hmb magazine february 2011

HALF MOON BAY REVIEW MAGAZINEJANUARY 2011

THE ANNUAL HEALTH+FITNESS ISSUE

HMB

LGBT COUPLES // MONTARA FAMILY OF 7 // Q&A WITH PHYLLIS NEUMANNLGBT COUPLES // MONTARA FAMILY OF 7 // Q&A WITH PHYLLIS NEUMANN

HALF MOON BAY REVIEW MAGAZINEFEBRUARY 2011

THE ANNUAL LOVE&ROMANCE ISSUE

2 February 2011 HMB

Cheryl Burchiere MannickVice President, Platinum Club Member650.533.7549 [email protected]://mortgage.bankofamerica.com/cherylmannick

Rachael Mannick SageMortgage Loan Officer650.303.2224 [email protected]://mortgage.bankofamerica.com/rachaelsage

HMB February 2011 1

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HMB February 2011 3

Publisher Debra Hershon

Managing EditorClay Lambert

WritersLily BixlerMark FoyerMark NoackStacy Trevenon

Photographer Lars Howlett

Production and DesignBill MurrayMark Restani

Business Offi ceBarbara Anderson

CirculationSonia Myers Advertising SalesLouise StrutnerMarilyn JohnsonBarbara Dinnsen

Find us P.O. Box 68714 Kelly AvenueHalf Moon Bay, CA 94019p: (650) 726-4424f: (650) 726-7054

The HMB Magazine is published on the fi rst week of every month and inserted in the Half Moon Bay Review. The entire contents of the magazine are also available in PDF format online at hmbreview.com

HMBHALF MOON BAy REVIEW magaZine

» CONTENTS

The Love Issue.Features

6Q&A: PHYLLIS NEUMANN

Marriage and Family Therapist answers some of love’s most prickly conundrums

10THE BUSINESS SIDE

OF VALENTINE’S DAY Shops, hotels prepare for romantic fl ourish

16A DAY FOR ALL LOVERS

LGBT couples tell of plans for Valentine’s Day

22AND BABY MAKES FIVE

Montara couple defi nes family love by adopting fi ve children

Departments

5 UPCOMING EVENTS 27 DOWNTOEARTH

28 SIGHTSEEING

4 February 2011 HMB

HMB February 2011 5

» UPCOMING EVENTS FEBRUARY

Dress up for a cause

Ritz spruces up for Rotary2/12 Don tails and formal finery for the annual Rotary at the Ritz, the major fundraiser of the Rotary Club of Half Moon Bay, held in the sparkling elegance of the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay. Scheduled once again from 6 p.m. until midnight, Saturday, it will include socializing with Coastside friends and neighbors, a silent auction, a sit-down dinner with a live auction and the popular Heads ‘n’ Tails game and dancing into the night to the Joe Sha-rino Band. Roughly 10 live and 75 silent auction items include a cruise for 10 on the San Francisco Bay in the fireboat “Phoenix,” a children’s birthday party with miniature golf and barbecue at the Long Branch Saloon and Farms, trips, sports memorabilia, stays at the Ritz, a “lipstick brunch” for 12 at the local Abundance skin care salon, jewelry and artwork. Tickets for the evening are $175. Proceeds support the club’s work of supporting the Half Moon Bay RotaCare clinic, distributing dictionaries to local third-graders, supporting local youth soccer teams, sponsoring an ethics-based teen essay contest, and delivering Christmas gifts to deserving local families and education for AIDS orphans in Africa, providing clean drinking water in Ecuador and contributing to worldwide polio eradication. Visit hmbrotary.org or call 726-8733 ext. 701 or 7262-6328.

Waves of art

2/4 Coastal Arts League inspires awe with the “Maver-icks: Everest of the Seas” photography show through

Feb. 28 at the CAL gallery, 300 Main St. in Zaballa Square, Half Moon Bay. Photos by professional photographers, a collection of surfboards and images by Coastside community members fill the show; bring photos in on Feb. 2-3. A reception is scheduled from 4 to 9 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 12. 726-6335.

