McComb Family

Of our entire 5 acres, we have a little postage stamp sized lawn, but I guess it was enough to attract a dreaded gopher. Or maybe I should say family of gophers. These guys are moving more earth than Bret does with the backhoe. When our lawn first started showing fresh mounds of dirt -- that telltale sign of unwanted guests -- he put the garden hose down their hole and tried flooding them out. Water started coming out of very unexpected spots letting us know that their tunnel system was much more elaborate than we had anticipated.

Time goes by and we discover them over by the pond. Now, the only way to get over there from the lawn is to go under the slab. Yep, piles of rock are now showing up on our lawn which they are digging from under the driveway. We expect the whole thing to collapse on us one of these days!!

In the meantime, obviously the water method did not work so Bret went on to try other methods of destruction. He tried pouring gasoline down the tunnels and lighting them on fire. No such luck. Maybe diesel would work better. Again, fresh piles of dirt soon showed up. Patiently waiting with a shovel over their hole.....well, he got one that way but it didn't seem to make much of a dent in the destruction taking place. There must be dozens of the little buggers down there. Let's see.....he also tried gopher bombs, one of those emitters that vibrates and makes chirping noises around the clock, even chocolate X-Lax (now that was embarrassing having to ask for in the store!). Needless to say, the list goes on and on.

His latest method has just been to stop watering the grass completely and hope they'll go find a more lush home elsewhere. Let me just say that the sod and trucks of soil we had brought in cost a pretty penny and there was plenty of work involved in putting that postage stamp lawn in......I'm not willing to give it up!!! So, sure enough yesterday I go out to see he has come up with yet a new method. Now he's trying to fumigate them out with a little help from the quad and Adam the throttle controller.

Can you say Caddyshack anyone?!

Posted in: on Monday, July 28, 2008 at at 9:35 AM 5 comments  

There are many hats that I wear -- mother, wife, daughter, friend, teacher, team manager/coach, softball player (I'd say athlete, but you'd all know I was lying!!), and on and on. There seems to be one that stands out above all others to many people though, and that is......TEACHER. One of my former students, who I may have again this year, told her mother this morning, "I didn't know Mrs. McComb was such a party animal." Actually after that comment I probably won't have her this year!! He he! : ) Anyway, it all started Friday night when she came over to my house. We had invited several couples from our team to come over (as happens after every game -- it just ended up being our house this time), as well as her parents who are actually "the opposition"!! [Side note: Their team beat us, and as that was the only team we hadn't played yet, we are now officially in last place.....but that's a whole different post!!] We left the game and got here about 10:00, so it was a late night. Everyone left about 1:00, and I guess she later told her mom she couldn't believe I was still up. I hate to tell her that if she and her parents hadn't been here, maybe I wouldn't have been up, but...details!!! Anyway, the next day was her dad's birthday so we went to their house for his birthday party. We had lots of fun. It was even a Mexican theme, so Bret fit right in!! There was swimming, pinatas (one for the kids and one for the adults), food, drinks, and my favorite.....volleyball. I actually have bruises on my forearms today from playing so much last night. Fun, fun. Anyway, we left about 12:30, and I'm guessing that was probably past my "teacher curfew" as well. I'm not sure how I rated as the only party animal out of all the people who were there, but that kind of things seems to regularly happen. I know it always amazes kids when they see their teacher at the grocery store or somewhere out in public, but many parents seem to have the same reaction. I don't get it. They go to their jobs and take care of their daily responsibilities just like I do. Just because I spend my work day in a classroom, does that somehow make me different?? I don't see myself any differently. I'm working to make money for my family and I to live the life we'd like to live just like all families do. I go to work and try to do my best job. Are there times I could do better - heck yeah, but I'm human. Hopefully other people will recognize that too.

Posted in: on Sunday, July 27, 2008 at at 6:13 PM 2 comments  

So I'm on Skype tonight with Ken in Australia and I hear some noises in the background but don't think too much about them. Loud noises and Adam go hand in hand. He finally comes in to tell me there is bad news in the kitchen and that I better come see. Just what every mom wants to hear! I go in there and he hands me an open beer. Well, kind of open. There is a hole that the beer can come out of, but the cap is still on. Here is a picture of the bottle.
He then proceeds to hand me a second one (he was a busy boy!). He must have thought I was really thirsty! : ) Turns out he banged on them with one of our wine stoppers and somehow managed to open them without breaking the glass or spilling them. Pretty amazing!! What will he come up with next?? Ken was more than happy to take one of them off my hands for me -- too bad he's on the other side of the world! He's definitely his daddy's little boy! : )

Also, just to prove that we are consistent -- we got creamed again tonight!! We make a lot of people happy, just none of them are on our team!!! He he!!

