Tag / Ian

by Greg

My Favorite

Last night we were leaving our friends’ house pretty late after another fun evening together, and as we were saying good bye I noticed our son Alex running in circles in their front yard. He’s usually one of the first out of the house when we’re leaving (and one of the first ones in as well) so I guess that’s how he was passing the time. Everyone else had made their way to the van and to where they needed to be, but Alex just needed to run around.

And somehow, in that moment, it just reminded me of how much I love him. In fact, my actual thoughts were, “He’s my favorite!”

At first I reacted to that thinking, “Of course, so are the rest…” That’s when I realized… they are. Alex is my favorite, and so are Ian, Kirsten, and Julia. Even the next baby that we haven’t met yet. I guaranteed he or she will be my favorite, too. 🙂

There’s a cool book I have mentioned here a time or two before called, The Shack. In this book, a guy has an in-person encounter with God and many times when God refers to any person this guy brings up, God says, “Oh, he’s my favorite.” (Or, one of my favorites, or something.)

Last night, I really understood that. It’s completely true of my and my kids. They really are my favorites. My favorite people. I love them more than they can know, or than I can probably express. But I’ll keep trying anyway. 🙂

[As a footnote to this whole story, I was re-telling the events to Jen as we were pulling in our driveway. When I said the part about thinking Alex is my favorite, it wasn’t long before Jen noticed him running circles around our yard, too. Guess he likes being “the favorite”…] 🙂

by Greg

Caught In A Snow Storm!

Last night I took our four kids up to the library to return some books, and to pick up a few new ones. The library is only half-way around the block, so we bundled up for a nice winter walk. It was even lightly snowing, so it was more fun than usual!

We even sang a song on the way there:

“Going for a walk in the snow to the library,
Going for a walk in the snow
Going for a walk in the snow to the library,
Going for a walk in the snow!”

It was perfect, and the kids did pretty well in the library. We got the books we wanted, and some stamps from the nice librarian. We bundled back up and headed out the door.

What we discovered was astonishing.

Swirling, blowing, blinding SNOW! Where did this come from?!? I just laughed! It was like a joke! What happened to our light flurries??? Well, we had no other way home, so I made sure faces were as covered as they could be and we set out into the storm.

And this was a storm! The wind was a constant 10-15 mph I’d guess, with stronger gusts. And the snow was collecting on the ground – and on us! – at an alarming rate. The worst part was, a third of our trip was heading west, directly into the wind! At one point during that stretch I turned around and pulled Julia in the stroller backwards (which helped a lot I think) and saw poor little Kirstie just closing her eyes and leaning into the wind as she pressed ahead into the blizzard!

It was crazy!!

Once we were able to turn south, and find a bit of shelter behind a giant brick church building, it got a little better. We laughed all the way home through the still rapidly falling snow.

Red cheeks, faces, and other exposed skin greeted Mom when we got home. Mom actually met us in the driveway, as she had seen the fierce winter storm and was coming to get us. But we managed to brave the elements and make it back home safely.

I told the kids as we were fighting the storm that we’d have hot cocoa and hot baths when we got home! And we’d also read a couple of the library books we just worked so hard to get.

And we did. 🙂

by Greg

Ian the Creator

Ian Campbell - Creator
I think I mentioned something about our oldest son Ian around Christmas as he was busy making gifts for all of his loved ones. I know I mentioned my awesome iMac and iPod that he made for me. (See photo here, I’ll still try and get a full-size photo of it.)

Ian Campbell - CreatorWell, tonight as I was heading upstairs to bed, I noticed not only the awesome iPod that Ian made for me, but also the tool hanger that he had spent several days working on for his most creative craftsman relative, Grandpa Tom. (Unfortunately, Grandpa Tom left his present at our house when Ian had taken it to “his” workshop for a few modifications after first giving Grandpa the gift.)

It just made me smile. Ian has been so creative that way recently. Besides the gifts for me and my dad, Ian has made lots of great things for his siblings. So cute! He, along with his good friend Hannah, made an entire XBox system for his XBox-loving brother, Alex. It’s great! XBox, games, controllers… even a TV! He also hand crafted some “life-size” construction paper dolls for Uncle Scott & Aunt Leah for their anniversary. (Uncle Scott was quite impressed with the tie he is wearing… thinks Ian has a future in clothing design!)

The best part about all of it is that he initiates it. It’s totally from his heart, and from his own hands. I just love it! So cool to see him wanting so much to show his love for family that he labors for hours and even days to make something with, as I said, his own hands. I don’t think I know many nine year olds who initiate that.