Hoping for a slam dunk

2/8-9Half Moon Bay High School basketball teams close out the home portion of the regular season

when the girls’ team hosts Oceana at 6 p.m., Feb. 8, and the boys’ team hosts Hillsdale at 6 p.m., Feb. 9. Frosh-soph games will precede each of these, followed by a brief ceremony honoring the Half Moon Bay senior team members. There are nominal admission charges. 712-7200.

Farcical fun

2/11 Celebrating its 25th anniversary season by bringing back a fun old favorite from earlier years, Coastal

Repertory Theatre presents Michael Frayn’s farcical romp “Noises Off” through March 5. It bounces through on- and offstage antics of an inept acting troupe attempting a third-rate bedroom comedy called “Nothing On,” resulting in lots of laughs with adult themes. Tickets range from $15 to $30. 569-3266.

Folk meets CD

2/22 Folk musician and singer/songwriter Mo Robinson, a native of Ireland and longtime El Granada resi-

dent, will host a music party celebrating the release of his new CD “Lipstick and Dirt” with 16 originals, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Cameron’s Restaurant and Inn at 1410 S. Cabrillo Highway. Joining him will be a handful of musicians also on the CD: Coastsiders Diane Burns, Bob Peterson and Peter Bland, and Peninsulan Dave Trabue. 726-5705.

6 February 2011 HMB

Q&A

Neumann addresses some of love’s most prickly conundrums

By LiLy BixLer

With 22 years as a marriage and family therapist in the Bay Area under her belt, Phyllis

Neumann and her husband retreated through the jaws of the Golden Gate Bridge on their 47-foot sailboat for a 10-year adventure at sea. During their cruising, Neumann and her husband met couples from all over the world out on similar excursions. Her interactions with these couples proved to be tremendously educational for the therapist.

“One of the things (I realized) is that most women didn’t want to be with their partners. They were doing it to keep the relationship together,” Neumann said, sitting in a high-backed chair in her downtown Half Moon Bay office.

“It was usually the man’s dream — his fantasy, his experience. And the women, who might have been professionals in their own right, now became galley slaves. This is where a lot of the problems are. ... They were unhappy because they didn’t have a life of their own.”

Neumann notes one of the biggest problems she’s seen in roughly 30 years counseling couples is that individuals in the partnership don’t maintain their individuality and instead let the relation-ship subjugate their identity. Instead, she said, each partner should always give 50 percent.

Local therapist talks healthy partnerships

When two people come together in a healthy relationship they need to be

autonomous in their own right.

HMB February 2011 7

Q&A

During their decade of cruising — perhaps the ultimate test for a marriage — Neumann and her husband took many of the lessons she has gleaned over the years to heart. Much to the surprise of those they met at sea, no single person ran the show on their boat. Instead, the couple acted as co-captains.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Review’s Lily Bixler met with Neumann at her office on Miramontes Street to hear one therapist’s answers to some of love’s most prickly conundrums.

How do you balance maintaining the self while cultivating a healthy partnership?That’s probably the key to the whole thing. When two people come together in a healthy relationship they need to be autono-mous in their own right. They need to have their own interests and their own feelings. I always tell people, if two people are separate people, they come together and get together about 10 percent of the time. They overlap just about 10 percent of the time because they are still holding their identity. That’s the key: to hold your own identity and be a person. Then the relation-ship is a plus. It adds to your identity, it doesn’t take away from it.

What are the three key characteristics of that kind of healthy partnership?Have your own needs, passions — don’t ever lose your passion for what you need to do. Don’t give that up in a relationship. Don’t ever be second to your partner. Your needs need to come first and his do too. Both partners’ needs need to come first. And, second, an unhealthy relationship is where one person completes the other person and that can’t work. That’s probably the unhealthiest part. They come in as one half of a person and hope that the other person will come in and complete them, and that’s not a good (approach) for relationships that are going to last.

Do you think opposites attract? If so, do they stay together?I think we’re talking about complements of temperaments and metabolisms, so that a person who is shy and more withdrawn needs someone who is going to balance them and be active and energetic. You can’t have two energetic, really hyper energetic, people in the same relationship without there being chaos. And you can’t have two people who are equally shy and withdrawn and hope that there is balance. There is no balance there. There always has to be balance. So the two temperaments really need to balance each other for it to work, one (who’s) much more energized and excited, and one more temperate and mellow.

