Geocaching!

This last week has been perfect for geocaching! The weather has been beautiful and it's been warm enough to go outside without your fingers and toes turning black and falling off. Last weekend when we visited the Charleville Winery, Lauren and I found two trackables in the If You Don't Get On, You Can't Fall Off cache.

Here are the two that we found.

 Micro-Brew Snozzberry

This is a type of geocoin. It's called a GeoJellies 4. They come in all different flavors and from what I've read are pretty rare to find.

Travel Bug Hyundai 

This one is called a travel bug. That's probably why there's a bug on the side of the dog tag.

It's a promotional one for someplace that makes the Hyundai's in Alabama.  

For those of you who don't know what trackables are. There are two kinds of trackables:

1. Geobugs-A Travel Bug is a Trackable that moves from place to place, picking up stories along the way. Here you can add your own story, or live vicariously through each Bug's adventures. Simply put, a Groundspeak Travel Bug is a trackable tag that you attach to an item. This allows you to track your item on Geocaching.com. The item becomes a hitchhiker that is carried from cache to cache (or person to person) in the real world and you can follow its progress online.

2. Geocoins- A Geocoin is a special coin created by individuals or groups of geocachers as a kind of signature item or calling card. Like Travel Bugs, each Geocoin is assigned a unique tracking ID which allows them to travel from geocache to geocache or to be passed amongst friends, picking up stories along the way.

You can read about either of the two trackables on www.geocaching.com. 


Yesterday was such a beautiful day (compared to the last 4 months of nothing but cold nasty weather) that I decided to take Stratton and my Dad on a geocaching adventure. I have about 5-6 planned but my dad was going to go meet a friend to do some"jig tying" (my dad is a huge crappie fisher and he ties his own flies if this is coming across as a foreign language just message me and I'll explain) so we had to cut it down to only 2 finds for the day. Which wasn't bad considering we were only out for a little over an hour. Before we left to go find some geocache, Stratton was in dire need of ice cream (which sounded pretty good to me too at the time) so we stopped by the gas station and grabbed some dibs. YUMM! Our first find was right off Hopper in Cape Girardeau.

3/16/11 Ganymede GC2NXGN

We dropped off the Travel Bug Hyundai here.

The next stop was over by the bowling alley.

3/16/11 No Reservations Required Trackable Hotel GC23D3M

We dropped off the Micro-Brew Snozzberry here.

Overall it was a great day of finding and getting to spend time with family. Stratton was so worn out from all the excitement he fell asleep on the way to Grandma Mona's house.

We ate dinner at Mona and Bill's. (spaghetti! My favorite!)

We also got to play with cousin Payne.

After that we went home and straight to bed where he proceeded to pass out!

Keeping secrets are SO much fun

This last weekend was the weekend we (Alex, Derek and I) got to surprise my friend Lauren. Her husband Alex got all of us Blues tickets for Christmas (they played the Red Wings and lost! YES!) and we told her that's all we were going to tell her about for the day. She knew we were going to go somewhere else before the game but had NO idea where we were going. She was under the impression we were going to go to Bass Pro. For those of you who don't know Lauren's husband Alex...he's a huge bass fisher and would go out of his way to go to a Bass Pro. So wasn't happy about the fact that we might be going there so we just egged her on. It was so much fun. Alex planned this whole day for her (isn't that sweet!) We drove up to Perryville then turned off onto some random country road (where we got lost) and wound up driving to Charleville Winery! Awesome surprise! I wasn't even sure what winery we were going to go to. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. It was sunny and warm with a nice cool breeze. Perfect for a day outside at a winery. I even found a wine that I like! 

In front of the winery. A nice lady took our picture as well as her fingers picture.

I'll crop it later.

The view from the back porch was BEAUTIFUL!

Genevieve Rivard my new favorite wine.

Let me explain these last two pictures. When we got to the winery it was only the four of us. No one else. By the time we left the place was PACKED. We were ready to go but Alex wasn't SO we decided to open the bottle of wine up for one last cup. Well, the cork got pushed back in pretty well SO Lauren used her teeth to get the stopper out because she didn't want to bother the people at the bar to open it. Yes, we are that red neck. 

