Adventures in Geocaching!

I've mentioned geocaching a few times on here, so I thought I'd give you all a peek into this fun family activity! Geocaching is sort of like a world-wide treasure hunt in which you use a GPS (Global Positioning System) to hunt for coordinates where someone has hidden a "cache" or container. Anyone with a GPS can participate, both hiding and finding caches. You must first log in to the geocaching website and register - it's free! Then you can do a search for caches in your area and load the coordinates into your GPS for the ones you want to look for. After that, you're ready to go geocaching! (You would be amazed how many caches are hidden all over your city or town and the surrounding areas!)

When you find a cache, you sign your name and date on the log (paper or booklet) inside, and if there are items inside, you can trade for them. We often find things like toys, small games, coins (foreign or specialty), carabiners, magnets, and other knick-knacky stuff. We recently traded for a dollar bill folded origami-style to look like an elephant! Creative stuff. Some items are "trackable" online - they're called "travel bugs" (or "geo-coins" if they're coins) - which means they have a special number issued and attached to them, and each time a person finds and re-hides the item, its progress is tracked online. It's fun to find items that originated on another continent, and it's fun, also, to place trackable items in faraway places. Adam has placed trackable items from here into caches in both Washington state and Washington D.C.!

Some caches are larger, like ammo boxes or large glass mayonnaise jars. These larger caches are called "traditional" caches. Some are smaller, like film container-sized and even smaller. These are called "micro" caches. There's a picture at the bottom of this post of a cache so tiny it's called a "nano" - all that fits inside is a tiny roll of paper. There are also other types of caches, but they're more rare. One is called a "multi" cache, because the coordinates lead to the first in a series of caches that can only be discovered by finding them in order. We also did one recently that required solving a mathematical puzzle to figure out the coordinates to the cache!

(For a more extensive explanation of geocaching from Wikipedia, see here.)

Anyway, once you have a GPS, geocaching is totally free, other than the gas you use driving to your locations. So it's super inexpensive, and so much fun! The benefits are many. We like the thrill of the hunt - working together as a family (or often, a daddy and son) to be sneaky and track down a hidden object! And it's good excercise when you're out walking or hiking around. We also like the fact that we find new parks and cool places that we didn't even know were there before! Finding out where in the country or the world trackable items have come from is another fun aspect! And once in awhile, we've bumped into other geocachers and made some "friends" in the geocaching world.

Here are some pictures of recent geocaching adventures:

Adam and the boys did a lot of caches on Nov. 28th. (It was the day after Thanksgiving, and I decided to venture out on Black Friday. Whew. That was an experience. Don't know if I'll try that again anytime soon. Not being much of a shopper or a "crowds" person, it's not exactly up my alley...the only alluring factor is the good deals! But anyway, I digress.) Here is one they found at the beach!

One in the woods/brush...

...and one in some rocks!

Here are some of the treasures they found and traded for! (It's always a good idea to keep a little bag of "junk" in the vehicle when you're going out geocaching - trading fodder is quite useful sometimes!)

Drake and Adam went out again a few days later. They're holding a couple of trackable geo-coins they found. The object on the floor in the center is an empty turtle shell they found while hiking around that day! Pretty cool! None of us had ever seen one before.

Here are the boys and I after finding a tricky and creative cache on a short geocaching expedition after church. The name of the cache was simply "89" - it turned out to be a large, flat magnet on the side of an electrical box with alpha-numeric stickers reading "AT9". (They totally had us for a long time because the "fake" stickers on the cache magnet looked a lot like the real stickers used by the power company to mark the boxes, and you couldn't even tell the magnet was there!) So this cache consisted of only a magnet, with a paper "log" on the back to sign.

Here's Adam displaying the nano-cache he finally found (on the screen of the GPS)! He and friend Dave had been looking for this particular nano, off and on, for over a year and a half! Very tricky. It's magnetic and completely blends in with its surroundings!