What’s the most common problem you see in marriage or partnership?When one person gives up their identity and hopes that the other person can take care of them or control them, they are leaning on them too much. And usually women — a lot of women — haven’t found their own identity; they don’t know

who they are besides being mothers and partners, so they lean on their husbands to give them that kind of a life.

Why do you think that is?That’s the way we’ve been trained for years and years and years. I think it’s changing in the new world. It is changing, but we’re not there yet.

And what do you think is responsible for this cultural change?More modern ways of looking at things; women taking a more active role in politics and having more careers.

I’m curious what you think about how couples maintain intimacy when physical attraction may diminish over time?The physical attraction you’re talking about is usually the honeymoon period of a relationship, filled with passion, and it’s the most insecure too. So that relationship is not that stable. It’s usually very passionate and intimate — well, it’s not really intimate, it’s physical attraction and lots of sex. And as the rela-tionship becomes more stable and secure, that passion usually settles in and just becomes a part of the relationship. It adds to the relationship but isn’t 90 percent of the relationship. So people think, “Oh, I’ve lost my passion,” but their relationship is getting healthier and more stable.

What are some useful tools in dealing with religious, racial, political or cultural differences in partnerships?You have to maintain your personal interests and personal pas-sions. There is always a way of negotiating. If it’s a difference of religion, there can be compromise: I’ll go to your church one week, you’ll go to my place the next. It has to be a win-win. That’s the general rule. Everything you do in a relationship has to be win-win. If one person loses, there is going to be resentment, and those resentments show in so many different ways. So if you don’t have a win-win, no matter what we’re talking about — whether it’s religion, sex, politics — then both people aren’t getting their needs taken care of, and the relationship starts eroding.

When it starts eroding and a separation seems needed, is there a graceful way to enter that separation?Well, my personal bias is counseling — I think marital coun-seling is important when things start going wrong, and start it when you start seeing it, before it gets too late. Before it reaches a really ugly place, you need to start exploring what’s happening and why your needs aren’t getting fulfilled. And that could have been years ago that it started building. So counseling to me is the first step of helping the relationship, getting to look at each person’s role in the relationship. Each person brings 50 percent to the relationship. So you can’t go in saying, “Because of you, I’m not happy.” There’s nothing like that. It’s what’s going on inside of you that’s making you unhappy; you can’t blame it on the other person. 1

8 February 2011 HMB

HMB February 2011 9

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HMB February 2011 11

Shops, hotels prepare for

romantic flourish

ike the shot of a starter’s pistol, February is the real beginning of the year for the scattered hotels,

restaurants and shops dotting the Coastside. The month and especially the Valentine’s Day holi-

day mark the first major tourist wave to hit the coast for 2011, and business owners go into high gear to get ready for the surge of customers.

During February, love is in the air — along with dollars and cents, said Charise McHugh, CEO and president of the

Half Moon Bay Coastside Chamber of Commerce & Visi-tors’ Bureau. “It’s the startup for our tourist season!” McHugh cheered.

“Once we hit Valentine’s Day, the business on the Coastside starts up a little bit.”

The greater Half Moon Bay area becomes basically a dead zone for the period after the December holidays each year. Not being a ski resort area like Lake Tahoe, the Coastside’s season of cold, wet weather isn’t a draw for tourists, who are the source of commerce for the coastal community.

But Valentine’s Day thaws the winter business freeze and brings a breath of springtime.

And that means flowers, lots of flowers, said Alena Jean Whiting.

As the namesake owner of Alena Jean Flower Shop & Nursery, Whiting annually watches business bloom in the days immediately before Valen-tine’s Day. Two days before the holiday, a line of usually male, middle-aged customers file in to buy flowers for their loved ones.

They almost always want one type of flower — roses, Whiting said, which are out of season and pricey. She usually tries to talk them into buying some-

thing with a little more personality. The days before Valentine’s Day are the busiest of the year, easily cram-

ming the value of weeks of business into a weekend, Whiting said. More than half of all households in the United States purchase flowers for Val-entine’s Day, according to a 2007 market study by Prince & Prince Inc.

