SO exciting!!

Exactly one year to the day from when we closed on this house and it officially became our home; I got the anniversary gift of magical-excitement-awesomeness: I saw a bear in the neighborhood!!  Honestly, for the last entire year, every single time I’m standing at the kitchen sink (which I’m pretty sure is the equivalent of ten hours a day), I look down into the ravine in the backyard and am yearning to catch a glimpse of something wonderful.  There are bears, bobcats, coyotes and deer in the area (just to name the big ones).  I’ve scored on a couple of occasions seeing a deer run through the ravine down below and thrice, we’ve had a couple come up into the backyard (and roam about 10 feet from the windows for our easy viewing pleasure).  I’ve heard the coyotes howling on the golf course, and I did see a small coyote up the street once when driving home from a late girl’s night with Rebecca.  But until yesterday the bear (or bobcat) sighting that I so desired eluded me.

 

Kayliana and I were in the car (phew!), driving up the big neighborhood hill.  We’d just passed the neighborhood park and had gone over one of the speed bumps (so we were going nice and slow-ish).  Maybe less than half a block ahead of us (at the next speed bump), a big black bear lumbered across the street and ran towards the storm drainage pond on our side of the road.  I squealed with excitement, “A BEAR, KAYLI! OH MY GOSH! A BEAR! YAY! A BEAR!  OH MY GOSH! SO EXCITING!!”  (The amount of my excitement and the high pitchedness of my shrieks might have alarmed Kayli a little bit).  I put the windows down and pulled over.  We watched the bear and it watched us for maybe 10 seconds before a bunch of dogs at nearby houses started barking like made and the bear turned and jogged off into the bushes and trees that connect back to the woods and eventually the state park.  When we got home Kayli told Mike, “We saw a bear! It went roar!”  (Not true.  But I like her story-telling skills).  I pretty much stayed on my bear-sighting high all day.

 

Oh. My. Gosh.  That was seriously SO very cool.  I nearly peed.