THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY!

Even if it is the dreaded “Friday the 13th,” I’m so glad that this week is over.  Ever have one of those really horrific, awful weeks when absolutely positively NOTHING goes right? And where the things that DO go wrong, go as wrong as they possibly can? Oh, nothing drastic or earth-shattering – nobody has died, fallen severely ill, lost a job – nothing truly life-altering happened.  It’s just one of those weeks.  Family stuff, teen stuff, job stuff, traffic stuff… just a lot of heartbreaking STUFF in general.   A lady on a local message board has this saying on her avatar:  “I try to take it one day at a time – but sometimes, several days attack me all at once!”  Yes, that’s the kind of week I’ve had.  A week of “Mondays,” so to speak.   Just enough to where it all becomes overwhelming… especially when most of it is completely out of my control and there’s not a darn thing I can do to fix anything – that’s the worst, haha. 

I’m hardly the only one, though.  Folks all over have had weeks just as rough and even far worse.  It’s just one of those things you go through in life – some good, some bad, some just plain “blah.”  It’s just the way it goes. 🙂  God never promised that life would be easy.  Quite to the contrary… the night before Jesus was crucified, He warned His disciples:

 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Through this long and winding road called life, we’ll have to slog through some serious amounts of sludge and yucky stuff.  But the good news is that we don’t have to slog through it alone.  He’s right there in the trenches with us!  He is right here in the trenches with me, even when I am gasping for breath, grabbing for that Light that I KNOW is there even though at times it’s but a faint flicker off in the distance… trusting the Healer, even while I’m breaking to pieces… unable to hold on but trusting – KNOWING – that the Anchor is holding me until I can.

And, in time, you and I and everyone else going through things that cause us such pain will come out the other side.  One day, we will look back and see how God was at work even in the worst of times.  It may not be apparent now, but it will be.  Just hold on a mite longer, friends, and He’ll get you through it.

Happy Friday!!

PS – there’s a great song I heard on the radio this morning that pretty much inspired this post.  I’m going to try to embed the video in this post somewhere, but if that doesn’t work, please CLICK HERE and watch/listen.   It’s a truly awesome song that was just what I needed to hear today. 

WELCOME, Loganville/Grayson Patch Readers!

Greetings from our little corner of Loganville!!! Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my humble little patch of cyber space!.   This  blog follows our family through one (mis)adventure to another – from our high-tech treasure hunts (geocaching) to camping trips to collecting cards for our deployed military to just plain getting lost while running errands…. Just the life of an ordinary Loganville family, keeping things running day-to-day and searching out adventures along the way!  You can read a more detailed intro to our family by clicking HERE. 😀

Thus far in the short life of Geocaching Adventures, posting has been mostly limited to, well, our adventures in Geocaching.  Not quite sure what geocaching is?  Click HERE and read all about it. 😀  It’s a simple concept:  I use a billion-dollar satellite system and a hand-held GPS to find tupperware hidden in the woods.  😉 Sounds lame, but is actually quite fun.  Add to that the fact that I have NO sense of direction at all (not even a bad sense of direction!!!) and it gets quite interesting. 😉  The joy is in the journey; the destination is just the icing on the cake. 😀

Since Sharon Swanepoel, editor of the Loganville/Grayson Patch (an online newspaper chock-full of good local info and stories) invited me to be one of the blogs featured in their “Local Voices” section, I figured that now would be a good time to broaden the scope (and frequency) of posting here.   In addition to reading about our wanderings and the everyday trials and tribulations that go along with having a large family, you will also read more about “Operation Love From Home” and what we are doing to support our deployed military and any other topic under the sun that strikes my fancy at the moment.  I’m pretty A.D.D. (literally and truly), so my interests and adventures (or misadventures, as the case may be) vary widely. 🙂  So, if you are brave enough, hop in, buckle up, hang on, and enjoy the ride!!!!!

Here are a few posts about our adventures that you might enjoy catching up on:

A Wonderfully, Wander-Full Day

Monday’s Child-Free Adventure

A Bamboo Forrest Adventure

See ya in the funny pages! 😉

MamaKat & Family

What a Month!

As I mentioned earlier this week, April was one massive whirlwind of events!  Some were good, some not so good, but all of them were exhausting. 😉 Thank God for coffee, that’s all I can say – ha!