Here's a close-up view. Wow! Now that's tiny. (Adam calls this one his "nano nemesis"!) This was his second nano find. The little white roll on the side is the tiny paper log that fits inside...and it was really a tight fit!

.

.

So that's a quick glimpse into the world of geocaching! I encourage anyone with a GPS to give it a try - it's lots of fun!

You won't believe this...

I'm surprised that I didn't think to blog about this sooner! This is one of those strange stories that I would expect to hear happened to someone else. Not me.

Three Sundays ago, I think, we came back from church and lunch at McDonald's. (Now a couple of you know where I'm going with this!) Actually, the boys and I came home, while Adam and our friend Dave, who was staying with us for the weekend, went to watch a football game. (Not having cable is problematic when you need to watch a football game...you can't do it in your own house!) Anyway, so the boys and I walk in our front door, and I'm getting ready to take Levi upstairs and put him down for nap. Drake asks if he can play in the backyard. Well, sure. Why not? So out he goes. Five seconds later, he's back. And he's asking, "Mommy, why are all those toys outside?" "What toys?" (I'm confused.) "My cars and Bionicles and some books, too."

Oh...no...

A thought crosses my mind - but I push it out. Impossible. Neighbor children inside our house while we're gone?

Oh yeah.

That's right. While we were out, two neighbor boys from down the street (ages seven and three), not only came into our backyard, but came through our sliding glass door (which I had obviously failed to lock) and into our house, taking some of the toys from the playroom and the living room back out to the yard to play with. What?! Even when the pieces started coming together (including an incriminating eye-witness account from the neighbors directly behind us), I was still in shock. The weird thing is, we barely know these kids! And I had never even met the parents. We'd been seeing a lot of them over the few days prior, which is really the only factor that made the story seem plausible at first. But it was indeed true.

Several questions came to mind. A lot of them actually. Where all did these children go in my home? (Hopefully not through my underwear drawer.) Am I overreacting? Like, is this something one should expect if they forget to lock their sliding door? (Ummm...no.) What would have happened if we had owned a kid-eating doberman? (Could I live with that?) Or what if they had just fallen off our swing set in the backyard and sprained an ankle or something? (Our insurance would be paying for it, I'll tell you that. The US government would make sure of it.) And how about this: Where were Mom and Dad, and did they even have a clue what their children had been up to that morning?

So anyway, I went and introduced myself and (very politely) discussed the situation with the boys' parents (who were both home at the time of the incident, by the way). In the parents' defense, Dad had just returned home from a deployment, and things tend to get a little crazy during that readjustment phase. The boys had been playing outside, and when Dad went looking for them, found them in our yard and made them come home. (The parents had no idea they had been in our house, but the little one readily confessed!)

After that, I immediately called my friend, Cherie. I needed to burden someone else with my bizarre story! And by the end of the conversation I was feeling, well, a little more normal and less shocked. And reallyreallyreally thankful that our "intruders" were little kids who just borrowed toys from inside our house - they didn't even take them. It could easily have been something oh so very much worse!

So anyway, now we have locks on the backyard gates and try to remember to lock the sliding door, pretty much whenever it's not in use. And just in time, too. Because yesterday I forgot to lock the door, and Levi figured out how to open it. I found him happily playing in the yard by himself, with the door wide open. Well, at least he couldn't get out of the yard!

"Owie!"

Levi isn't much of a talker. And the words he does say are typically recognizable only to us, or in a really obvious context. (Examples: "Buh!" for bus; "Sah!" for socks; "Suh!" for pizza...and yes, they always come out of his mouth with an exclamation point!) A couple of weeks ago, Levi learned to say "owie" - we laughed so hard over how clear he says it...SO cute! Then I tried and tried to capture it on video, without much luck. Many, many video clips later, he finally said it. Success at last! Anyway, here are two of the video clips we took that day. The first one is much longer, and shows some of his hilarious facial expressions, but no "owie". The second (very short) one was my success story!