I’ll see if I can scrounge up a few of the creations and put a few photos up here so his work can be more widely appreciated. Keep an eye and an ear out for the name Ian Campbell. Could be a world-famous designer some day… 🙂

by Greg

Just Lucky, I Guess

Last night we celebrated Ian’s birthday. His birthday falls on Christmas day, so it has been our practice to set up a day in January to celebrate Ian, and nothing else. Well, he wanted to invite our friends the Velasquezes to join us for a night at Chuck E Cheese’s in a town about 35 min to the west of us. Would work out perfect as that is where Mr. V (we call him Uncle Scott) works. I was to bring a cake that I made, and we would play games, eat cake, and celebrate Ian.

Well, the funny thing is…

As we were on our way there, we went through an intersection where the traffic light was out. “Oh my goodness…” All of a sudden, the days events all came together in my head… We had some serious wind (remember? we might get blown up?) and power was out all over the nearby areas – just not ours. The thought hadn’t crossed my mind until just then that…

You guessed it. The only block without power in the entire area we were going to was the block where Chuck E. Cheese’s resides. Nice.

Well, we decided to head back to our friends’ house and eat cake and play games there. Ended up being a fun night, just a huge waste of gas and time I guess. Again… nice.

Next time… call ahead. 🙂

by Greg

"I’m Gonna Blow Up!"

It’s a very blustery day here in Western New York state. Many limbs are down, power is out, all sorts of crazy things. My niece has power back now where she is at in Buffalo area, but she told me a few trees are down at her house – including one on their house! Yikes!

Well, as I was battening down the hatches this morning, I remembered another time we were in some seriously powerful winds. It was the spring of 2002, and we were out in Colorado, north of Denver. We were introduced to a chinook. These very strong, constant winds blow over the Rockies in the late winter/early spring and we weren’t prepared for the intensity of them!

As we left the hotel where we were staying that morning, little Ian (who had just turned three) was doing his best to keep his feet on the ground! He was very concerned, and just blurted out, “I’m gonna blow up!!!”

Well, as you can imagine, first we laughed … then we helped the lad stay connected to the Earth. He was very glad for big, heavy parents that day. 🙂

It’s similar today, just not as sustained.

Let’s hope we don’t blow up today! 🙂

by Greg

Christmas Report II

When I was trying to think of what I needed to do today, I also remembered the past few days that have been. It seemed like today might be the first kinda normal day in a while. (Which, strangely makes it feel like Monday, maybe Tuesday…)

It’s been quite a week! I’m sure it was for you as well. I think maybe we have an extra piece with Ian’s birthday being on Christmas day. Because of that there are a few more celebration days for Ian in there. Like, we did our annual Birthday Burger at Red Robin sometime last week for his birthday. Balloons, singing, and all. It was awesome! Then the fun started again this past week… maybe on Saturday.

Saturday was the day we were singing at Wal-Mart. That shouldn’t have been as eventful as it was, but after getting there and getting everything set up, I realized I had no guitar picks. And then we found out that Wal-Mart did not either! So, we went on a bit of a scavenger hunt, finally picking some up (pun intended) at a local music store. Then, to top it all off, after about an hour of singing – which was super fun! – I broke a guitar string. While that used to be commonplace, I am pretty sure that’s the first time I have done that in most of TWO YEARS! Crazy!

After the string broke, we packed up and did a little last minute Christmas & birthday shopping there at Wal-Mart and a couple other stores. It was nice, just me and Jen. 🙂

When we got back home, we did a few more things then packed up the troops for a trip to Victor. We actually went to the mall area on the Saturday before Christmas!! (We really needed an ink cartridge, and that’s the closest office store…) After we picked that up, we stopped by our friends’ house and hung out for a little while with them. Had some hot cocoa and fresh-baked Christmas cookies! 🙂

Sunday morning brought a visit from some other friends. They were dropping their girls off so that they could go to the Bills/Giants game over in Buffalo! (They bought our tickets from us, a nice Christmas present for our friend the Giants fan. Unfortunately, turned out to be a little TOO nice!!) We kept their girls all day, and had a blast! The evening ended with a visit from John Dupra for a recording of the Buffalo Bills Review, and then some good Christmas cookies from our friends. 🙂

Christmas Eve started later than I thought it would. We slept in a bit, then tried to decide what to do. We were going to make some Christmas gifts (food) for friends and drop them off, but then after talking with them, decided to wait on that. But then in talking with our football ticket friends, ended up deciding to bring Christmas dinner over to their house to share with them the next day. So, in between making Christmas cookies for Santa, Christmas Eve also involved baking bread and making a lasagna to bake the next day!