It all started with the littlest GeoKidz and I attending the Georgia Geocacher’s Association April meeting at Mistletoe State Park in or near Augusta, GA.  Yes, during Masters weekend! I am not a golf fan in the least, so I didn’t much care about all the fuss over who’s playing in the Masters, who’s winning, who’s losing… WHO CARES?! 😉 (Sorry to all golf fans out there – no offense intended… I’m just not into sports much at all.).  The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and it was a PERFECT day to be outside.  Of course, the pollen count that day was roughly ten trillion, so the Kidz and I were all stuffy and fighting off pollen-induced sore throats.   

The highlight of the day was the game of “human checkers” that the event organizers put together.  I have pics on my camera that I hope to download tonight (I’ve been saying that for two weeks, so don’t hold your breath TOO much… I put the “PRO” in “Procrastination”…got it down to an art form. 😉 )  They had cut out huge plywood squares big enough for folks to stand on, and painted them red and black.  The people playing the red checkers were given red t-shirts and red bandanas.  The black checker people had black t-shirts and black bandanas. 🙂 At each end of the checkerboard, there were ladders upon which the team captains sat.  They had a perfect overview of the board and could order their people where to move.   GeoKid2 had been dying to play checkers all day, so he jumped right in as a black checker. 🙂 He had a great time playing for the first five or ten minutes, then he was “jumped” by the red team – game over for the little fella! He took it in stride though and thought it was all just the funniest thing!  After the game, the kids and I took off and found a couple geocaches hidden in the park.  There are several more I want to find, but since this was approximately two-and-a-half hours from home and it was getting late in the day, we decided it was best to go ahead and mosey on back towards Loganville and call it a day. 🙂  I’m pretty sure that day was the only day we were able to get out and hunt some caches… stupid “real life,” intruding on my hiking/playing time! Grrr! Ah well, it was better than nothing. 🙂

My Prodigal Son (GeoTeen2) returned home on April 21 – a/k/a the Thursday before Good Friday, a/k/a “Maundy Thursday.”  So far, so good.   Keep your fingers crossed and send up the prayers that he stays on track this time and continues doing what is good (and court-ordered – lol) and avoiding what is bad.  🙂  Easter was the usual whirlwind of activities, culminating in a beautiful Easter service and then the traditional dinner and egg hunt at the in-laws’ house. 

This past weekend, the Geokidz and I – yes, all four of them! – went camping together.  GeoKid2 is wrapping up his first year in cub scouts (awww….cute!) and this was the annual “Family Camping” event held up at Mount Rainey Mountain near Clayton, GA.  We had a GREAT time (except for GeoTeen1, who is terrified of the dark and the woods… .and seeing as how there wasn’t much anything by way of city lights or any lights in the camping area after sundown… she stayed curled up in a ball in the tent zipped up tight while the rest of us roasted marshmallows. She refused to come out or even budge from her hidey-corner till daylight).  GeoKid1 had his first-ever experiences shooting BB guns and bows & arrows…he earned a couple cub scout belt loops for his accomplishments.  GeoTeen2 likewise got to partake of the shooting of BBs and pointy things, as well as saving the day and helping me get the camp fire started when it was being stubborn. 🙂

All in all, April was fantastic… lots of great things happened, some rough things happened, but in the end, God is good and so is life. 🙂

Rock on, everyone!

Updates coming!

April has been a frenetic blur of activity…from the April Georgia Geocacher’s Association meeting, to work being a zoo, to church stuff, to cub scouts events and our first scout camping trip (this past weekend – I’m so exhausted!), to easter AND prom…on the SAME weekend…. to our latest project to show our deployed troops some support and luv….yeah…haven’t stopped till now! I will have a wide variety of updates to give you soon, hopefully tonight, and pictures too! (Assuming, of course, this day-long caffeine infusion I’m working on remains effective past 8 p.m…. LOL!)

Happy Monday, folks!

I leave you with this thought, blatantly stolen from Facebook but too good not to share:

May 1st Prayer…Now I lay me down to sleep ♥ one less terrorist this world does keep ♥ with all my heart I give my thanks ♥ to those in uniform regardless of rank ♥ you serve our country and serve it well ♥ with humble hearts your stories tell ♥ so as I rest my weary eyes ♥ while freedom rings our flag still flies ♥ you give your all, do what you must ♥ with God we live, God we trust ♥ Amen

Weekend Wanderings

The GeoKids and I managed to escape a little bit here & there over the weekend.  Friday night, we managed to slip out and find a cache in the Monroe area prior to us picking up the traditional Friday Night Pizza.

Saturday, hubby and I were supposed to visit GeoTeen2.  We were not able to go up there the first Saturday he was there, so this would be our first visit in the 10 days or so he’s been there.  Unfortunately… we ran into heavy construction traffic on I-85.  It was massive gridlock!  An hour and 20 minutes into our trip, we were still a good 35 miles away.

Finally, I had to cave in and head for home once we got to the next exit.  We only had 45 minutes to make it to the YDC facility and even on a good traffic day, no way would we make it in time.  To say I was upset would be an understatement.  Hubby was really annoyed by my crying and level of upsettedness (<— new word, just invented! yay me!).  It was NOT a good trip at all, to say the least.  I felt HORRIBLE, because I’d PROMISED The Kid we’d be there Saturday…and of course, he had NO WAY of knowing why we failed to show up.  I did get to speak to him Sunday night and explain that we hadn’t abandoned him on purpose.   Hopefully, this Wednesday I’ll be able to make it to see him.  Next Saturday, we are NOT going because I’ve already RSVP’d to the Georgia Geocacher’s Association April Meeting, which is taking place at a state park I’ve never been to.   Because GeoTeen2 was in YDC this time LAST month, I’d missed the March meeting.  This YDC stuff is getting really old, and I’m not going to cancel pre-existing plans again.  Not that I don’t love GeoTeen2; just that I’m sick of the negative impact this jail stuff is having on my life (not to mention his).  He gets mail from us, and I’ll see him the following Saturday, but I’m just not cancelling any more plans.   I’m not going to put my entire life on a shelf while he’s in there.  It’s one thing if this was a random or one-time occurrance, but this is the THIRD time since NOVEMBER.  Nope… I’m way over it. Way.  Maybe, please God, he’ll get his head together this time and just do what he is supposed to do, and life will be good. Or not. But I can’t obsess over it or I will completely explode. Or implode. Either way, it won’t be pretty.  Pretty much hanging by a thread as it is so… yeah.

Sorry for the slide/rant there… at any rate, Saturday’s visit with GeoTeen2 did NOT happen.  We made it back home at 3:00 (keep in mind, we left home at *12:30*!!!!).   Being frustrated, upset, depressed and in dire need of sunshine and fresh-ish air, the little kids and I went for a quick geocaching run. 

I discovered a series of caches in Oxford, GA, that are not very far away.   The GeoKidz and I had to be home by 6:00, so we weren’t able to do very many.   We found two, and Did Not Find (“DNF”) one.  But we really enjoyed the search! I’ve never really “been” to Oxford before, other than just passing through.  It’s really a nice little town with a lovely paved walking path that we got to explore. 🙂  After we found our second cache (which, as usual, GeoKid1 found after I had stepped RIGHT OVER IT on my way to investigate “a suspicious pile of sticks”), we got back on the path and heard, “So, didja find it??” LOL  Yes, we finally bumped into fellow Geocachers on the trail!  Not only did we meet a cacher, we met “RustyG” and another fella whose name escapes me.  RustyG has a whole series of “Historical Georgia” geocaches. They are set in historical areas (duh… LOL) and are fabulous.  Earlier this year, the GeoKidz and I had spent an entire day doing nothing but that historical georgia series (I blogged about it, of course, LOL – I think it was back in February sometime).  So it was cool that out of all the random Geocachers in GA, we ran into him.  

Sunday was a gorgeous day for geocaching – 80 degrees and SUNNY! After church  (which was excellent, inspiring, and awesome as usual), we again ran out the door to escape and enjoy the good weather while we could. Kids + Outdoors = A Good Thing!  This time, we went to do some caches in Stone Mountain Park, one of my favorite places ever. 🙂  Unfortunately, I didn’t plan it out so well.  I had a hard time finding the general locations of some of them (where to park and whatnot, or where one was even located), not to mention the time I accidentally exited the park by mistake and got lost trying to get back in….D’oh!!) so we spent a good bit of time driving around. Less than fun. BUT the times we WERE out and about hunting caches was awesome!  We found two, DNF one.  The last one was located on one of the Nature Trails.  I’d never, ever been on the nature trails at Stone Mountain before, and neither had the kids.  They LOVED it!!!  I lost my GPS signal for quite a while as we searched for the last one, and then when I did get it back, it was very jumpy.  We searched all over for the darn thing, and did not find it anywhere.   The important thing is that we DID find our CAR again at the end of the day – LOL! 😀  Anyway, after unsuccessfully trying to find cache number three, we called it a day and went home. 

