Happy Birthday to "me"

My birthday was today (24 Jan)! I was a bit unsure if this would be a “happy “birthday with two of the chicks gone from the nest. It turned out to be wonderful. The day began with e-cards from Darshia and from Rev. Al and Star. It’s always nice to hear from friends who are no longer “here” and I was amazed they remembered. Then Melody had heard it was my birthday from her husband John, who works with Mike at the chapel. She sent me a sweet email. Krista called early in the a.m. which was a wonderful treat.

The real festivities began after I returned from Speech therapy. My hutch had arrived in town last week and was delivered today. I came home and it was in place – complete with balloons and our birthday “party animal” hat. The boys had also decorated while I was gone. When Mike came home we ALL went to dinner at Logan’s Roadhouse. This is one of those places where you can throw peanuts on the floor….the main attraction to our little ones…and they brought us basket after basket of fresh yeast rolls and we had never-ending soda. I really try to consciously stop eating when I’m no longer hungry….and so I end up brining most my meal home and filling up on drink, bread and salad. That’s fine – last time my leftovers took care of two meals. {grin} When we got home Mike took me into the room so the boys could get some other surprises ready.

I came out of the room looking for the gift because there must be SOME reason I had to go away…..finally noticed the antique pretty goblets that I’ve had my eye on since July. I had told the lady that FIRST I had to pay off my china…then I had to have a hutch…so it is great that they both arrived at the same time. Mom and Dad had purchased these when they were here in December. Thank you! I’m sorry you couldn’t get through. We hear from quite a few people that when they call they get the “fax machine noise”. I’m betting that is why Bre couldn’t call either.

The guys had bought one of those multi-variety cheesecakes from our new Sam’s Club. They even had a “42” candle. The candles were trick candles. They all sang and I began to laugh thinking how pathetic we sound without Bre here to keep up on tune. I looked at CY and he laughed and I noticed he had a can….WHEN….bammo….spray string confetti all over me….I shrieked as the three of them pelted me and backed up. Zander broke out in terrified and terrifying screams and went racing from the room for his bed…this woke Stacia up who began screaming too. We finally remembered the candles were still burning and got them out. What fun. The boys had even bought a little crown to go on the pig head that I was forced to wear.

Gifts were great! A Casting Crowns CD from Jamin; Nichole Nordeman from Josiah. The little ones went together and got me a bear that is holding a salmon and says “welcome”. Mom and Dad G sent some $ and I THINK I’m going to use it for Mike and I to go out alone and have a French Silk Blizzard…that’s my plan at this point. Thank you! The hutch is my Christmas, Birthday and very likely Anniversary gift . . . maybe for several years. I was thrilled it arrived on my birthday.

Pictures :

My surprise at goblets IN the hutch

Laughing with Cy over the sounds without Bre (I THOUGHT) and THEN...(the pig hat is a family tradition and is worn at EVERY party...the poor Party Animal is showing it's age and we may need to find a substitute tradition.)

Boys pulled out spray cans and got me good

Blowing out those trick candles

Jared, Arielle, Nolan, Zander & Stacia gave me this bear...we discussed if he'd be safer outside with the wind or inside with our mighty bear hunter...for the time being he's inside

MONDAY – AGAIN!!!

The busiest day of the week around here! We try to do a LOT of reading and school on Monday and Tuesday so that we can do more hands on and outings on Thursday and Friday.

We’re off to a good start. Stacia is sick today. It seems that though no cold showed up Sunday – Saturday may have been to much for her. Poor thing.

Mike and the older three boys went to see “End of the Spear” this evening. This is the story of Jim Elliot and Nate Saint….narrated through the perspective of Nate Saint’s son – Steve. I am not sure if it will be here beyond Thursday; I’m determined to find the time to go see it….but didn’t want to take Stacia out at night. We also didn’t want to take our younger ones (8,7,4) because of the intense topic so we couldn’t all go at once.

I’ve not been able to talk with Mike or the boys and get DETAILS…they say “yeah – it was good”. MEN!

Goals Realized!

The day began with chapel.

The older three boys had a youth game day in the afternoon.

The younger four children, Mike and I decided to go out and look for the four we missed yesterday. We figured with the additional hints from geocaching.com we’d be able to find a few of them. We kept Stacia in the car as it is 48* today – down from 85* two weeks ago.

We found all four caches. We reached our goal. We also discovered that we could have driven to all of them and saved ourselves 4 miles of hiking through brush….but hey….we like the hiking stuff anyway. In the future, however, when alone with the kids I will remember to look for the road or train rather than taking off across a mile of dry lake bed etc.

PHOTOS:

Things are looking up…3 more to find

Twentieth FIND

Saturday, 21 January – a GREAT day

 Sam’s Club opened and we were there (as you can read below) BUT we also went Geocaching in the state park. Our goal is 20 finds by the end of January. We “found” 8 spots…but only 4 caches today. Yes, we experienced our first no finds. The GPS units were beeping…we were sure they were there….but there were concrete docks or nothing or what not. Oh well we found 4 and are at 16 now. We have next weekend to try to find 4 more caches.

While in the park, we got the brilliant idea of going camping some Friday night and spending the whole day exploring the park for finds….we are driven to find all 45 hidden in the State Park. One we found today had this in the log book “found it – also found RATTLESNAKE”. This brought back memories of the 8 foot rattler I saw this summer in the park. Mike said he had hoped we saw a snake because he missed hearing the chattering from Mom. All say I sounded like a chipmunk as I pointed and tried to explain what I saw. I think it’s a good idea to do the hiking and camping in the winter around here. Today WAS cool….and I’m hoping Stacia didn’t get to cold. We had her in a snowsuit.

We had thought that maybe the four we didn’t find were archived but – no – someone else has found them in the past week. At the park you are only given coordinates but on the website you get a bit of a “description” and even some encrypted hints if you need them. We’ll try to find those four we missed again. I also printed off about 4 hidden caches along the river walk so the kids and I can give that a try one of these days. I’m fairly sure we’ll reach 20 finds by 31 Jan.

Photos from the day:

No find but a snack and WATER

Arielle found this one – Jetty – DRY LAKE – all that brown behind us is supposed to be LAKE.
As we wait for the others to FIND us the little ones reenact Aslan at the Stone Table…found this table in the middle of no-where…
Zander prefers to ride on shoulders (Mikes, Cy’s, Jamin’s)

THE FIND…an AMMO can….

Cy has learned to dodge sticks, granola crumbs and flying rocks…he’s the ultimate Cuya.

Texas Charly Brown Christmas Tree…I think we’ll decorate this one with food for the animals next year…

Note the mistletoe in the tree…gotta love TEXAS.

Stacia – the trooper! The end of the day!

Signature Item

A surprising amount of time has been spent this week trying to make a signature item to leave in cache’s we find. I got it right on the screen but getting the shrinky dinks to do their “thing” was illusive. Finally, we did get a number that are “OK”. I need to find our embossing gun and give that a try.

Here’s Nolan carefully watching yet another batch of signature items.

Here’s the graphic from our signature item…and across it I have typed Not2Many…Found…It! It turns out ½ this size and hard plastic…sometimes curled on the edges….