For her own family, Valentine’s Day is swamped with work. She’s run-ning around making bouquets and delivering flower, and her husband, Mike Barragan, is usually busy managing special dinners at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company.

If they get a moment together, they’re usually pretty tired of the holiday, Barragan said.

“We get hit by all this work at the same time,” Barragan said. “And it’s hard to pick out a gift for a florist on Valentine’s Day.”

Last year, he gave his wife an unorthodox gift for the holiday — three baby chicks, purchased from Half Moon Bay Feed & Fuel. As a sort of romantic activity, the two of them worked together to install a chicken coop in their yard. Today they still appreciate the gift — especially the

Valentine’s Day is a gift to

local business

By Mark Noack photoS By LarS hoWLett

L

Florist and new mother Alena Jean has recently returned to work at her shop in downtown Half Moon Bay.


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Learn more—Visit www.filoli.org anytime for more information and to make your reservation or call (650) 364-8300, ext. 508 Mondays through Fridays from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Half Moon Bay Review— 1/2 pageMagazine— Feb. 2, 2011Newspaper— Feb. 9, 2011

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fresh eggs. For those with a sweet tooth, a variety of holi-

day-themed chocolates, truffles, fudges and even a candy bra are out on display at Simply Delicious Sweets and Treats.

Robin Fain, owner of the local candy shop, said she was preparing early for a rush of customers, even though most wouldn’t come until the week-end before the holiday.

Last year Fain and other retailers had a bout of bad luck — the Mavericks Surf Contest was called on Feb. 13, drawing tens of thousands of visitors to the Coastside for the crucial day before Valentine’s Day. Most of her usual customers didn’t come by because they didn’t want to fight the traffic from the surf contest.

“Worst Valentine’s Day in history!” she summed up.

For selling candy on Valentine’s Day, the rules are pretty simple, Fain said. Gift-givers want treats either made of chocolate or shaped like a heart, and they rarely buy anything else.

While the surge in shoppers is always nice, Fain wishes that more customers would buy sweets for their sweethearts during the rest of the year.

“Valentine’s Day can definitely go overboard,” she said. “I don’t think you really need a day to tell someone you love them.”

Valentine’s Day brings about $13 billion in sales nationwide, but many consumers have groaned that, other than shopping, the February holiday is devoid of meaning — in other words, the day lacks heart.

Market studies have shown that about two-thirds of men feel obligated to do something for their significant other but also that a segment of people are actively opposed to spending money for the holiday.

At the Half Moon Bay Ritz-Carlton hotel, going overboard on the holiday is not so much a con-cern as making it seem authentic. The hotel holds a special brunch and champagne dinner for the holiday. Every couple at the luxury hotel receives the usual roses and chocolates, but the wait staff is instructed to leave them mostly alone to enjoy each other’s company.

“We don’t try to be kitschy … one of the things the Ritz-Carlton does well is create an authentic experience,” said Marketing Director Steven Holt. “Valentine’s Day is supposed to be a personal experience.” 1

A deep soaking tub for couples at the Oceano Coastal Spa is a popular feature alongside massages and body treatments.

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hat do you look for in a partner?” JoAnn Semo-nes recalled asking Julie Barrow when the women were working at the U.S. Environmental Protec-tion Agency in the early 1990s.

“Someone who dances in the kitchen,” Barrow had said, eager for spontaneous romanticism.

Semones, herself a trained ballroom dancer, knew at that moment that Barrow was the one for her.

The couple, who have been committed for 18 years and were married in 2008, continue to dance around the kitchen of their home in Ocean Colony. More recently they started taking ball-room dance and hula classes. In fact, that’s how they plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year: practicing their dance steps at home.

“For us it doesn’t feel necessary to have a special day to celebrate partnership, appreciation or love,” Semones said. “I think you should do it every day.”

Valentine’s Day tends to be marketed as a spe-cial time for men and women to celebrate their love by exchanging glittery cards, nicely wrapped boxes of chocolates and, of course, bouquets of roses.

“I find the path to Valentine’s Day paved with good intentions — share your feelings, take a risk and tell someone you like them. Do something special for your partner,” said Shana Goldin-Perschbacher, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University.