We didn’t find as many geocaches as I’d wanted, but the important thing is that we were OUTSIDE and really enjoyed the weather and the scenery. Can’t wait to go back!  My GeoKid1 also got her first tick during our adventure, which caused no shortage of screaming hysteria when it was discovered.  GET IT OFF ME DON’T TOUCH ME MAKE IT GO AWAY DON’T TOUCH ME IT WILL HURT IF YOU GET THE TICK OFF MAKE IT GO AWAY!!!!! etc.  Yes, I had remembered to bring the Deep Woods Off bug repllant with us. No, I did not remember to actually apply it.  #MomFail! On the bright side… you better believe none of us will forget it NEXT time!!!!

All in all, the weekend wasn’t *quite* what I’d hoped for, but overall, still a good one nonetheless. 🙂 The GeoKids were in charge of the camera both days, so a plethora of pictures will follow once I get them downloaded. 🙂

Have a fabulous week, y’all!

 

So it’s been a WHOLE MONTH (or more)…!

Yep, here it is… a month or more since I’ve been geocaching!!!! Horrors!!! I’m in serious withdrawal in a big way, but Life has NOT cooperated by any means! We’ve got a lot going on, to say the least.

GeoTeen2 came home as scheduled. We got him re-enrolled in school, etc… and then a whole two-and-a-half weeks later (this past Wednesday, in fact) – BAM – he ends up right back in juvie.  He STILL hasn’t figured out that when the judge tells you that you MUST go to boot camp, well, you really MUST.  “Oversleeping” or “forgetting what time it was” and so on are NOT adequate reasons for missing five days of BC and skipping school twice.  So… away we go again.  On the bright side, he’s in a different place now that is only five miles or so from my office, so I wont’ have to miss much work to go pick him up when he’s released, to the delight of my wonderfully-understanding bosses.  Visiting hours are also at a better time, so that makes life easy too. 🙂 Here’s hoping it really sinks in this time and we don’t ever have to do this again… besides being heartbreaking and such, it’s also just plain exhausting.  😦

In other news, there’s just been a lot going on in every area of life.  GeoKid2, The Boy, has been back into cub scouts again on Monday nights.  This past Wednesday, I ended up in a Bible study/mentorship meeting  that USUALLY takes place on Saturdays (only for the next month or two, then I’m done), but ended up HAVING to be on this particular night for a variety of reasons/schedule conflicts.  Normally no problem, except  that for the fact that during Lent, our church is doing a study on “40 Days of Community” via various small groups…and mine just happens to meet on Thursdays, cuz that’s the one with childcare so that’s the one I can go to, LOL. Oh, and I forgot, on Tuesday, GeoTeen1 had her bi-weekly counseling appt, which is usually on Fridays since that’s that night GeoTeen2 does NOT have bootcamp…but for a variety of reasons, it ended up being on Tuesday, just this once.  So this week has been NON-STOP – MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursday…. and here we are, FINALLY at FRIDAY!  Oh, wait… forgot to mention last weekend, I went HERE with these folks – it was EXTREMELY fun and I had a GREAT time (my newest adventure/addiction, along with geocaching, LOL…hmmm…wonder if I can combine the two??? LOL! Probably not…hmmmm….) ~  so I’ve been going NON-STOP since Saturday of last weekend!!!! 😮  It was a perfect storm of all our carefully-planned, carefully-coordinated commitments crunching together in one fell swoop in one week, right after each other.  Taken individually, and staying where they belong, the aforementioned commitments are manageable.  Squash them altogether into a much-condensed time frame, and you get my life this week. LOL!

Not every week has been this extreme…in fact, I think this past week is the MOST extremely busy week I’ve had in years, if ever.  Holy cow.  But life, overall, has been chaotic to some degree or another and has kept me away from the trails and my GPS and my geocaching.  GeoTeen1 is working as a volunteer at an auction tomorrow (Saturday) morning, but after it ends at 2 (and I hope I can score some cool deals there!), there’s NOTHING planned. NOTHING. 🙂  I was so excited about tomorrow, because after the youth auction, me and the GeoKidz had planned to take full advantage of the extended daylight hours and find us some caches!!! And I’d planned the same for Sunday afternoon, after church. (yeah, yeah, yeah… I’ll squeeze in laundry and house cleaning somewhere in there, but I’m sick of being cooped up inside… MUST. ESCAPE. SOON. MUST. COMMUNE. WITH. NATURE. MUST. FIND. GEOCACHES!)