After the winery ( and all of us getting a lot of sun ) we headed to St Louis for the game. 

Before we left I checked my geocaching app to see if there were any geocache close by....and there was! It was only .3 miles away so we made the pit stop and found the cache.

We found it!

3/12/11 If You Don't Get On, You Can't Fall Off! GC148F6

Alex was our lovely photographer so here are more random pictures of us finding the geocache.

Derek acting like he couldn't find it....but we did.

Posing while putting the cache back.

Oh Tee Yay (OTA) and my awesome geocaching sticker!

After that little pit stop it was time for the HOCKEY GAME!

We got up there with just enough time to do NOTHING. We were going to go to the Hard Rock Cafe and eat but it was too packed so Lauren and I went and watched The Fudgery show and we both got a pound and a half of fudge. YUMM! About that time it was time for us to go to the arena. We had awesome seats and I had such a good time. Derek and I cheered for the Red Wings because that's Derek's favorite team and they won! 

This is why there aren't any pictures of just me and Derek in our house.

I had such a great time getting to hang out with Lauren and the boys. 

We are going to have another weekend trip like this again very soon!

Camera+

I got a new app the other day and I'm LOVING it. It's called Camera+. It was a dollar and it is worth all 100 pennies I paid for it. It's really easy to use and I love that you can edit pictures you have already taken with your regular phone camera. Here are a few that I've taken and liked the best. 

Fingernail clippers at work

Pin Up calendar at work

Stratton in the back seat of the truck

Stratton waiting to go into the dentist office

Same picture different filter

Stratton throwing rocks in the fountain at the River Campus

Groucho curled up on my lap

Groucho sitting on my lap looking outside

More Groucho

Sidewalk Chalk in March

Stratton has been itching to get outside and it's just way too cold for me so, my mom came over last week and took him outside for a little chalk art. I love when he plays with chalk. He is so creative and he loves to mimic what you draw for him. He's getting his shapes down SO well and he's starting to learn letters and numbers now. I love how fast he is learning. I only took a few pictures of my mom and Stratton out playing in the chalk because...as I said before...it's WAY too cold out there for me.

Enjoy!

This is why I can never get anything done

My heart aches this morning

This morning I was looking at my usual news page when I came across the Japan Person Finder:2011. This is a database with all the people who are either being looked for, have been found and safe, or ones that are "unspecified." I was just searching (for no one really) just clicking around and praying for the people who haven't been found or have been reported missing. I stopped dead in my tracks this morning when this picture came up.

I have never had my heart strings tugged so hard by a snapshot. This little girl is the same age as Stratton. Her name is Minami and she is 2 1/2 years old. She is still missing in all the madness over there. If there is only one thing you do today. Please pray for this little girl and her family. Please pray for everyone over there that is still missing and those who are still waiting to be rescued. Please pray for those who have lost everything. I couldn't imagine having to go what these people are facing. If that's all you do to help with the tragedy in Japan then it is the best help you can send their way.

Friday scratch that...Monday Confessions

I had a jam packed weekend this weekend and I was super busy on Friday so here is Friday Confessions on Monday!

I confess I love reading trashy romance novels. It must run in the family because I always remember my mom reading them when I was growing up.

I confess I feel asleep at my desk last week. Derek has been snoring at night and I can't sleep on the couch because the cat likes to sleep on my face. Last night I would have slept with the cat on my face because Derek was snoring SO loud.

I confess I love to follow random people who have blogs.

I confess I have been seriously thinking about the future lately and it makes me feel nauseous.

I confess when I get nervous I get sick to my stomach.

I confess I think I have the best cat in the world...even though he gives me hives when I touch him.

I confess I was going to take a 1 hour nap yesterday and it turned into a 3 hour nap. Whoops.

I confess sometimes I wish I would have gotten to go on a real honeymoon.