The voices you hear are me (running the camera), Drake (in and out of the picture) and our friend Dave, who was sitting at the table with us.

(I think Drake was getting tired of all the attempts - what do you think?!)

As I was uploading these clips today, Levi heard them and was fascinated. He kept saying "owie" over and over and over...

Busy two weeks!

Ten days since my last post? Yikes! It's now the end of a busy couple of weeks! Here's a look at some of the highlights since I dropped off the face of the earth...

Grandpa and Levi playing outside

.

Drake's class took a field trip to the pumpkin patch! Drake is in the middle row to the far right. It happened to fall on a Thursday morning, so I had to work, but our kind neighbor, Jennifer (Tyler's mom), gave my parents and Levi a ride to the pumpkin patch so they could be there with Drake. It made his day! And I think Grandpa and Grandma had a good time too!

.

The last night Dad was here, we (Dad, Mom, Drake, and I) went mini golfing! It was great fun! One hole was particularly difficult for Drake, and after numerous (very numerous) hits, he finally got the ball in. He joyfully called out, "HOLE IN 250! NEXT!"

.

My parents are aspiring Polka dancers, and so I got to learn a few of the steps from my dad. A lot of fun, and left me surprisingly out of breath!

.

Adam and Dave dressed to impress...for a night of fishing, that is!

.

Adam, Dave, and Drake went geocaching and came back with some pretty cool finds! (We need to do this more often. Lately we've gotten a bit out of the habit, but it's a cheap and super-fun family activity!)

.

Since I didn't get to go on the pumpkin patch field trip, we went back a few days later (Grandma, the boys, and I) and picked out some pumpkins that we'll carve when it gets a little closer to Halloween.

.

Grandma and Levi playing on the slide.

.

Well, that wasn't the deepest and most thought-provoking post ever, but better than nothing at this point! So here are some of the logistics pertaining to all that random mumbo-jumbo: my parents arrived about two weeks ago, my dad left about a week ago, and my mom left yesterday. Our "TDY'd" friend Dave will be with us for two more weekends after this one before returning home to Alaska. I hope to be posting a little more frequently, now that life is returning to a slower pace. We have had a crazy - but awesome - past two weeks!

Beach pictures, and a fun visit!

We've been having a blast with my parents (Wyatt and Kathi) visiting! How many pictures I would love to post, but unfortunately that's not gonna happen unless I end up with a blogging lull sometime down the road and post them retroactively!

Mom and Dad arrived on Saturday night...Sunday we went to church, then to a local aquarium after lunch (way fun!), and then in the evening, Drake went to AWANA and earned two "jewels" for his vest in one night, and Adam and friend Dave watched the Seahawks vs. Packers game. The Seahawks lost. (That's a total shocker! Right?!?)

All this week we've been doing fun stuff in the afternoons/evenings, including a trip last night out to a favorite local restaurant of ours where we always go with out-of-town guests. It even has live gators in a pond, a playground, and a little gator "museum" of sorts. After Drake got off the school bus today, we headed for the beach, and then to McDonalds for a bit of a late supper. There have also been polka-dancing nights and game-playing nights, and plenty of book-reading by Grandpa and Grandma. So a fun time is being had by all.

Anyway, without further ado, here are the beach pictures I promised in the last post. (Unfortunately, that's all I've got time for right now, although you can imagine that some of the other before-mentioned activities presented plenty of amusing/humorous/cute photo ops as well!)

The little speck dude out there is Adam, boogeyboarding. (I'm sure I totally butchered the spelling on that one, but the closest word Blogger's spellchecker suggests is "keyboarding" - which doesn't capture the essence of the activity very well.) So anyway, Adam spent a lot of time doing this, and it looked like a lot of fun! The waves and current were a bit much for the rest of us, though.

Grandma and Levi playing in the sand. Levi thought the waves were a bit scary today.

Smiley, sandy baby!

