Extreme Geocaching

 

“Geocaching is a real-world outdoor treasure hunting game. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using GPS-enabled devices and then share their experiences online.”   http://www.geocaching.com/

My Dad and sister have been really into geocaching for quite a while ago. Darcy recently found her 800th cache and I think my Dad is past 2000 caches. Whenever they are together or away from home they can’t resist finding a few caches. As a result of hanging out with them I have found a decent amount of caches myself.

This summer Michael has been doing a lot of hiking and has gotten into caching as well. He likes to find the caches that require a long hike to get to. This week he found a few up on top of Y mountain.  When we go to a park with the kids he likes to look up a few caches nearby. Last week we went to the playground behind Provo Peaks Elementary to play a find a few caches.

Generally caches are hid in a place you can reach from standing on the ground. This one ended up being about 30 feet up the tree. I climbed trees like a monkey when I was a kid so I decided to try and get the cache.

That’s me, way up in the tree, holding the cache in my hand (it was a micro so it’s hard to see.) It was fun to climb a tree again, and my kids thought I was really cool, but I got sap all over my pants so I ‘m not sure if it was really worth it or not.

On Saturday Darcy came down to visit. We had some errands to do and after our errands we went caching. Michael had found a cache on a little island that you could wade out too. From pictures that people had posted it looked like it got about knee deep. So we decided to try it.

Here we are with the island we are wading to in the background. The water was a bit murky so it was hard to tell how deep it was.

Wading back. Its way more than knee deep. The cache ended up being on the opposite side of the island from where we went ashore. So we had to bush whack through prickly trees to get there. But we found the cache and Michael and Kathryn decided to wade out and get it too.

Kathryn was the only to find the cache and stay dry in the process.

Me and Michael after finding it. You can see from his shirt how deep the water got.

After our adventure Darcy and I were talking about it. She said if someone had said, “I will pay you ten dollars to wade through that slimy water out to the island.” She would have said no way. But for some reason decided on our own to do it because there was a cache on the island wasn’t that big of a deal.

Usually geocaching doesn’t involve wading through a lake or climbing a tree, but it was an exciting departure from the norm.

And just for kicks here is one more picture of Darcy and Michael finding a cache on our way home. I stayed in the car to watch the kids while Darcy and Michael got one more cache. I wonder what people who drove by thought when they saw  to adults, hanging out by a rock on the side of the road, with towels wrapped around there waist.

Why this blog will never be a mommy blog

You know how some moms start writing blogs and they get a bunch of people to start following their blog and after a while they actually make money by writing about how there toddler took off their diaper and smeared you-know-what all over the wall?

I have to come to the conclusion that this will never be my blog.  Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy reading a funny well written mommy blog, sometimes reading about the crazy things other moms have to put up with helps me appreciate my kids more, or not feel as frustrated when they do something crazy.  There are several mom blogs I read just because they are so hilarious, not because I actually know the mom. 

But my blog will never be a successful,  funny mom blog. I just can’t convince myself that people really want to hear all the details of potty training a kid or the embarrassing thing they said to a stranger. I don’t have a desire to write about my failures in motherhood. I like swapping crazy kid stories with my family and friends. But I don’t want to put it out there for the whole blog reading world to read about, comment on and criticize. I like to get other peoples take on things and to share and receive advice, but I want the advice to be from someone’s whose opinion I value and not some stranger in Ohio who knows a sure fire way to potty train a kid in a week.

It’s nice to be able to share my frustrating parenting moments with people who knowledge of me isn’t based only on the stories of my kids shenanigans that are funny enough to gain a following of readers. People who will be able to laugh when I tell them about the ridiculous fit my daughter threw because I wouldn’t carry her towel for her when we left the water park without thinking that I can’t control my kids, because they also see me the other 99% (ok maybe 90%) of the time when my kids are normal well behaved children.

I suppose I shouldn’t care if some random stranger thinks I am a horrible mom because the only time one of my sons gets veggies is when it is mixed into a fruity drink and  I’m sure there is probably somebody out there who would be happy to give me some advice on how I could change that. But the truth is that I do care what people think and I don’t want to hear what a stranger who has never met my kid thinks would be best. I am hard enough on myself when it comes to parenting and I don’t want to leave myself open to any extra advice or criticism by writing about my struggles as a mom where anyone can read them and comment on them.

So I hope my readers are not disappointed by a lack of  posts about motherhood because it is never going to happen on this blog. I hope you are all fine with occasional posts about me and whatever I happen to feel like sharing. If you want to hear about the crazy things my kids have done, or the funniest conversation about poop with a three year old you have ever heard, then next time you see me ask. I love talking with people who know me and care about me and are actually interested in my stories. We can swap stories, share cool tips that have worked for us and laugh about the ridiculous things that happen while trying to raise a kid.

Meanwhile I am glad that there are moms out there who know how to write well and enjoy documenting the ups and downs of parenting. Then I can keep reading my favorite mommy blogs without writing one of my own.

I am curious what other people think about mommy blogs. I am the only person who feels this way? Do you love them, hate them or write one yourself? Let me know what you think.