Alex has fallen in love with a series of books called Bean and Ivy Series and is almost finished with the series. She is taking a break and reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid and then onto the Ramona and Beezus serious and we found a nice horse series at a yard sale today that she wants to read.
I am settling down on what our school plan/curriculum is going to be this year and will post all that in another thread. Gavin will be starting formal school this year too!!! So exciting!!!!
This weekend started a new adventure for our family, we are now Geocachers!! If you haven't heard of Geocaching before it is a scavenger type game using a GPS device or App on your Smartphone that gives you the coordinates to where you find your treasure and then you will hunt for it. The Geocache is a container some small, medium, and large which hold either a log book where you will write your name, date and a note if you choose and personal treasures if the cache is large enough to do so. We spent all weekend finding Geocaches close to home.
Friday Night 7/29/11
We went to our first Geocache by a local church. There was a very short hike into the woods when Alex spotted a camouflaged tennis ball can in a tree. Inside the can was the log book and various toys. Alex took a miniature Captain Hook doll and Gavin took some blue Mardigras beads and left behind a bracelet and a bubble blow wand. This was a great first geocache, very easy to locate and it was super exciting for the kids and they wanted to keep going.
Our 2nd Geocache was called Yield to the Trees because there is a street around the corner from us where the road started and a yield sign was put in, but the road wasn't completed and there are trees there so it looks like your Yielding into the trees. This was a micro-cache made from a contact case so there was just a log scroll inside that we signed our name and date to.
Our 3rd cache that night was at the baseball field where Gavin played ball at, not just the park but the actual field where he played. It was hidden well and it took us [Arnie] a little bit to find it. This was also a micro one made out of an old film case (my kids don't even know what that is) and there was a log scroll inside that we signed and dated.
Our 4th cache was at a graveyard in town. At first Alex was pretty leery about going in, but then saw the coolness of the old cemetery and started looking for the cache. We were unable to locate this cache and finally headed over to Dairy Queen for some well earned ice cream.
On the way home we stopped off at the grocery store down from our house to look for a 5th and
final cache before we went home. Found it in a very unexpected spot. This was a micro cache that had a log scroll that we signed our name and date.
Saturday 7/30/11
The 6th one was behind Chic-fil-a. There is a wooded area behind the restaurant and Alex found it behind a tree. Medium size ammo inside was a nascar picture that was rolled up, princess frisbees, santa bell, 2 brand new matchbox cars in wrapper and the log book. Alex switched out a bracelet for the Santa bell and Gavin gave a silly band for a matchbox car. In this box we also found a bug tracker. These are tags or coins that you may find in the cache and when you come home and log them you find out where their destination should be and help them get there by bringing them closer to that goal. Our bug tracker had a destination to travel to as many states as possible.
Our 7th cache was behind our Target on a short road that leads into the woods. This one was a little tricky, but Arnie & Gavin found the small tube behind a tree off the trail. This was a small cache that had a log to mark your name and a bouncy ball. We logged our name I took a picture of Gavin in this location and we moved on.
Our 3rd stop was back at the graveyard. We are not going to let this one go. I have a feeling that it looks like part of the fence like a bolt or something. We were unsuccessful again, but we plan on going back a 3rd time without the children. Its in a fenced in area, but Sam was running around too much to really pay attention to detail.
Sunday 7/31/11
There is a little White Church a couple miles from us. It is a very sweet church that seems very lonely since I don't think it sees a lot of traffic. This geocache hunt is our current favorite hunt. This one had clues leading up to the cache which was really fun. There were 4 clues that we had to hunt down before finding the Long Ammo Tube containing all the goodies. Arnie found the first and second clue, Gavin found the 3rd, mommy found the 4th and Alex found our 8th cache. Inside the cache there was hotel soaps (not the best cache goodie, very melted), lotion, aromatherapy sleep aid, bouncy balls, 2 name logs, a playing card with a name and date on it, golf ball, and a few other small items. We left the tracking bug we found yesterday in this cache and took the playing card to travel with us to the next cache.
For our 9th cache we drove up the road a couple miles to a park in Hoschton, there was a creek with sliding rocks to see and walk down leading to the trail. We hiked in the woods a good distance past where the cache was showing on the GPS because we wanted to see if the trail lead around to that location. When it didn't seem like it was going to and we back tracked. When we arrived back to where the gps was guiding to it we had to get off the trail about 20 yards and found the cache chained to a tree that was leaning to the left. The cache was a medium size ammo box. Inside there was a new spiderman washcloth, winnie the pooh toy, bracelet, USA map, the name log. Gavin took the sideman washcloth and Alex choose a bracelet and left behind a toy diamond ring, butterfly marker and I put in the playing card that I took from the last cache.
Our 10th cache was a quick cache on the side of the road that was placed inside a fence post in a medicine bottle. It was a name log mini cache. Arnie found this one from his view in the car while I was out trying to find it by the fence.
We had a great weekend geocaching and plan to put out our own cache shortly and also send out a few travel bugs to people we know and see how long it reaches them.
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