Posted in: on Friday, July 18, 2008 at at 10:40 PM 6 comments  

We finally went on our first camping trip this summer and had a fabulous time. We headed down to the ocean (as we do every summer!), because I absolutely love the ocean and Adam has been asking for months when we were going to the beach! : ) We stayed at MacKerricher State Park which I have heard great things about but had never actually been there. New regulations require you to pick the exact site you want to stay in when you register online, so it was kind of just luck of the draw. I checked out the site map and Google Earth, but it's still hard to tell what it will actually be like. I have to stay I did a mighty good job! : ) We had a nice spot, close to the bathroom and the ocean (two musts for me!!!). I wanted to leave out at 8 am Monday, but of course that didn't happen. It ended up being about an hour and a half later! Then we had to stop for groceries, gas, lunch, etc. so we didn't end up getting to the campground until about 4:30 that afternoon. Here we are setting up camp.

Our new tent easily fits two air mattresses and all of our stuff (slightly spoiled, I know!). Here are the kiddos posing for a picture after they had set up all of their goodies.

We started a fire soon after we got there. The weather forecast before we left predicted sun and mid-60s. It was lucky if it hit the 60s at all, and I'm sure the sun was out somewhere, but not where we were!!!

Bret thought kabobs sounded good while we were grocery shopping, so here he is getting dinner going our first night there. Everyone tried everything (which was quite a feat!).

Tuesday we had breakfast and then headed to Glass Beach. For those of you who don't know, it used to be a dump site. The glass is actually worn down pieces of garbage!! Over the years people have taken tons of it, but they've now made it illegal to take the glass. Hopefully it will be there for years to come and allow others to enjoy it. Being with Bret, we of course took the most difficult way to get down to the beach. Poor little Adam was crying his eyes out -- he was a little scared of the cliffs and steep rocks!!

This is a little cave that goes all the way through to the water on the other side. Fun stuff!

Here are Bret and Briana scoping out critters in the water. They had a good time sticking their fingers in anemones and having them close up on them!!

They also collected their favorite pieces they found along the beach. Since you can't take anything with you, we took a picture instead. Briana's loot includes a crab leg and various other goodies!

From Glass Beach we headed back to the site and had lunch before we were back in the truck and heading for the pygmy forest. We had a small diversion along the way though when Briana lost a tooth! This is her fifth tooth that she has lost and it has been some time since she has lost one, so she was quite excited. She wasn't sure if the Tooth Fairy would know were she was, and she didn't have her Tooth Fairy Bear to put her tooth in, so she waited until she got home to put it under her pillow.

We finally reached the pygmy forest, which was not exactly what we thought it would be like, but glad we went nonetheless. The soil is so acidic and lacking in nutrients that trees that would normally grow very tall are stunted and quite short. There are some that are 80 years old and only 2 feet tall!

Then we headed back to the camp site again and stopped at the entrance where they have a small display of whale bones. Here is Bret looking at a grey whale skeleton with the kids in its mouth!!!

We hopped on our bikes and went down to see the tide pools. Unfortunately the lowest tide was at 4 or 5 in the morning, and that wasn't going to happen, so the next best time was about 5 pm. There's a nice beach at MacKerricher to view tide pools, so that's where we went. I wish the tide had been lower, but oh well!! Maybe next time. We found a starfish (or sea star as Adam will tell you!!). He's up on his marine vocabulary - he he!

Here they are poking around in one of the pools. We found tons of anemones and hermit crabs, as well as chitons, limpets, an eel, small fish, sea urchins and all kinds of sea plants too. We had a great time exploring the pools!!!

Once again, we headed back to camp where the boys started dinner and Briana and I went down to the beach. The trail to get down the the beach was right behind our site so it was just a short walk to get to the ocean. We walked down a bit further than the first beach and came across quite a find -- harbor seals!!! They were lounging all over the rocks right off shore so we spent quite some time watching them.

Briana and Kiah walked out on the end of the rocks we were sitting on and these seals were checking out what they were up to. I don't know who was watching who!!

The evening finally ended with dinner and then sitting around a fire. That's one of the great joys of camping -- fires (and of course s'mores!). We went to bed and tried to watch a movie on the laptop, but after all the adventures we had had, none of us lasted more than a few minutes!! We were scheduled to go home the next day, but we decided we hadn't had enough time yet so we asked the ranger if there were any open sites for the next night. Our site was not available, but the one next to us was, so we decided to stay one more night!!