BUT… Old Man Weather seems bent on ruining my plans for escape.  Turns out tomorrow there is a 70% chance of rain all day, and a 50% chance on Sunday! Seriously. :::facepalm::: My one free weekend to geocache, and…. boom.  Rain.  and more rain.  and still more rain! Maybe the weatherman will be wrong and the rain will hold off until evening.  I’m hoping so.  If I don’t escape soon and get some “OUTSIDE” time, I just might go insane. More than normal, I mean. 😉 Either that, or I just might spontaneously combust into a huge ball of stress.  Neither of which would be much fun, so… rain? Please go away till after sunset!!!

Here’s hoping we can make our escape.

Cheers,

MamaKat & Co.

 

No caching this weekend…

…yesterday was a major “spring-cleaning” day at home, after a Saturday morning Bible study. Got much of it done (i.e., our house is ALMOST liveable again – LOL) but it took alllll day. And haven’t even started on the outside yet. Ack!

Today, GeoTeen1 and I went to church as usual, and then off to visit GeoTeen2 up in juvie. Thank God, he’s getting out on Friday and will be home again! Happy about this on multiple levels: (1) My kid will no longer be in jail. Pray he learned his lesson this time!; (2) I no longer have to drive up to Gainesville to visit him… just in time, too – gas was $3.24 a gallon today! Ack! (which is one reason why I didn’t bother to go caching today, but that’s another rant for another time, LOL); (3) I no longer have to wake up and the super-icky hour of 7:00 a.m. to attend the 8:45 a.m. service at church. Yep, it’s back to the good ole, contemporary 11:07 service again…YAY!!!!!!!! Getting UP at 8:45 is so much better than having to BE SOMEWHERE by 8:45 – LOL!

So, my update this week is…that there is no update this week. 😉 Have a super-fantastic Monday and week… see you on the flip side. 🙂

Monday’s Child-Free Adventure!

Wow, what a day!!!! I don’t have a lot of time to blog about it, but suffice it to say, today was AWESOME!!!!!  I was able to find 7 of the eight caches I searched for today, with the majority of them being in Madison, Georgia.  What a gorgeous, amazing place that was!!!! My Inner History Nerd was in HEAVEN!!!!! 🙂  All but one of the geocaches I hunted today had been placed by the Visitor’s Bureau (or whatever the official name is), designed to bring you into the neatest, most historical places of the area.  My first cache (the one not placed by the history folks) was at the cemetery pictured here and was probably the most meaningful to me.  The cache name was “RIP Confederate Soldier.”  Here lay many, many fallen Soldiers and some fallen Hospital Attendants… at least 51 of them UNKNOWN.  I found this cache rather quickly, and my immediate instinct was to log my find and move on to the next.   But… this place got its hooks into me very quickly.  The immense sense of history here was so profound… I couldn’t just cache & leave. I had to wander around and read the headstones, silently paying my respects.  A few in this area had names, but over & over it was just “Unknown CSA Soldier.” Some were from AL, TX, MS… most had no info beyond the “Unknown.”  I looked to see if there was anyone from the 34th GA Infantry, my Greatx3 Grandfather’s unit, but didn’t see anyone from there.  The longer I looked around, the more profoundly SAD I felt (sounds kinda flaky, I know… oh well).  I thought of all the wives, moms, brothers, sisters, children, friends… all those folks who were waiting on word of their loved one.  And waiting for them to come home after the War.  And waiting. And waiting…. and waiting…and….nothing.  Probably some heard second-or-third-hand the fate of their beloved.  In the days before DNA, email, TV, Cable News, or even electricity for that matter….an unknown was pretty much destined to stay unknown.  This made me sad! Anyone who’s known me longer than 2 minutes knows that POW, MIA, and Unknown break my heart, and they are never far from my thoughts.  I found myself saying (yeah, OK, this is cheesy, but it’s my blog, so deal with it, LOL) that though these men were unknown to US, there is no doubt that they are fully known to GOD, and I hope they landed in a place of peace when they fell.   I almost felt as if I was not alone there.  The feeling of heaviness and the immenseness of the history stayed with me in varying degrees for the rest of the day.

