Welcome to MayBEARy

Camping out is something we've wanted to do with the kids for a while now - Evie and William are so into video games & electronic entertainment that we thought camping and getting away from all that would be really good for us as a family, and we figured we needed to start them young - WAY younger than I was at 12 when my parents bought the pop-up (Hi, Dad!) We bought a tent at Costco the spring after Jason was born and that summer Matt yard-camped with the big kids a few times while I stayed in the house with the little two.

Last summer, for whatever reason, it didn't happen - we had a cool, rainy start to the summer & then things just got busy.

Now that Jason is no longer in a crib, we figured this was a great time to get started - camp out in the yard to get everyone used to it and figure out what we need at a bare minimum (which would apparently include an inflatable queen-size mattress for the the old geezers of the bunch) before we attempt to actually travel away from the comfort of our home (I will also need coffee - preferably decent coffee - ready immediately upon waking - any ideas on how to manage that?)

Over Memorial Day weekend we (ie: Matt, of course! - with some 'help' from Jason) pitched our tent in the backyard and slept under the stars. Oh my gosh the moon was HUGE at about 4am! Anyway - here's the blurry proof, courtesy of my phone, that a good time was had by all:
The picture Matt took of me was immediately deleted due to its horrific nature, but you get the idea. I was amazed, Sarah and Jason did really great & slept through the night outside - I thought surely one of them would want to come in.

So the plan was to do this in our yard a few times. I don't think we're going to be doing that anymore, at least for a while....



That, my friends, is about a 200 lb black bear eating the bird seed out of my neighbor's bird feeder, as seen from his kitchen window. People, this is like 40 feet from my deck (give or take). We don't live in the woods, we live in a neighborhood IN TOWN. Granted, there are woods directly behind our house but they aren't extensive (or so I thought.) I would like to know what wildlife/nature show is punking us and releasing all the animals around my house to freak me out??

The police came & talked to everyone and today the local TV station came by and interviewed Matt and our neighbor & they were on the evening news! Here's the link to the article and the video - I have no idea how long it will be up & haven't figured out if we can save it somehow or not, but check it out! It's short and won't take too much time :)

Needless to say, my children will not be playing outside unattended for a while, nor will I be running in the wee dark hours of the morning (like that ever really happened anyway) and hopefully Mr. Bear will not find anything to eat around here and move along to someplace more appropriate for him. I'll take the bunnies, squirrels and deer, but the snakes, groundhogs and most especially BEAR can just MOVE ALONG, thankyouverymuch!