“But I think that ultimately this holiday can

fuel unrealistic expectations and feelings of dis-satisfaction, loneliness and anxiety for people of all sexual and gender identities.”

In fact, the same-sex couples interviewed for this article similarly expressed the importance of celebrating their love every day.

Half Moon Bay resident Scott Solomon and his partner Milton Rodriguez don’t do much to celebrate Valentine’s Day and instead focus on making the most of each day.

“I think it’s like Mother’s Day — a Hallmark holiday to sell a lot of flowers and chocolate,” Solomon said.

He does, however, remember a Valentine’s Day they spent together early on in their almost 16-year relationship. They went out for a romantic dinner, and Solomon had pre-arranged for the server to bring out a gift for Rodriguez. It was a large airbrush pump, something Rodriguez really wanted for his work as an artist. Once wrapped, the present was large and cumbersome and soon attracted the eyes of other diners at the restau-rant as Rodriguez began unwrapping. Everyone watched curiously.

“I could see the disappointment and conster-nation on peoples’ faces that this (airbrush) was what was in the big box,” Solomon said, laughing in recollection. “I could tell it wasn’t what they were expecting.”

Besides the funny account, Solomon and Ro-driguez keep the holiday low-key. In many ways,

Same-sex partners celebrate day for all lovers

LGBt couples tell of plans for Valentine’s Day

By LiLy BixLer photoS By LarS hoWLett

“W


JoAnn Semones and Julie

Barrow share a belief in

spontaneous romance —

such as danc-ing in the kitchen of

their Ocean Colony home.


TREAT YOUR SWEETHEART TO A WARM & SUNNY VALENTINE

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Valentine’s Day seems to be “pampering the feminine,” Solomon said. On second thought, Solomon added, maybe this is fair since “guys have Super Bowl Sunday.”

“For a lot of couples, generally speaking, the women are more into (Valentine’s Day) and it causes a lot of stress for men who wonder if they did enough,” Solomon said. “But I’m projecting. What do I know about heterosexual relationships?”

In this Northern California region, Solomon said he and Rodriguez solicit very few raised eyebrows when they are out together.

Perhaps this was innkeepers Terry and Eve Baldwin’s motiva-tion to market Mill Rose Inn, off Main Street, as a sanctuary for gay weddings. The couple were disappointed when the legisla-tion to legalize same-sex marriage didn’t pass, in part because they thought it would boost business.

The inn is advertised on the LGBT travel site Purple Roofs as a gay-friendly place to stay. Gay and lesbian people have also given the inn favorable reviews on other travel sites, which continue to attract more same-sex couples.

“We tend to get more lesbian couples, probably because of the dramatic atmosphere,” said Terry Baldwin.

One of the fears of staying at a bed-and-breakfast, Baldwin explained, is the forced interaction at breakfast or during the evening cheese and wine mixer. Mill Rose Inn offers in-room breakfasts, and the Baldwins will make guests cheese platters any time they desire. “Everything is on your terms,” he said.

Baldwin admitted the guests are much more relaxed and tolerant of all kinds of people than in years past. They help the process by creating an accepting atmosphere by simply treating everyone with respect, Baldwin explained.

Semones and Barrow, the dancing couple, said they never feel concerned about holding hands in public. “It just feels like a natural expression, not a statement,” Semones said.

Although Deb Hedger and Jenny Walter feel accepted on the Coastside, Walter said there is still a long way to go before she really starts seeing images and archetypes change. “Laws are important, but they really just set the tone,” she said. “People have to step up and change.”

Recently, during the holidays, Hedger heard the song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” and she was reminded how she and Walter, “all the time don’t see (themselves) in that picture.”

“We need the more open hearts of the younger generation, a trend I think is happening, to grow up,” Hedger said.

“I feel a very deep and true love with Jenny, and so part of us being together is putting ourselves out there and expressing our love in the heteronormative stream out there…” Hedger said. “It’s exciting and scary.”

“I feel like we show up in our small community, and we have friends who really support us,” Walter said.

Just last year some straight friends of theirs came over to babysit Walter and Hedger’s daughter, Jessie, when they went out to Cetrella for burgers. Even though it’s a bit of a “hokey holiday,” Walter said they enjoy taking the time together.

