Geocaching 5/16/2010

This one I found with a couple friends.

Tassee Bridge, another cache to find but this time I went alone. There was this old man hanging around the cache for about 20 minutes without moving on. Finally he left and I grabbed it.

First find of the day today. It was fairly simple, nothing to trade.

First guardrail find. I have yet to find a guardrail that I enjoyed. I hate guardrails!

This was a pill bottle that was hanging from some pine trees. Pretty cool.

This one was outside of Home Depot. Pretty easy cache.

This one was definitely the coolest of the day. Dropped a couple travel bugs in this one.

Here is the open container.

Last find of the day. All were pretty simple.

Urgent Care...Oxymoron. Happy Mothers Day to me.

So I have been sickly the last few days, difficulty swallowing, swollen tonsils, congestion. Last night was the last straw I couldn't sleep with a raging headache and I couldn't breath. It was time to see a doctor. So this morning I get up, shower and show up at a place called "Urgent Care". After an hour they finally call my name JUST TO CHECK IN. I watched child after child walk out of the office announcing that they had "Strep Throat". I started to sweat a little, what if I had strep? Oh God, I don't have time to be sick with three kids, work, a broken husband who is about as useful as a 2 year old right now. Finally, they call my name and I go sit in the little room with all of the crazy scary instruments for yet another hour before I get a work up. Good news, I do not have strep. Bad news, I have tonsillitis. I got some meds and was sent home for "rest". Yeah right, rest. Once again, Happy Mothers Day!

Geocaching 05/02/2010

Sunday marked the Ten year anniversary of Geocaching and I was able to attend an event for it. I had to get up at 0445 to make it there for the breakfast at 0730 in Asheville. It was a long drive about an hour and a half but I have made it many times before. I had a great time meeting all of these, strange, addicted, cachers. Most of them were way more experienced than me but that is ok, they welcomed me like a moth to a flame! ha ha.

Here is the group picture of everyone that was there. Made some good friends here and I am excited about meeting more at other events. I am also thinking about hosting an event closer to home to meet and greet more cachers.

On the way home I had plotted out some caches to grab. We found a total of 11 and only DNF (Did Not Find) two which brought my total found to 20 caches. Pretty amazing to me since I am such a newb and have only gone about 5 times total.

 

This one was at a rest stop and it was called B R P (ee). It was a very easy find and we were happy about it too. I got an arrow head and I left them a stuffed puppy.

I hate rail road tracks, they frighten me. Luckily the cache was located far away from these tracks, we just had to walk next to them for a bit.

Here is the cache, interesting because it is a military decontamination kit.

Easy find on this one, painted altoids can.

Another easy find, it also gave me a chance to check the air in my tires.

This one the animals had gotten too because there was rice in the container which seemed to be a good idea to keep the moisture away but people forget animals like rice too.

Yet another easy find in Dillsboro.

Do you see it? I think I leaned against this post for about 20 minutes before I realized where it was.

The Reason I Geocache

This is said best by a newb cacher blog that I recently found: http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2010/02...comment-1904341
Invite me for a hike up Greylock, the state’s highest peak – which happens to be in my backyard – and I’ll find an excuse not to go. Tell me that someone’s hidden something halfway up the mountain, in a location that’s probably hard to get to and give me no encouragement other than a set of GPS coordinates and I’m off, dragging as many unwitting friends as I’m able to ensnare along the way. I’m embarrassed that it takes something as silly and arbitrary as signing my name to a log to get me to lace up my boots, but there it is. I need destinations, goals, and it turns out that they’ll shape my behavior even if they’re extremely silly.

The reason to go caching isn’t the rubber ducks or the opportunity to sign a log. It’s the non-zero possibility that something strange, wonderful and serendipitous will happen enroute. Some of us are inclined to wander without a goal in mind – others need goals that encourage us to wander somewhere we wouldn’t normally stray.


____Exactly what he said is the reason I cache. However, I do not think that I lack goals and I can wander aimlessly, it is just that I am too lazy to do this sort of thing so if I can go find some hidden treasure then the laziness is gone and it is more the excitement to go find it.

Geocaching 04/11/10

Our first Cache of the day was at a nice reststop located between Franklin and Otto. We have never been there before but when Ana found this cache it was a huge milestone for her since it was her first one.

Our next cache was a multicache. It told us to park at the hog pen. Since I am a farmgirl I had an idea as to what a hog pen was supposed to look like. I was wrong. It was called the hog pen because of the Harley Davidson motorcycles that are parked there. Once I looked up I found the coordinates to the next location.

Here is the next location. Can you see it?

