Sunday, January 10, 2010

Happy New Year with New Adventures!

Happy New Year everyone! We hope that this year is a great one for everyone one of you! We celebrated New Years swing dancing the night away at a big band dance put on by the Sitka High School Jazz band. It was actually way awesome! It was so nice to get out with Debbie on a REAL DATE (aka: without kids). Someone from our ward is teaching dance lessons every Saturday so we thought we'd go and learn some new steps. I love dancing with Debbie, she's just so dang fun!

Well on New Years Day, the kids wanted to get out and do a bit of treasure hunting in searching for a few of the geocaches in the area. A quick side note about geocaching and our previous geocaching post. We really appreciated all of your comments! We got a huge laugh concerning the comment regarding the surrounds looking like a hospitable dwelling for Yoda! If you are interested in seeing if you have any geocaches in your area, just type in your zipcode at www.geocaching.com and you'll be amazed at how many there are so close to home. We highly recommend it!! The kids love looking for them, and it's nice to not have to drag them on our excursions! Debbie thinks I'm a bit over-zealous about it, and she's probably right, but I can't help enjoying a high tech scavenger hunt... I mean, who can resist? Anyway, I digress...
So it was a really chilly, clear morning, so we headed out to do a cache out near the fire station. As we came close to a cement wall, Cameron was the first to spot a container shoved into a small hole within it. It was right at his eye level!

I think Reese felt a bit bummed out that he didn't find one and he suggested we find one that was near the library. So, with the coordinates in the GPS, we headed across town ( a brisk 7.5 minute walk) and Reese led us toward our next treasure chest! This time, our "chest" was an old, red Hill's Brothers coffee can, which was easy to spot for the kiddos!
Here was our view where we found the cache.

It couldn't have been a clearer day! Well, we found that after the adrenaline rush, we were all quite cold, so we rushed back home and had a hot meal!

This weekend, we decided to hide our first geocache treasure. I had the perfect spot picked out. The kids and Debbie were all for getting out of the house due to it being in the high 40's, though still rainy. This location is sweet. It's a tiny island that you can only access when the tide is low. So we timed our excursion just right and headed out there. We had never been there before and were surprised to find out just how amazing it was! It reminded me of Peter Pan's island in Never Never Land! There were path's all through it, crazy tree formations, hanging green moss everywhere, and even a huge hollowed out tree that easily could have been Pan's hideout! It took a bit of convincing of Cameron to actually stand in there with me! Out there, we saw harbor seals, sea lions, an otter, and even a whale spouting and his tail waving at us. Debbie tried to capture the wildlife on camera, but, like the kids, they never stay too long in one place. However, our camera was giving Debbie grieve and she was unable to get it to work properly. Man, if she could swear, it would be when she is taking pictures! :) But, despite her technical challenges, she always amazes me with what she does create with her picture taking abilities!
Anyway, well, we found the perfect spot to hide our treasure and headed home before the tide came back in. We're excited to see who will find our treasure first and how many people will say they weren't able to find it. On our way home, we were able to get a cool picture of our resident Volcano, Mt. Edgecumbe. In the 1970's somebody pulled a huge practical joke and flew a bunch of tires to the volcano, dropped them in, and lit them on fire. Everyone in Sitka thought the thing was going to blow! Now that' a man after my sense of humor! Well we miss you all! Have a great week!

1 comment:

Despain said...

Sounds & Looks like you guys are having a great time up there. We may have to put your invite to use & come see you sometime!! :)