Probably their favorite Valentine’s Day memory, Walter recalled, was a time when the family had a low-key celebration. Jessie was young, and, after they had exchanged hand-made cards, Jessie instigated a big family hug with her moms. Jessie was so taken up with the love she exclaimed she felt like, “jelly

in the middle,” since being between her moms made her feel like a jelly donut, one of her favorite things to eat. “She is so af-firming of our family,” Walter said.

Valentine’s Day, for Hedger, is a commemoration of some-thing they value each and every day. 1

“Being in a same-sex relationship means you have to Be thoughtful aBout the life you’re Building. … valentine’s day is a really happy day for us.”

— Deb HeDger, CoastsiDe resiDent

Deb Hedger and Jenny Walter give a big hug and kiss to their daughter, Jessie, in their Half Moon Bay home.

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Rain streaks the windows of the Monta-ra home of Rick and Jeanné Camp-bell, but inside it seems not just sunny but sparkling. Against a backdrop of dripping trees, the four older Camp-

bell children are taking turns pairing off for lively rounds of Sonic Slam.

That’s a sort of glorified electronic ping-pong, in which players swing paddles to volley “smart balls” back and forth. Amid the “hits” of the balls that smack off the paddles with electronic swooping sounds, joyful shouts and laughter fill this house.

First, Mario, 9, and Dawson, 10, face off. Then

Braeden, 8, and feisty little sister Richie, 7, take over. At one point, a child scuttles down the hall to see if the “hits” work even when someone is in a different room. (They do!)

Smiling broadly, their mom, Jeanné, encour-ages the players while Dad Rick sits cuddling littlest sister Destiny (or “Desi”) watching wide-eyed on his lap.

“She’s doing her eyes,” Mario shouts, pointing at Desi, who is batting her eyes at everyone in a playfully flirty way.

On one wall, photos of family life are inter-spersed with the words “Live,” “Laugh” and “Love” pinned up.

and baby makes fiveMontara

couple defines

family love by adopting five children

By Stacy treVeNoN | photoS By LarS hoWLett

The Campbell family of Montara share in the unconditional love of a large family.


That phrase, underscored by the noisy game, seem to be watchwords here. This family was built through domestic adoption when, guided by faith and their shared love of children, Jeanné and Rick refused to allow infertility to stand in the way of their longtime dream of being surrounded by children.

Dawson and Braeden were adopted at birth. A few years later, through a Christian adoption agency, siblings Mario, Richie and little Destiny became Campbells.

“We all have something to give kids. And if we all give them something, they’ll be better off,” said Jeanné decisively.

“We’re the lucky ones to have them come into our lives, and blessed to be able to raise them up to be decent human beings,” added Rick.

“I wanted a mom and dad,” said di-minutive Richie, her warm brown eyes sparkling. “That’s what I wished for, and I got them.”

The dream of having a large family was clear from their teens for Jeanné and Rick. High school sweethearts in Calaveras County, they wed 20 years ago this summer.

When infertility threatened to thwart that dream, the couple began what turned into years of treatments. Adoption was not far from their minds, though. They had planned to do that even if Jeanné became pregnant.

“We’re capable of unconditional love for children, and we knew that we wanted that to be given to children who had tougher starts in life,” said Jeanné. “We want all children to experience unconditional love.”

Finally, in 1999, trusting that God had a plan for them, they stopped the treat-ments. They began looking into “open” adoption, which brings birth and adop-tive families together.

“It allows for an open line of commu-nication and for open visits, but has to be agreed on by both sides,” explained Jeanné.

Working with an agency that conduct-ed home studies, they were required to write a letter to prospective birth parents outlining their goals and philosophy of child-rearing and enclosing photographs of themselves and their home.

Then followed months of waiting — nine, to be exact.

“We were on pins and needles from the time we turned in the letters. Every time

Jeanné Campbell gathers with the kids in their living room for a game of Guesstures and cuddling on the couch.


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the phone rang, we were praying that it’s the call telling us it’s the baby,” said Jeanné. “I feel I actually went through a pregnancy!”

That was only one slope in the emo-tional rollercoaster of adoption, which can be rife with changing laws and changes of heart for birth parents.