How about now?

Our next cache was an easier find that I let Trista dig for. She was way more interested in throwing rocks in the river.

One of our last caches we did not find it. But this nice lady who owned these little pigmy goats came up to us and let us hold one of the ten day old goats. They are too cute! Oh and so is the goat.

Here is another cache we found that was on the way home from our day. I was happy to find this one, I was tired.

See what happens when you don't listen?

No Lani you cannot jump out of the bathtub you might get hurt. Lani I said no jumping out of the...Nevermind...

I love the "I beat my children" blackeye look.

Mini Me

We had a little scare with our 13 year old companion Mini Me. She somehow had gotten bitten by one of the big dogs and was injured pretty badly. She was unable to walk, eat, drink, or even go out to the bathroom. Finally I broke down and took her to the vet. We thought we were going to have to put her down from the injuries. The vet gave her some antibiotics and some pain meds that she had to take for ten days. We noticed a difference a couple hours after giving her the first dose of pain meds. She was able to walk! Now she is able to get up and down the stairs, jump on the couch, eat, and drink. We are so happy to have her getting better, one day at a time for her but I believe she has a couple more years in her.

Tax Season is over.

Finally, I get to go home at a decent hour during the week. I get to meet my husband again. I get to see my kids and how much they have grown up in the past four months. I get to spend lazy saturdays with my family. I love the end of season! It was my best friends birthday yesterday as well so I guess she will always know when tax season is about to come to an end.

I hope everyone got their taxes done or at least got their extension in last night because as of today they are LATE and the IRS does not joke around when it comes to penalties and fees. Unless of course they owe you money then feel free to not file on-time. Let me know if you need some help cause THIS is what I do!

Mommy BJ

My mother-in-law BJ spent two weeks in the hospital. She has got to be the toughest woman I know. When I first married my husband she had a bad kidney and my sister in law gave her one of hers. Then we moved to NC and found out mom had Lung cancer. They removed that and she was in remission for a long time. Then she had this pain in her ribs, went back to the docs and they said she had bone cancer. They remove the rib (must have been that one that Adam gave her, didn't need it anyway) and started her on some radiation therapy. She did okay for awhile with it then got very sick and ended up making the hospital her home for two weeks. I am assuming here because I have yet to talk to her but I think she had pneumonia. While she was in the hospital I had a real Saturday off and I got to go to visit her with the kids. They missed her terribly and were very excited to go. Mom had started losing her hair from the radiation and she decided to shave it off! So did my husband and my father in law. What a good bunch of boys. I do not have the picture of all three of them but I do have this one with the two youngest loving on their mamaw.

Then we headed out to do some shopping but by this time we were famished and stopped to get some Chinese food at this little buffet I noticed next to wal-mart (my home away from home by the way). I was able to snap this picture of Ana playing with her silverware again.

My Brother

I am a little behind in my family updates, sorry about that I promise to get better as the tax season finally comes to a close. Back a few weeks ago my brother came for a visit. Well, more like he came for some training in Charlotte which was 3 hrs away and I decided to load my family into the truck and drag them along to visit him on a Sunday. 6 hours in the car both ways it a LONG drive with three little girls, your husband, and your MOTHER!

My brother and I never really got along as kids. We mostly argued and kicked each others butts around the house. It wasn't until he moved out that I began to appreciate my brother and what he did. He joined the Army out of high school and went from Washington state to Germany in the span of a few years. He was sent home finally and he settled in VA. Jim and I also lived in VA for a time and we got to spend a lot of time with him there. Not as much as I would have like but since my brother never took time off and Jim was always gone to Iraq it was hard to get together.

We arrived in Charlotte about 1 pm and spent about three hours with him in his hotel room just hanging out and talking. (The drive actually was not that bad since Jim and I had the forthought to put the DVD players in the truck the night before. It was the first time we made a long trip and the girls didn't say a peep the whole time.) It was very good to see him again. He was recently fired from his job in VA which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He moved to Montana and has loved everyday of it.

Meanwhile, since Jim and I have moved from Hawaii we have not had a Jack in the Box burger in about five years. Jim mentioned in passing that he thought there was a Jack in the Box in Charlotte somewhere. We laughed and drooled over how good that would be. Low and behold as soon as we turned to my bothers hotel off of the freeway there it was...Like a sign from God himself that we were meant to be here on this day, was the Jack in the Box. The sky opened up and the angels sang Halleluja!

Okay not really but or course that is exactly where we ate. It had to be the BEST fast food burger on the planet.

We left after that and drove the long drive home. It was nice to see you brother! I love you.