Campbell Family Reunion - June 2008

We had a really fun time at the reunion this year, thanks to my sister-in-law, Emily, who organized a bunch of activities and the food! There were games and gunny-sack races, fajitas and spaghetti, pictures and swimming, puzzle contests and bicycle races, and even a talent and family skit show. Wow! We packed it all into a couple of days!

Summer Fun... thus far

Summer has been fun so far. We've been to several new local parks and have installed

a new sandbox in our backyard. You can probably tell by looking at these photos that

Beau has been having the most fun.

Also on our agenda this summer we've been to Jumpin' Jacks, a new indoor romping room.

Beau was totally fearless and wore daddy out with all the action. They had slides and bouncing rooms and mazes. Beau's favortite thing to do was tackle the inflated pillars.

When Matt went to Alamo

When Matt went to Alamo I was a very lonely girl. It's not the Alamo you might be thinking of, it was the one in Nevada. Yep, in the middle of nowhere. He went there for work and was gone overnight. He was tentatively scheduled to be gone for 3 days, but they were able to work long and hard for only 2 days and were able to return home early. Either way, this left me home with Beau and the dog.

This sort of thing probably wouldn't be a big deal to any of you, but for me it wasn't any fun. I have a lot of anxiety being home alone. It wasn't that bad this time, however, because the dog was very in tune with my nervousness and seemed to watch over me. (He's definitely adopted me as his momma.) Because of my anxiousness, however, I didn't get to bed until 4:30am because every little creak and bummed made me freak out and jump. Yep, I was just a big ball of nerves.

I'm just happy my hubby is home. I missed him.

welcome to the family hinckley!

Hinckley is pretty awesome, I must say. He is already completely house-trained and knows "sit," "come," "stay," and "shake." He let's Beau pet him and look at him without even flinching. Beau is super excited and has hugged Hinckley, which was totally adorable. Another cute thing that happened was when Beau was playing with his trucks. He usually drives them on our arms or legs for fun, but he saw a new opportunity and walked right over to Hinckley and drove it up his back. Hinckley didn't even care. He just sat there, unbothered. I was shocked and started to react thinking the dog would freak out, but I didn't need to, apparently.

This morning Beau woke up wanting "Hinky" and then after naptime he woke up crying because he wanted to see the doggy. (Ahhhh...) Also last night he walked up to Hinckley and gave him a big hug. I think he's beginning to mesh pretty well with us. I think he might be a mutt. My friend's family had 2 Lab's and they are both shorter and thicker than Hinckley, and his face is much longer, too. We'll see what the vet says tomorrow...

Rrhea, Rash, Ear Infections and Open Wounds

So, I feel like a totally crappy mom. My little Beau has been suffering a lot lately. He was fine after the antibiotics for the strep, but since then he's gotten ill in different ways. He started have massive diarrhea right after he started the antibiotics. This then began a rash. We treated it with extremely gracious amounts of Desitin which didn't seem to help, because the rash has sustained itself and additionally has created open wounds on his tiny little hiny. Now, to top it off, he still had a mucousy cough and runny nose which ended up being a full-blown double ear infection with one really, really bad ear.

So, it's more antibiotics for Beauzer along with prescription bum-paste and Immodium AD. Wowee kazowee! My poor little man.

In other new and interesting life changes, we've decided to adopt. The papers are final. We got a boy who's 6 years old and black. He's tall too. We're totally happy and excited, and he's very patient with Beau. We think they'll be good friends.

Our garden continues to grow. I picked a sprig of Romaine lettuce and shared it with the fam. YUM! Even baby romaine is tastey! We need to thin our carrots, apparently, per Dadpal. Tells you what I know about gardening. Oh well, there's a learning curve for everyone! I'm sure all will be okay as long as Hinckley doesn't get into the garden and dig it up. Oh, yeah, the boy we adopted is a Labrador Retreiver. We named him Hinckley after our previous prophet. He's a good old boy.

Are You Serious?

Believe it or not, Matt has strep throat, again. Yep, it's the 3rd time since January. We're getting really good at recognizing the symptoms by now, that's for sure. We believe the base of the problem is that Matt still has his tonsils. (I didn't know anyone had tonsils after the age of 6... I'm serious. That's when mine were cut out.) Anyway, the doctor told Matt that when he was feeling better to go back in to discuss removal. If it will quiet the snoring I think it will be a miracle in itself, besides the end of strep! So, I'm all for it! Other than that everything is good here. My knee is doing really well, the garden is sprouting, homemade bread still rocks the house, and I made lasagna for dinner last night. YUM!

In Beau news, he has recently acquired the word, "Yes." For me this is a delight, because he likes to say it, (as it's a new word..) so lots of my questions get answered, "Yes!" He also acquired the words "potty," and "peepee." I don't know why. He is getting more friendly with my friends' kids and now greets them by name. The other day two of his pals were over and I put him down for a nap. When he woke up I got a snuggle and then he looked at me and said, "Spencer?" (his pal.) Which told me he still wanted to play after nap time. It was cute. He's been getting more vocal every week with actual words and he also seems taller to me. It's crazy how fast he grows and learns. I'm amazed by him all of the time.

Surgery Update

My knee is healing just fine. I had an extremely low-key week after the surgery. So low-key in fact, that I was deliriously bored, thus on Monday my friend and I made strawberry jam. It was quite an adventure for two women who'd never made jam before not to mention that one of them was a gimp. Since the jam came out so wonderfully, the next day my friend came over and made bread. After two days of endless activity my knee was more swollen than it was right after surgery. And the pain?!? Oy ve. Needless to say, Wednesday was recovery day, again. And Thursday too. Oh well. It's not all that unusual for me to push it too far.

Oh, and on Tuesday, (bread day,) I had an update with my orthopedic surgeon and found out that I had not one, but two tears in my medial meniscus. Not only that, but the underside of the patella was hashed up and needed cleaning, I required a lateral release (cutting of the lateral tendon from the kneecap,) and had a cyst in the front of my knee just below the kneecap. So, I was quite a mess in there, apparently. I'm really glad I got it taken care of now instead of later.