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!

Comments

  1. dang! I grew up in Northern Michigan and we occasionally saw bear, too, but recently my parents' neighbors spotted a COUGAR in their yard! Yikes - won't be letting my kids play outside at Grandma's.

    Hope you get to camp this summer - I LOVE camping - can I come with you??? :D

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  2. Good coffee camping? http://www.handpresso.com!
    Put together with the bodum milk frother, all you need is a heat source for milk and water, and you can have a good quality latté. Or just add water for an americano. Doubles as a bike pump (or at least looks like one). Bring your running shoes for camping with bear in town. (There's an old joke to go with that one- don't try to out run the bear...)

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  3. Oh my gosh - I wouldn't ever leave the house!! Scary!!

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  4. Wow! That's so cool and so terrifying all at once! I'm actually feeling kinda grateful for our pesky squirrels!

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  5. I'm glad your whole family enjoyed camping out in the yard...and we do the whole air mattress thing too...even Riley has his own lol.

    Wow that bear being so close is very SCAREY...

    As for good coffee camping...well I don't mind instant coffee so that's what we have...something about being camping even makes it taste better.

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  6. what's up with the bear? my sister in NJ just had one in her yard. Hmm..I move back east in 16 days...am I trading dying in an earthquake for being malled to death by a bear in my own backyard???

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  7. I grew up in the country but we NEVER had a bear show up!
    BTW, does your neighbor feed the animals and stuff?? Like leave seed and stuff? Cuz that would be DUMB. LOL

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  8. I saw your facebook post of the bear...that is CA-razy!!! I think I would feel the same way...no more backyard camping for a while! Although, the pics are great and sounds like it was SO much fun! We've thought about doing that with Isaiah, but our backyard is a little torn up right now w/ the construction and all...so, won't happen for us right now either.

    Hope you guys are having a great week!♥

    P.S. I was LOLing over the Chinese Restaurant incident.

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  9. I can TOTALLY relate! Our raccoons got caught... well 2 of them did & we think the other 3 died. The 2 that were caught went to a refuge. Only 1 made it. I guess they were still small enough they should have still been nursing. Poor babies, but still don't want them out & about around my neighborhood! Hubby mowed the lawn the other day... found LOTS of snakes (not huge ones like yours but still) he left one line of tall grass & instructed the girls not to go beyond it when playing outside. Living in town but backed up to woods is apparently being in the boonies & having nature knock on your door all the stinkin time!

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  10. You guys need to stay inside and watch the old movie, "The Great Outdoors" with Dan Akroyd and John Candy. Great bear scenes!
    P.S. I would have a nervous breakdown if I saw a bear.

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  11. AHHHHHHHH!! And I thought the snakes I saw today were bad...enough to give me nightmares but a BEAR????


    ~Becca

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  12. Looks like fun, Jen! But, oh my goodness, no more camping with bears!!

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  13. Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my. We don't even have bears that close way up here.

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  14. That is just plain crazy. Can you imagine if you had been camping out and that bear strolled up? Wow!

    I got my Eclipse tickets today - yay! I am sure you have had yours for awhile. We are going to the midnight showing - I can't wait!

    Thanks for showing me that cute towel. i am going to try to track it down :) Have a great weekend Jen!

    XOXO
    jen

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  15. What I'm thinking is that since you guys never went to the bear's neighborhood to camp, he just came to yours:)

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