Drake enjoyed writing his name, and other things, in the sand with a stick.

The finished masterpiece!

Flying a kite! I should have included a picture of the way it was being flown. On a fishing pole. In a pole holder. Stuck in the sand. We like to be unorthodox around here.

The Fam! Daddy, Mommy, Drake, and Levi

Grandpa and Grandma with the boys!

So anyway...we're having a fantastic time! And now you know why I've been too busy to post for awhile. More to come. (Eventually!)

Catching up

Hello again, bloggy friends! It's been awhile! Now that it's Thursday, I'm finally getting around to telling you a little about our weekend. The biggest highlight was a visit from our friend, Dave, who is on a TDY (Temporary Duty) for training about 3 hours from here. Yes, this is the same friend who, just a few short months ago, left this area for a new assignment in Alaska! It has been a little hard seeing him again without his family (sniff, sniff), but we are oh, so thankful that he's here with us nonetheless. He will probably be coming to stay with us for many of the weekends over the next month. Yay!!

The other important advancement this weekend was the purchase of a new dryer. Last Thursday night, Adam and I decided we would try to fix our old dryer! Ha! We are so funny. We took the thing almost completely apart, and were so pleased with ourselves several hours later when we finally got it put back together. We found that the heating element thingy in the back of the dryer was missing a screw and had slipped out of place, so we were hoping that by putting it back where it should be, our problems might be at least partially solved. (You would not believe the amount of lint that can collect in every crevice of a 7-year-old dryer. Let's just say that we have not been dog owners for over 5 years, and we found a bunch of dog hair!)

So anyway, after it's all cleaned out and put back together, we finally got it all hooked back up, turned it on, and it started up! We were thrilled...success at last! (And we didn't even want to do bodily harm to each other by the end of the project. For us, that can be an accomplishment in itself!) So anyway, we stopped it and thought about trying it out with a load of clothes in it to see if they would get nice and warm and dry...however, when we tried to turn it back on, nothing happened! We had this very same problem a year or two back (dryer not starting) and it cost us $80 to fix it, which we were not about to sink into a cheap, ancient dryer again.

Soooo, Saturday afternoon, Adam embarked on a quest to find a new dryer. To make a long story short, he found the perfect dryer for me at a deeply discounted price at the BX. It had been separated from its box somewhere along the line, and had some "imperfections" on the outside. So my wheelin'-and-dealin' hubby talked the manager into giving us $50 off initially, and then 25% off that! (I would SO not have done that...but this is why my husband talks to car salesmen instead of me.) So it was a great deal, and it's a really nice dryer. It even has a low heat cycle, something our old one was lacking. Very, very thankful!

The handyman hard at work

Look what my knight in shining armor brought home!

And what woman in her right mind posts TWO pictures of a new dryer on her blog? One who is deeply in love.

Dave brought with him some hat pins for Drake's collection. (Alaska and Green Bay.) Drake was completely stoked!! Dave even brought Levi his very first hat pin, too! So we really need to find a hat for Levi to start putting his pins on. (Our favorite Alaskans are huge Packers fans, and actually made a pilgrimage to Green Bay, WI on their way up to Alaska. We love you guys!)

A new baby!

Our dear friends, Dave and Cherie, have welcomed their third daughter into the world today! They had a relatively quick labor, an uncomplicated and completely unmedicated VBAC delivery, and a healthy baby girl! We are so excited and proud of them!

I got to talk with Jaedyn (age 4-1/2) and Nana (Cherie's mom, who is "Nana" to our boys too) on the phone this evening - what a blessing to know that it's over, and that it went so well. Cherie and Dave are still choosing just the right name for their precious daughter, and I'll let you know what they decide upon at a later time. Apparently, she was born with a beautiful head of hair! If I have my facts straight, she's 7 pounds, 4 ounces, and 20 inches long.

I look forward to someday when I will be able to meet her and hold her too! Missing them so much, but very thankful... We love you, our special friends!