That evening we went to Willowbrook to see friends (and family!) we haven’t seen for a while – some of them a LONG while! That was nice, and was followed by a stop at another family’s house for a late night Christmas Eve party! Was nice to hang out with them for a couple hours. We stayed longer than we wanted to, but that was due to caring for one of our friends’ sick kids. Long story. Long night. 🙂 We didn’t get home, and get the kids in bed, until midnight!

We weren’t totally done with Christmas and Birthday preparations by Midnight, so… we were both up till 2am. For me, that’s fine… for Jen? Not so fine. Christmas morning came a little too soon for her. Even though it wasn’t till 9am. 🙂

Christmas Day was no less crazy. Once we got up, I took a quick shower, and then we all headed downstairs to find some presents left by Santa (alongside the ones we had already put under the tree) and our stockings full of goodies! The kids were fun to watch. 🙂 After unwrapping all the fun presents, we headed into the kitchen to make a big French Toast breakfast for Ian’s birthday! (His request.)

After breakfast, we headed back to the family room for Ian to open his birthday presents. (Yes, he gets LOTS of presents on Dec 25th, and the week before and after that!) We didn’t have a cake, so I stuck a candle in a giant navel orange, and we sang for Ian using that. Fun stuff. 🙂

After Ian’s birthday celebrating, we packed up pretty quickly, and took our big Christmas lunch over to our friends’ house to celebrate and eat with them. Spent about two hours or so there. They may be moving soon, so we’re enjoying all the time we can get with them. Will be strange if we are not living in the same town…

We packed up after lunch with our friends and headed out to Buffalo to visit with Jen’s family. Got there around 4:30 or so and got right to eating! (Yes, you’re right… that IS a lot of eating…) It was a great meal, and a fun time with Jen’s family. Her oldest brother and family were not there, but there were plenty of people to go around and we had a great time giving and receiving gifts… and eating taco dip! (One of my favorites…) 🙂

We left around 8:30 or so, putting us back home at 10pm. We were BEAT from the past three days. Jen was exhausted for sure. The kids were pooped. Most slept the whole way home. But not Kirsten. She sang Christmas songs with Dad most of the time. 🙂 SO CUTE!!!

But we weren’t done.

Wednesday morning was very busy for me! I did sleep in, but once I got up I was on the phone, IM, and e-mailing. Plenty of Boxing Day business I guess! I was also making bread because some other friends were coming over for a late lunch/early dinner. And the best part? They were bringing lasagna! Funny. I made/brought lasagna for some other friends, and then we had different friends do the same for us! Give and you shall receive. Or something like that. 🙂

We had a great time with them, and enjoyed all the good food. The really funny part was they came at around 3:30, and with the short days and all, when our friends left at 6pm, it felt like bedtime. BUT IT CERTAINLY WAS NOT! So, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves 🙂 The kids helped clean up, then watched some movies with Mom while Dad spent about TWO HOURS catching up on our finances! Crazy!

That brings us to today. And actually… it has been a pretty normal day so far. 🙂

A great, fun, fabulous Christmas and Ian’s birthday in 2007. Hope yours was as well!

by Greg

Christmas Report

Do you remember Christmas days gone by when, as a youngster, you couldn’t wait to see your friends or maybe your cousins – whoever would listen! – so you could tell them what you got for Christmas? Well, I do. But I don’t think that I really got to tell anyone that yesterday, so I’m going to write it down here!

I am drinking some tea this morning from a nice new mug I got from Santa. My wife got me a Buffalo Bills book that so far is quite good, and we also have mountains of great Christmas candy! (Mostly chocolate!) I also got some nice winter gloves (mine have holes … no… they ARE holes!) and a few cans of tomato soup! 🙂 (Yes… I’ve been wanting some of that…) 🙂

It was a fun day. Lots of smiles, and even a bunch of useful stuff. Fun to give, and to receive. And the best part is that Jen actually bought almost everything using money from sales of other stuff on CraigsList, ebay, and Amazon.com. 🙂 Nice!

Oh! Maybe the best present of all was one that was hand-crafted by Ian! He worked long and hard to build an iMac for me! it’s awesome! I’ll have to post a photo 🙂 Even came with a wireless keyboard AND an iPod! 🙂 He spent many days building it for me at my workbench in the basement. (I think that Ian has now worked there more than I have….) 😉

Hope you had a fun day as well. Feel free to share your favorite gifts in the comments below. 🙂

by Greg

Picks

NFL FootballThis season I have been asked to join a panel of “experts” in predicting the outcome of each week’s NFL games. So far I am in second place, behind my Buffalo Bills Review partner, Dave Drake, and another guy who are tied for first.