After the cemetery, I went to find a cache at an art museum.  It wasn’t open yet, but luckily, it didn’t have to be to find the cache! 😉 This was a quick & easy find (as all the Madison caches were on my list), so it wasn’t long before I was on to search for the cache called “Window Etchings.”  This was in the general vacinity of “Heritage Hall.”   Heritage Hall is a gorgeous old building – huge and elegant! It practically screams “GENTEEL SOUTHERN LIVING!!!” (except, of course, genteel Southern living would expressly prohibit screaming such a thing…but you get the idea.)   😀

I finished the remainder of my caches quickly…they were all really easy. Yay! 😉 Rather than rush home and on to the next area on my list, however, I went back to Heritage Hall and took the tour of the place (along with two other historic homes).  It was simply amazing.  If you are ever there… I highly recommend it! 😀 I love, love, LOVE history and old homes and such… like I said earlier, my Inner History Nerd was a happy camper indeed.  I then had lunch at a great, great restaurant, where I found a tribute to a local man who had sacrificed his life during WW2 in service to our country.  Awe-inspiring and humbling, indeed.  I almost didn’t eat at the restaurant I’d chosen, but fortunately, the fact that the building itself looked old & historic won me over.  Not only was the food great, I learned of  this local hero…another one to pay respects to.

After I was done with Madison (and I can almost guarantee that I WILL be back one day… loved it there!), I headed on over to Stone Mountain to find a cache or two.  As it turned out, I found only one of the two caches I was looking for.  The first one was pretty easy…not as easy as the Madison caches, of course, but it was a nice little walk in the woods.  I almost went home after that one… almost.  But then, I looked on my GPS and noticed that there was another geocache a mere *510* feet from my car.  Really??? That’s it? 510 feet? Oh, I just gotta!!!!

So…. off I went to find this elusive second cache that was sooooo close. Ha.  I was so excited about the “closeness” of this cache that I failed to remember the “terrain” rating on this one was a 4.  For the non-cachers out there… terrain is rated on a scale of 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest). This was a 4.  I didn’t realize till I got close to where it may have been and I checked my GPS for hints… yes, I really DO have to climb up over those boulders, there… and there… and there, too! My GPS, which had behaved admirably all day, chose this particular cache to start being persnickety.  It jumped all around, taking me 180 feet here (usually, UP!), 85 feet there, 35 feet over yonder, no, wait, 200 feet thataway… and it was jumping around erratically like that without me even moving. It would say 85 feet one minute, then 180 the next second…before I’d even BLINKED, much less MOVED.  Needless to say, the terrain was NOT conducive to my usual “pick a spot and walk in circles around it till you find the cache” trick.  After close to 90 minutes of a really good workout, I was forced to raise the white flag and surrender due to time constraints.   😦

I went back DOWN the hill…then back UP the OTHER hill, back to my car.  I miraculously made it back to the kids’ daycare a full hour earlier than I’d anticipated. Yay!  The kids, of course, realizing that we still had PLENTY of daylight left (like, a whole HOUR!), begged me to please take them to find a geocache since they’d been stuck in school all day long!  Didn’t take much to twist my arm there, so we headed out to a local ball field to track down a nice, easy, kid-friendly geocache.  😉  Aside from a few thorns, we found it quickly. (And yes, *I* found it this time… NOT GeoKid1 for a change, LOL. I’m getting better….! haha).

We signed the logbook, swapped some stuff, then headed home.

(Yeah, GeoKid1 looks less than thrilled in this picture, haha… but it’s just bad photography timing, cuz just a split second before, she was talking and laughing.  I just clicked the camera at exactly the WRONG time, LOL. Oh well. 😉 )

And so ended my very long, very fun day.  It was the perfect “staycation” – all I had to pay for was some lunch and parking at Stone Mountain, and I had a heck of a lot of fun galavanting all over Georgia in search of History and Adventure.  Happily, I found both.

If you want to see all the pics I took today (there are MANY more than what is shown on the blog), just CLICK HERE. 🙂

 

Have a great week everyone!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad…

Busy day today! Bible study in a.m., followed by getting my membership at Snap Fitness finalized, followed by…GEOCACHING!  We had three on our list to find, given our limited time constraints.  And, as the infamous Meatloaf says, “Two Outta Three Ain’t Bad!”