Finally the phone rang. The Campbells had been selected by a family, for two reasons: The family liked the fact the Campbells had laminated their letter, which made it easy to be picked out of many letters, and that they straightfor-wardly represented themselves and their grounding of faith. “They liked that we weren’t worried about what anybody thought of us. We shared who we were,” said Jeanné.

“We knew this would be our boy,” she continued. Typically in open adoption, families meet early in the pregnancy, but not this time. “We were able to go through it knowing that the boy would be born soon and we could move on.”

Twenty-one days after they met the birth family, Dawson was born. “God protected us and knows what the timing is,” said Jeanné.

Roughly two years later, eager to give him a sibling, the Campbells adopted Mario, also from birth.

A few years of focus on everyday life followed, balancing the raising of two lively boys and work: Rick has taught physical education at Cunha Intermedi-ate School for 16 years, and Jeanné had her hands full as a stay-at-home mom.

It wasn’t as if there weren’t children in their lives who needed the unconditional love they practiced. “Everyone knew all along how much we wanted a large fam-ily,” said Jeanné, who credits God with directing children to them who needed some family love. Over those years, they involved several local teens in family activities. “They became like our kids,” said Jeanné.

But there was still an empty place, so two years ago the Campbells sought to adopt again, thinking of a girl this time as they prayed to find the right venue. They felt drawn to foster adoption, bringing into their family children who are wards of the court or in foster care.

“Fost-adopt” was different: Rick and Jeanné were able to meet children in foster care and learn their life stories. “If Rick and I could, we’d adopt them all,” sighed Jeanné.

As they looked at photos and stories of potential adoptees, they made discover-ies.

“You can be pulled towards certain children you didn’t even know were on your radar,” said Jeanné. “We were very surprised at how much we were pulled when we looked at sibling sets.”

Meetings with agency and social work-ers did not yield a match. The process stretched from the fall of 2008 through 2009. The adoption agency and the two Campbell sons joined the parents in their prayers. The family, anxious to adopt again, clung to the thought that there must be a reason. “We didn’t understand why the process was taking so long,” said Rick.

Then in February 2010 the agency drew their attention to a brother, then 8, and a sister, then 6. When the Camp-bells met the children, within a matter of minutes they and the social worker knew they had a match. A gathering with families on both sides was arranged.

“(First) there are people you don’t know in your house,” said Braeden, recounting that first meeting. “Later you know them, meet them, start playing with them. When you get to know them, you trust them.”

There was one more surprise to come: A judge informed the Campbells that the siblings had a baby sister, 4 months old.

“We said absolutely,” said Jeanné. “This was 360 degrees of the circle. She was the little icing on the cake.”

The icing grew even sweeter when the children met. “They all took to each other — it was beautiful,” said Jeanné, remembering how the boys had shouted, “There’s a baby, Mom! There’s a baby!” when they learned the news.

As the families were getting ac-quainted, a touching encounter between Jeanné’s 5-year-old niece, Ava, and Richie helped cement the decision.

“(Ava) said, ‘This is my Auntie Nae-Nae,’ and Richie said, ‘This is going to be my mommy,’” Jeanné recalled.

As of March 20, 2010, the three siblings moved into the Campbell home as foster children. In a relatively quick process, on Nov. 17 of the same year, they were legally adopted as Campbells.

The process of readjusting as a sudden-ly enlarged family called for a sensitive approach.

Perhaps the biggest shift came for the parents, with differences in bonding between newborns and older children. There tends to be a natural bond with babies, said Rick, while older children need a “feeling-out process.”

“You don’t know where the boundaries are,” he said. “You don’t know when is the time they can call you ‘Daddy.’”

For example, he added, Richie was call-ing him “Daddy” before the first day had ended. Her brother Mario took a little longer. Part of that, he noted, was in the children realizing that this latest change in their lives was going to be for good.

But, overall, fusing as a family was a re-markably smooth process. It helped, the parents said, that Dawson and Braeden were eagerly on board for a bigger family.

“All of us were coming to the con-clusion that this was something we all wanted,” said Rick.

What does the future hold for this family, where the capacity to love seems elastic, ready to swell to include more?