This week, after hearing the boys subtly add their voice to the discussion of my picks each week, I decided to let them in on it! So I made up little sheets for them to each make their picks and we’ll see who ends up with the best record by the end of the season. 🙂 (Actually, you might be surprised… there’s a good chance they will!)

It’s fun to see how excited they are about it 🙂

Even funnier was seeing how Alex changed a couple of his picks after announcing the games he was not going to get right – only to find out he could still change his picks up to kickoff time. 🙂 He’s pretty cute. He now assures us that he will go 16-0 this week.

The big game of course is tonight, where our Bills face the New England Patriots. Ian and I have our Bills winning in the end (good boy, Ian!) and Alex changed that one… which will of course help him go 16-0.

We’ll see!

Go Bills!

by Greg

They Earned It

Yesterday the boys were just a bit rambunctious to start the day. They were not being bad necessarily… just sort of annoying, and out of control. I happened to be on the phone with my parents at the time (which was part of the reason they were annoying) and was relaying the story to them. Jen said we should send them out to stack firewood. But, since we don’t have any firewood… my Dad said, send ’em out to rake the yard!

“Great idea,” I said.

So, we bundled them up for the chilly morning, set down the ground rules and, truthfully, I expected to be refereeing, and end up doing the work myself.

However, much to my surprise… they did an amazing job. They both worked together. They worked hard. They even had fun, I think. They took an HOUR to do our front yard (Ian said, “How long has it been, cause the bell tower has rung twice since we’ve been out here…”) and they never complained, even though their hands were getting tired.

Near the end of their assigned task I asked them, “Do you guys want to ask our neighbors if they would like you to do their yard? You could ask them to give you $5/each for doing it?” (I just picked a random number out of the air… wasn’t sure what the neighbors would be willing to pay…) At first, they were too tired, but for some reason, Ian was able to convince Alex to try it, and they went and asked.

I checked on them and saw them raking the yard, and learned that they would be paid two dollars each for raking the front yard. They were pretty excited, and diligent in their work. I smiled and left them to it.

I continued to check on them pretty frequently. (The front yard is right near a very busy road, and well, I love my boys, so I wanted to make sure they were still there!!!) They were doing great! And they took almost another hour to do that yard!! They never stopped, just kept at it till it was done. I have to say, I have never “felt” more proud of them. It was a fun parental moment.

When the task was complete, I saw them go to our neighbor’s front door and receive the payment. Alex got his first and ran away from the house cheering and saying, “Dad!!! Look what I got!!!!!!” while waving his two dollar bills firmly gripped in his right mitten. Ian was pretty excited too, but Alex couldn’t stop talking about his TWO DOLLARS!!! 🙂 I told him, “That’s great, Alex! And you earned it! You did a lot of hard work to earn that.” Next thing I knew he was headed to the basement to find mom, saying, “Mom!! Look what I earned!!!!” 🙂

Too cute. 🙂

So last night, after telling them how proud I was of them for working together, and doing what we had asked, and then for doing twice what we asked, we went to Wal-Mart and they each got to pick out a treat that they earned with their hard work. Alex paid for his and the cashier gave him his receipt. He couldn’t have been happier. He said, “I got a receipt!! This is my receipt!”

Pretty sure he’s keeping that one for a while.

by Greg

Not A Creature Was Stirring…

Four Campbell Kids
There is still a whole 24 hours of quiet to come. I really can’t believe it. The onslaught of this silence was so quick, so unexpected. It’s eerie… unwanted. Disturbing. And yet… glorious. 😉

The kids are at Grandma & Grandpa’s! They have been since Tuesday evening. The will be until tomorrow, probably around lunch time!!! Holy cow! Do you know how crazy that is??? My mother-in-law is a fantastic lover of children – and subsequently, of us!

In the interrim, we have gone out to dinner twice on a couple cash gifts given to us by each of our fathers. Nothing too fancy, but just a nice bonus to this strange yet wonderful quietness. We’re going out one more time tonight, at our friends’ request and treat. (That one has been planned for a while now.)

It has been wonderful for Jen, for sure, and I’ve enjoyed it as well. Some for me, but mostly I have enjoyed having a happier, less burdened wife. That’s been nice. 🙂

So, I miss my kids a lot. Can’t wait to see them tomorrow. But, thankful that we have parents who are so willing to take them – not just so we get a break, but because they love having them around, and to themselves. I don’t think a lot of people have that. It’s a very nice gift, to be sure. 🙂

Right now I must run a few errands… and JEN is coming with me! Sweet!