The Campanellis: June 2019

These are all out of order but I don't have the motivation to arrange them.

Ella flew to Medford, Oregon with her friend, Analie, to stay at Analie's grandma's house for 5 nights. They flew alone, no adults!!! They even had a layover in Portland on the way there and Seattle on the way home. We are so proud of this independent girl!

Of course we (Mark & I) thought of everything bad that could happen; human trafficking, organ harvesting, sexual assault...the list goes on because we are both highly anxious people but we can't live in fear so we said yes. I'm so glad we did. I still worried during the entire flights there and back.

Harvesting beets in Oregon

We traveled to Wallace, ID to bike the Hiawatha bike trail. The movie, Dante's Peak, was filmed in Wallace. The Hiawatha is 15 miles of Rail to Trail. We biked it on Mark's 45th birthday!!!

Mark & I had a nice weekend getaway without kids at Chico Hot Springs.

We almost had heart attacks when we saw a long tail and tall ears sticking out from the tall grass, walking toward us. We thought for sure it was a mountain lion. It turned out to be a large German Shepard belonging to the rancher on the property. We have been at Chico when a mountain lion was spotted on the property so now we are paranoid!

Hiking Middle Cottonwood with the boys & Sumana while the girls were in Oregon.

More of the girl's trip to Oregon - they went rafting, shopping, to the spa, movies and baked with Analie's grandpa. All things Ella loves.

Planting a late garden since it kept snowing. We had snow on the summer solstice.

Our neighbor's tree is always gorgeous in the Spring but only for a couple of days.

Sunday bike ride around Bozeman

We stopped for lunch at Fink's on the way home.

This is what happens when I try to relax in the hammock

Gordon's 2nd grade class

Ella's 4th grade teacher on the last day of school. Tears from Ella again. Gordon couldn't get out of there fast enough. Ella has already said she can't wait for school to start, multiple times!!

At the Bozeman airport, ready to fly to Oregon

Hailstorm on the drive home from the Airport

Selfies on the plane

Another beautiful day in Bozeman biking to Sumana's house.

The boys still cuddle.

First ones at the pool on opening day again!

Our neighborhood pool got a climbing wall and zip line installed this Spring.

More hiking Middle Cottonwood

2 old men

A great summer read

Baking in Oregon

Spa day in Oregon

An evening walk on Peets

Gordon LOVES his 1st grade teacher. She offered tutoring to her students this summer and we couldn't pass up the chance for him to spend time with her. When I picked him up after his first session they had found injured bird and had been learning all about it. It turns out it was a federally banded tree swallow. They reported it and Gordon received a certification for his finding. It unfortunately passed away soon after finding it.

Gordon was pretty devastated when it died. He made this "headstone" for it while sobbing. I had to keep myself from laughing because: name? rip

Drowning his sorrows in dry nesquick

Forcing my kids to do some child labor this summer

Breakfast and movies in Oregon

Ella got a second ear piercing.

Breakfast at my favorite place, The Inn on the Gallatin, on our way to Big Sky for the weekend.

In my sister's hot tub

Wild forget me nots

My sister bought land with a tiny house on it in Big Sky. They have a lot of plans for it!

The gutted tiny house

Our dog Olive had 3 puppies! She is at the breeder's home for most of the summer so she can nurse them for several weeks. We are just her guardian family so she can have a normal family life in between breeding. After breeding a few times, she will be spayed and stay with us forever.

Hiking Beehive Basin on Father's Day, this trail is very close to my sister's land.

Photo by Ella - she really knows how to exentuate our guts.

Snowball fight in June

Our neighborhood bunny

More of Olive's puppies

Still pumping enough for 3 babies each day!

Loving my new earrings

I went to Billings 3 times in June to visit one of our surrogates who was in labor and then had twin boys! I love my job.

First Farmer's Market of the season. The Bogert pavilion collapsed over the winter after a heavy snowfall so the location of the farmer's market changed to a park nearby until it's fixed which won't be until next season. We can still walk or bike to it though!

Girl's Sing Camp - the only camp Ella wanted to do this summer

I have had a sharp pain in my lower abdomen since giving birth. I brushed it off for weeks thinking it was just uterine contractions. Remember my first week postpartum when I had pain so bad that I shook, turned white and was covered in sweat? Well, it turns out that was not uterine contractions. It is actually an intussecpition. After weeks of off and on pain and it finally getting worse mid-June, I went to the doctor. She told me I was constipated. I told her I wasn't and asked to do more tests. She ordered a CAT scan. That scan showed the intussecpition in my intestine. The same doc then told me that it will go away on its on and wouldn't be causing me pain so she thought the pain was from something else AND if the pain came back she can order more tests. I did my own research and found that intussecpition cause severe pain off and on, usually requires surgery and I should seek medical attention right away. It also said it's extremely rare in adults and most adults wait weeks or months to see a doctor because the pain is off and on so they think they are fine and then it's back again. I called the doctor back and asked for a referral to a GI. The GI didn't have an opening until July 24th so I called my doc back AGAIN and asked her to make the referral urgent. Nobody was taking me seriously. I got in to see the GI within 48 hours of the urgent referral. The GI told me this will most likely not go away on its own and he was 99% sure I would need surgery. He made it clear that waiting to take care of this was risky and I should get it taken care of asap. He had already spoken with the surgeon and set up a meeting with him for the next day so I could discuss the procedure and schedule surgery. The surgeon wanted a second CT before the appointment but since my insurance requires pre-approval for CTs, we had to cancel everything and are still waiting on approval before we schedule a CT and another appointment with the surgeon. Seriously, the healthcare "system" in 'Merica is fucked up. The GI wasn't sure why it happened but one of my theories and one he thought was plausible is when my intestines moved around during pregnancy, a part of it could have gotten kinked and cut off blood supply to that area, weakening the intestinal wall. When I gave birth and everything went back into place, the bowel was weak and telescoped.

Getting ready for biking the Hiawatha

Creepy hotel in Wallace, ID

Somebody hit our tail light and then glued the broken piece back in. Who does that??

Hiawatha trail

The tunnels were super muddy.

Dinner in Missoula for Mark's birthday before heading home.

Our catmint exploded this Spring!

Hiking Mount Ellis

The bees love our catmint

I was at my friend's house in our neighborhood when I saw Mark reading the historic sign across the street on his way to the Teahouse to work. He has to stop at every historic sign, it has driven me crazy since I met him.

Holding hands

Fun night out with friends

The beginning of our Chico getaway

Chico ghost story

We had massages at the spa, went for hikes, sat in the hot springs, ate way too much food and read. It was wonderful.

A man asked if he could join us at our picnic table for breakfast...it could seat 20 people so of course we said yes. He ended up being Harve Presnell's son, Tulley. He lives in the Paradise Valley just 4 miles from the Pine Creek Lodge. We spent most of breakfast chatting with him. He had a lot of great stories about growing up in show business including photo bombing the "Saving Private Ryan" cast photo, smoking a joint with Bruce McGill at Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan's house in the Paradise Valley and he's good friends with Bryan Cranston and showed us some of their funny text exchanges.