“We’re done for now,” laughed Rick, in a tone that implies that if there’s a child in need out there, the Campbells just might step up.

Currently, they’re all a busy family. All five older children are enrolled in Faral-lone View Elementary School, in first, third, fourth and fifth grades respectively. They’re all also bitten by the acting bug, taking classes at Coastal Theatre Con-servatory. Both Braeden and his father appeared in the 2009 Coastal Repertory Theatre musical production of “Tommy,” as the young Tommy and as a policeman, respectively. And all play sports, particu-larly baseball and basketball.

All of the children know they are adopted, but, far from having problems with the idea, they’re too busy having fun together as a family.

“It’s a wonderful feeling because three people became a family,” said Dawson. “I have more brothers and sisters than I would have if I wasn’t adopted.” 1

“WE WANT ALL CHILDREN TO ExPERIENCE

uNCONDITIONAL LOVE.”

— Jeanné Campbell


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Assess, plan, shop, enjoy

The nurseries are starting to fill up with beautiful rose plants. Every year I try to justify buying more roses (maybe just one?). Some years I don’t really have a practical reason or room, and some years I actually do. Here’s how I figure it out:

Assess: Are there any roses that were problem children for you? It could be either that they didn’t produce enough blooms, were way too prone to disease and pest damage, in the wrong spot, or maybe they just grew too big for their britches.

Plan: Now you get to decide what to do with any rose bushes you’re going to get rid of. You can give them away to someone with more favorable condi-tions, relocate them to a more desirable location in your garden, or maybe simply green waste them. (Or all of the above.)

Shop: If you are lucky enough to be able to bring some new lovelies home this year, before going to the nursery make sure you look through the beauti-ful pictures and information in online catalogues (or actual paper ones you can hold in your hand!) so you’ll know what you’re looking for when you get to the nursery. It’s easy to be seduced into buying a beautiful rose bush that is absolutely wrong for your garden! If you can’t figure out which roses are best for coastal weather, ask your nurseryman.

As for ‘Fair Bianca’…I thought I’d show you how she (and some of her sisters) might look if you

were to see her in one of those luscious rose catalogues. And lucky me, this is how she’ll look at my garden party in May!

— CML

“I’m looking for something exotic to grow in my garden. I’m sick of native

plants and only planting ‘cool colors.’ Any ideas?”

— Michael P., San Francisco

Well, Michael, you sound a bit like Veruca Salt in “Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory.”

“Daddy, I want a goose that can lay golden eggs!” And to be honest, I can relate. yester-day I stood in my garden in front of the roses and practically berated them for not growing fast enough or having blooms. (I stopped my-self once the neighbors heard me.)

OK, so something exotic ... warm colors, huh? I have just the thing! Buddha Hand lemon tree!

The problem with “exotic” plants is that gener-ally they love warm climates and lots of water. Although temperate, we don’t really have that in California, being a dry state and all. That is one of the many, many reasons it’s good to plant native plants. But try this little lemon tree in your garden. They are gorgeous and grow very similarly to regular lemons, but produce fabulous fruit that looks like weird hands. The lovely yellow color will brighten up any garden and the fruit gets everyone asking, “What the hell is that?” Just make sure you have a fairly dry/warm location that doesn’t get tons of wind.

— JLS

Q&A


» SIGHTSEEING WITH LARS HOWLETT

Frame Within a Frame

n When: 3:21 p.m., Jan. 10, 2011n Where: Half Moon Bay State Beachn Exposure: 1/800 of a second at f/4.5, ISO 100n Photographer’s Notes: With a tendency towards clean compositions and strong lines in photographs, I often employ the ‘frame within a frame’ technique when creating an image. A common example of this ap-proach would be to pose a subject within a window or doorway, but it’s important to realize the frame does not need to be rectangular to succeed aesthetically. Documenting the salvage and recovery of the Phyllis J., I ran around to get a better view of the excavator, ecstatic to find myself in the right place at the right time to frame the boat under the arm of the construction equipment. Framing subjects in multiple layers also helps to give depth to an image. Instead of seeing the subject as an object, I try to create images that have a stronger sense of fore, middle and background.

Lars Howlett is the Half Moon Bay Review’s

photographer. You can reach him at

[email protected]

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