The first was super-easy… a big, ginormous tree that we pass by all the time but (of course) had never really noticed before.  GeoKid1 found that one (no shock there, right???? LOL!) in record time. 🙂 There was a travel bug in this one, which we retrieved to move along to a different cache.

Next, we wandered off to find one called “Spiritual Meditation” that was, of course, located on or near a nice, peaceful path.  This one drove us batty… trampled all over for probably 45 minutes with no luck at all.  *sad face* I was thinking some decidedly NON-spiritual thoughts by the end of it, hahaha!  My seven-year-old, GeoKid2, decided he’d had enough of it and wanted to go home.  Rather than finding a nice tree to go behind, he promptly wet himself instead. Grrr! In his defense, he WAS trying to get to a tree…. but got caught up in some thorns and didn’t get unstuck in time.  Or so he said…. then laughed and said it was really on purpose so I’d quit this one and take him home. (Here’s where the decidedly non-spiritual thoughts come in… haha!) Kids.  *shaking head*

Dropped GeoKid2 off with GeoTeen (who was home working on some homework projects), and GeoKid1 and I took off again, to try to find just ONE MORE cache before we ran out of daylight.  This time, we took off for a local park and searched for “Little Cache in the Big Woods.”  This was a great one!  GeoKid1 especially LOVED climbing over the big boulders at the start of the hunt.  Sure wish I’d had a camera to take pics!  We hiked around in the woods for a little bit, and when the GPS said we were about 26 feet away from it, I started looking around (yes, I’m learning… LOL!).  I saw a pile of pine straw and some sticks that seemed to be laying there just a tad too neatly… and….BAM! There it was. 🙂 Yep, I found one all by myself, yay!!!!!! hahahahaha 😀 We signed the logbook, left Elmer the Elephant travel bug in there, along with a couple trinkets, and reburied it.

And so, here we are – thee searches, two finds, and we’re done for the day.  A good day all around, I believe. 😀  Tomorrow is the day I’ve been waiting for – the BAMBOO FORREST! Four people found the Bamboo Forrest cache today, so hopefully we can continue the lucky streak tomorrow.

And, I’m happy to report that hubby just now came home and finally gave me my birthday gift… a camera! 😀 Yay!!!!! So, my “photojournal blog” really WILL be a “photojournal blog” now…starting tomorrow! Woot!

Gotta run…time for dinner! Have a great night, y’all!

MamaKat & GeoKidz

A Cache-less Weekend

Sorry for the long silence everyone. No posts because there’s been no caching…horrors!!!!!!

I fully intended to go caching this past weekend, but Saturday there was a seminar at church that I’d signed up for…an all-day deal. That cancelled out Saturday! But I must admit, it was really a fantastic seminar and I’m very glad I went.

Then, Sunday, I planned on going caching after church ~ there was a potluck supper to celebrate the 7th anniversary of the church after service… I figured I’d have lots of time afterwards to cache, right? Eh, not so much. We got home, then I had to do a bunch of laundry and such… hubby and the two littlest kids took off for his parents’ house for a superbowl party, leaving me and my 17 year old GeoTeen to ourselves (yay! almost-peace-and-quiet). Sadly, I once again forgot to retrieve the GPS from the van before hubby left, so… no caching then either. On the bright side, I thoroughly enjoyed being almost-alone, LOL, and with actuall PEACE and QUIET at home… no tv, no noise, no nothin. 🙂 It was AWESOME!

In other news, things in my GeoWorld have been not-so-fabulous lately. My 15 year old GeoTeen is currently away for the next 24 days, getting a nice little vacation at juvie. He seemed to think that just because the judge ORDERED him to go to after-school bootcamp program, doesn’t really mean he HAS to go….. so he didn’t. OK, he knew he HAD to go, he just didn’t want to. Judges frown on their orders being flagrantly disobeyed and so… bam. Off he went. Too bad, because he’s been doing so much better lately at school and was even starting to show improvement at home. Hopefully, this will be the last time ever for something like this. I only have about three non-gray hairs left, and they are in danger of turning white any second now, dye or no dye. LOL!

So, that’s the super-fast update from my little corner of the satelite grid. 🙂 Here’s to hoping we get some caching done this weekend!

Rock on folks, and have a great week!