying to keep up with everyone else in my family.