Five years ago today, Mark gave me my first GPS for Mother's Day and we set out as a family to find our first geocache.  Our very first cache was just down the street in one of the local parks and was called Grotto of the Grue, placed by a cacher named ChileHead.  With five years of caching experience under my belt, I could find it fairly easily now, but being newbies, we struggled with that first one.  Add in the fact that the kids were only 4 and 18 months, and it was near a creek...well, you get the idea.  It was a challenge for us and took much longer than it should have.  Especially as I looked right where the cache was hiding at least once or twice without seeing it.  Things have changed quite a bit since then.  I can actually find caches now (no comments from the peanut gallery, please!).  I have a better GPS than I did at the start (though another upgrade would be nice some days!)  And I pretty much go solo now as neither Mark nor the kids really enjoy it.  I have made a lot of friends in the local geocaching community and rarely go caching alone though.  Here are a few pictures from our first time out - you can tell the camera was older, they are a little grainy.  So happy "Cache-iversary" to me :)


Katy on the trail - 18 mos. old


Mark searches around with Katy hanging out

 
Katy playing on the logs in the area


Mark gets ready to cross the stream onto the "island" to look there.


Finally!  The cache!


First find (as opposed to First to Find)

Every year, the librarian at the kids' school arranges for a children's author to come to the school and give a presentation of some sort to the students.  In the past they have had Steven Kellogg and Jack Gantos, to throw a couple of names out there.  This year, Patricia Polacco came for the day, doing three separate assemblies for the different grade levels.  I had never attended any of the previous years, but we (the school newsletter co-editors) thought it would be nice to have some pictures for the school newsletter and I had some free time this afternoon, so my camera and I set off for school for the 3rd grade assembly with this author I had never heard of, not knowing what to expect besides bad lighting in the cafeteria and the hope I could get a few good shots.  I don't even know how to put into words the experience of listening to Ms. Polacco speak to the kids.  She is a phenomenal storyteller and had the room enthralled with her tales.  She spoke on a number of subjects, sharing stories of her childhood.  From the Meteor that landed in the front yard of her grandparents' farm when her mother was a child, to The Keeping Quilt made from bits and pieces of her ancestors' clothing, to the Rotten Redheaded Older Brother who was the bane of her existence growing up (and liked to eat a lot, especially cake), she shared the real-life inspirations for her books.  She showed them the original "Keeping Quilt" and let them all touch a piece of the "Wishing Rock" (the meteorite) and make a wish.  You should have heard all the murmuring about what they would wish for when they heard they'd be allowed to wish on the rock!  But they weren't allowed to wish for money, to change anyone, or for toys/gadgets.  And she reminded them of the saying "Be careful what you wish for..."  She talked about how some people felt the rock was warm, others felt it and said it was cold, and sometimes someone would touch it and feel a tingle in the hand and up their arm.  It was magic to the kids (and the adults!).

Besides talking about her books, Ms. Polacco encouraged the kids to turn off the screens and get outside and use their imaginations and to listen and observe everything around them.

She shared another story from her childhood, about having a learning disability and being teased and laughed at because she couldn't read until she was 14.  She told the kids to not to laugh at each other and that the kids who go to "special classes" aren't dumb, they are geniuses, just don't think like other people.  She asked them to promise to not laugh at their peers, because it's mean.  She told them to have good hearts and to go out of their way to befriend that kid hanging out on the playground all by himself.

She told them to dream big because if they dream tiny, there will be nowhere to climb.

When she was done "officially" speaking, she took questions from the students.  Most of the questions were about her books and wanting to know where the idea for a particular story had come from.  One child asked what she did in her free time, and she told them that she has a large number of animals (36 cats, 13 goats and a pony - just to name a few) and that her free time was spent feeding her menagerie.

The session concluded with the kids filing out of the cafeteria to their classrooms, all getting their chance to touch the legendary "wishing rock" on their way out.  She had a kind word for each of them.  Even a couple of the teachers took their turn and made a wish.

At the end of the day as I was picking up the kids from school, I chatted with Michael's teacher and another of the third grade teachers and they both said this was one of the best author visits (if not the best) they had ever had at the school.  And on my way home, I overheard one of the fifth grade girls telling a friend that when she touched the rock, she felt the tingle in her hand...

After school, Katy was trying to convince Michael to tell her his wish, but he wouldn't do it.  The kids didn't tell me what they wished for, and I didn't ask.  It's their secret to keep...

Every year, Angi1972 holds what she has dubbed "The Perfect Photo Search" and chooses a theme or two, challenging people to post pictures based on the theme(s).  As it turns out, this year, she has declared clocks and horizon lines to be the themes.  And as it also turns out, I have taken pictures that fall into both categories as part of my 365 project.  So here they are: