Nighttime Geocaching

Right now, at this moment, as I type, it is Monday evening, 9:31 to be precise. I was not one of the lucky ones who had the day off, but my day at work was still enjoyable. Clay took the kids out shopping during the day. Tonight I didn't really have anything planned to do together as a family, but then Syd suggested we go geocaching. Seriously, to myself I am thinking it is just a little too chilly outside for me to be going geocaching at night, but out loud I say, "Sure, let's call Grandma and see if she wants to go, too." We all climb into the Suburban (ok, the kids race to get the very back seat, fight over it, then climb into the middle seat - you get the picture) and head off toward Wal-mart. A friend of Syd's has shown her a couple of caches so she actually knows exactly where to go to find two of them. The first one is near Wal-mart, and the second one is near Best Buy. Warning: the following pictures contain spoilers, so if you go geocaching you may not want to see these pictures until you find them yourself.

John, Syd and Adam open the log sheet for our first find of the night

This is the most creative cache I've found! A close up pic of the cache near Wal-mart

I believe this is a hole that was drilled by the founder of this cache. I actually contains a holder (see pic below). Another very creative cache.

Cool cache, Adam got to trade treasures!

Our third cache of the evening! We almost didn't find this one, but John and Adam figured it out.

<3

It is tradition to have dessert on the nights of our family evenings, and Adam will never forget to remind us about that. While Syd and John went to the store to buy some treats, the doorbell rang. Clay went to get it, then tells me it's something for me to see. Well, it actually was for Syd so we left it for her to "open."

This was tied to our front screen door. When you opened it all the way, the little firecrackers on a string popped! Then out on our sidewalk was this sign:

Too funny!
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This picture doesn't have anything to do with tonight, but since so few pictures are taken of Clay and I, I wanted to post it. This was taken by Adam on Valentine's Day. Love you, H.B.!

Do you ever have one of those weeks where nothing goes right? You are usually super busy that week, and no doubt one of the kids is sick, or gets sick, and you wish you could just stay in bed? Well, this week was nothing like that. There was nothing super spectacular that happened - we didn't win the lottery, or find a gold mine in our back yard, I didn't lose 25 pounds in one week (although that would surely be a blog entry all by itself!). Things just happened that really put a smile on my face, and isn't that what it's all about?

Superbowl Sunday. I really am not a football fan, but I do enjoy a good commercial. A halftime commercial for an upcoming movie had us all wearing 3-d glasses.

Someone told me once (jokingly) that even though you're not doing something together, as long as you're in the same room with family members, it still counts as Family Time! I love the purple laptop I got for Christmas. Purple is my favorite color, and if you didn't already know it, I'm a big Donny Osmond fan.

This week I went out geocaching. I don't go out often enough. When I go I realize how much I miss it. This time I took Aslan to get some much needed exercise. She's our hyper dog and loves to go out running.

You never know what you're going to find in the dryer. I put a load of clothes in to dry and heard a bunch of clunking. I opened it up to find one of Adam's plastic toy knives going around. Isn't doing laundry exciting?!

Our dogs aren't spoiled or anything d'ya think? Really, our son is on his bed....somewhere.

I received two special phone calls this week, and they both happened on Friday. The call we've been waiting for weeks finally arrived. We have been assigned a social worker, and she is coming out to our house on Tuesday to start our home study for foster care. Whew, I finally put it in writing, and that is cool. Clay and I started the foster parent process back in November. I'm not known for doing anything quickly, so it's taken us this long to get to where we are. That means all our paperwork has been filled out, cpr classes attended, tb tests taken, fingerprints done. Now comes the daunting task of getting our home ready. I'll be posting more on this I'm sure.

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Another special call we received came from a wonderful lady we met at our last foster class last Saturday. Her and her husband were taking the classes because their grandchildren were in a foster group home and they were in the process of having the kids come to live with them. Well, she called me last night and the kids are with them! She said they just celebrated Christmas yesterday. They had left their Christmas tree and the decorations up until the children could be with them and they could celebrate together. Even though I know they may have difficult times ahead, I am so happy for them!

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So, what's new in your neighborhood?