Today was one of those great weekend days. The weather was perfect. We accomplished more in one day than we usually do in the entire weekend.
SweetE had his final soccer game and got his first trophy. He is so excited. Both boys made pirate ships at the Home Depot Kids Clinic. They have their own aprons and did a pretty good job pounding in nails and not fingers. We were pretty happy that our fingers were intact at the end.
I got the new stair treads stained. One step closer to getting them installed and finally being done with the big remodel project. I am kind of itching to start a new project. But I must, must, must get the existing ones done first. And save some more money.
Then we went hunting. I printed off some geocaches and off we went. If you don't know, geocaches are small containers that people have hidden. You get the coordinates and start looking. They come in all sizes. If they are bigger you can trade trinkets. The boys love it. We call it treasure hunting. We did a few big ones today, so there were lots of trinkets to choose from. You bring trade items with you. Usually happy meal toys. The great part about caching is that we find all kinds of great neighborhoods and parks that we would have never found otherwise. Places that you might drive by and not even realize that there was a park or trail there.
So we looked for three and found two. One had 5 parts and had us driving a couple miles here and then there. The only down side was on the last stop, sweetE stepped in dog doo. I picked him up because he was cold and then I was wearing dog doo. But we found the cache in the end and then headed home. And we had baby wipes in the car so I was able to clean most of it off before we left. Baby wipes are the most useful items. Even though we are done with diapers, I am predicting that wipes will be with us for a while.
All in all, today was a 10!
7 comments:
good for you on the stair treads. you are inspiring me to think harder about painting our basement entryway. if i could think of a color, i'd paint it. but i am very bad at that and so it remains eternally primer white.
i am not at all familiar with the geocaches tradition, which sounds like fun, but ... once you find the cache, do you keep it? put another in its place? or what?
and people obey these rules and don't just trash them?
you are restoring my faith in humanity, ped.
The caches vary in size. Some are so small they only have a log book. You log your caching name and date. Some are big enough to have various trinkets in them. If there are trinkets, you can just sign the log, just leave a trinket, or a take a trinket and leave a trinket. You leave the cache itself.
The only thing you need to do it is a gps unit and to belong to www.geocaching.com (which is free for a basic membership). It really is on the honor system. And people are generally good about it. Sometimes non-geocachers will take or vandalize a cache, but we try to hide them pretty well.
It really is fun and gets us out into the great outdoors. I checked and there are 4000-8000 caches in the twin cities area. I think you would love it. Many caches are in parks and are dog friendly.
As for paint, ask yourself what colors are around it and what colors do I love. I am always happy to help with suggestions if I know those two things. :)
ah. gps. dont' have that yet but what an excellent idea--an ongoing, community scavanger hunt.
re the basement way: it's a tiny space, with a sloped ceiling and a very short door to the outside. doug has to duck his head.
we peeled off the horrible dark 1970s-era paneling and it is much brighter now, but it's still a very small and narrow space.
our kitchen is Chinese Red, our living room and dining room are a kind of warm gold. so those are the colors around it.
i love a colorful house.
suggestions welcome!
So glad your day was a 10! I love those days. The dog doo incident would have made the day more of an eight for me - glad you could still enjoy despite it!
I love this cache idea! I've never heard of it, but I just know it is something my kids and hubby would LOVE to do for an adventure.
Just wanted to say that I randomly ran across your blog and have enjoyed reading it. I was a math teacher for 5 years and my family and I have just discovered geocaching this past summer (thanks to my best friend!).
Hi rachelc, I'm glad you stumbled across me. I was only a math teacher for 4 years. Now math is just one of my subjects. Welcome aboard.
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