In the morning we packed up all of our stuff and moved it to the site next door. I wish I had a picture of the four of us carrying our tent to the next site, but as we each were holding a corner up, there was no one left for the Kodak moment!!! : ) I'm sure the neighbors thought we were crazy!!! In the foreground is our first site, and in the background is our new site!! Come to find out we really did all that for nothing because the people who reserved our original site never showed up. Oh well -- what can you do!? The second site was more secluded and we could still walk through the other site to get to the beach because no one was there. It made for quite and adventure and that's all the kids really care about anyway!

Now that we didn't have to leave Wednesday we could do other things. Moving took most of the morning and then we just lounged around being kind of lazy. At 2:30 was a Junior Rangers meeting at the front, so the kids went to that. They got to touch and feel all kinds of animal pelts and then do work in their Junior Ranger books. I'm not sure what that all entails, but I do know that they did some pictures of animal paw prints. They both did a really good job and then got awarded with Junior Ranger pins, so they are now official!!!

When they got done, we all went down to the beach (the first time finally for the boys!!!). We flew a kite....

......and had a great time playing in the water. Luckily we stayed another day, because the first time we actually saw the sun poke out from behind the clouds was Wednesday afternoon. We would have been on our way home at that point if we had stuck with the original plan.

That night we roasted marshmallows again and headed off to sleep.

Thursday we once again packed up camp, but this time loaded it up to take home!!! We went into Fort Bragg for lunch and then had ice cream at a place that makes it themselves - yum!!! We left town about 2:30 and it was 61 degrees. Three hours later we were heading down Highway 5 towards Sacramento and it was 95 degrees. I miss it already!!! We got home and the house was hotter inside than outside! Needless to say, I can't wait until our next trip down to the ocean!!!!

Posted in: on Thursday, July 17, 2008 at at 9:13 PM 6 comments  

It seems like everything that was supposed to happen this week didn't and things that weren't supposed to happen did! It keeps things interesting! : ) The only thing that didn't change was our weekly softball game where we once again got creamed! I thought we played the first place team from last year at our first game, but I found out Friday they had really come in second, because the team we played this week was actually the first place team from last year!! We were happy if we could keep them to 5 runs an inning!! : ) Come to find out as well, my team never won a game, so I guess we're just following tradition this season!!! Besides getting whooped at softball, the week's been great -- friends, food, drinks, swimming! We've had a few too many late nights that are starting to catch up with us though!! No rest for the weary though.....tomorrow morning we're off to Fort Bragg for a few days of camping. Here are some pictures of last night's fun and games. Camping pictures to come later this week!

Dinner on the trampoline.

Fun in the pool.

Briana getting some serious height with "the girls" goofin' in the foreground.

A toast to good friends!

Sometimes you just have to crash wherever you are!!

And finally, nothing like finishing the night off with a rousing game of golf. Here's one of the Wii golfers (aka Bret)!!

Posted in: on Sunday, July 13, 2008 at at 10:08 AM 0 comments  

As you know already, summer is not my favorite season. It's just way too hot, and today is no exception. Here is my atomic clock right now......ugh!!

Unfortunately because of the fires and smoke this summer it has really been limiting our outdoor activities. The air quality, especially in the Auburn/Colfax area, is the worst some people have ever seen. It's so unhealthy they are telling people to stay inside. Luckily none of us are asthmatic or have breathing problems, that would be really bad. It does make it hard to splash around and cool off in the pool though when you're sitting inside!!!

The one benefit of all this smoke would have to be the sunrises and sunsets. They are gorgeous! Here is the sunrise from my bedroom yesterday morning.I'd happily give them up though if we could get all the fires around the state put out and get this smoke out of here. It would make for a much more enjoyable summer for all of us (especially the firefighters and people living in the affected areas)!

Posted in: on Wednesday, July 09, 2008 at at 1:59 PM 5 comments  

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July. We had a fun weekend. Friday we started off at my parents' house for Angela's party. It was fun with lots of swimming....
and of course some barbecuing!
Since fireworks are illegal, Cindy got little "poppers" that the kids had a great time shooting off. They send out little streamers which they thought was fun.
Then on Saturday we went down to Robb's house for another BBQ. He had just finished installing his slide into the pool, so that was a big hit! Briana tried it,
then Adam, and of course Bret had to get in on the action!!!
The water guns came out, but Adam figured he's be more efficient with a cup rather than a little gun...so here he is getting Grandy!
Grandy retaliated and Adam ended up in the pool. He got a little freaked out, so Grandy let Adam push him in the pool as well!!! Of course the water fights never stopped, with all sides having a great time! : )
For you girls out there who may need a little help in the chest department, Briana learned a new trick from her older cousin. You just blow into the liner of your bathing suit....
....and then instant boobs!
Finally....dessert - yum!!!

Posted in: on Monday, July 07, 2008 at at 11:16 AM 2 comments