Geocaching

On Saturday night a tradition was born! Ben and Alyson Harper, Woodson and I went geocaching! Woodson doesn't know it yet but I plan on doing this MANY more times! For those of you who have never done this, you download coordinates of these little "caches" from the internet into a GPS and then off you go on a treasure hunt! You follow the coordinates until you get close enough to walk (or maybe just close enough that your GPS keeps telling you 10 ft north and when you get 10 ft north it says 12 ft southeast and when you get there it says 9 ft west, and so on!) and then you hunt! I agree with my brother who said that as you hunt you just keep getting so excited because you don't know what's going to be in the little "cache" but you just know it's going to be good! And then you find it. . . and. . . it's. . . a bunch of JUNK! But it's ok because you still get to sign your name that you found it and feel really cool. And speaking of cool, here's Ben hunting for the goods:


Here's me and Alyson after Ben found the first cache - a microcache which the guys were all for giving up on because we searched for SO long (like 8 minutes) and couldn't find it.
Ben finally lucked out and found it while Alyson and I were out in the trenches searching! A microcache is a really small one and this one was only big enough to hold the log and some exotic coins. We looked at them but didn't take any because we didn't bring any to replace them. Maybe next time.
Here's Woodson finding (or maybe putting back) the second cache we found - it had little toys in it! But we didn't take any of those either because they were no better than the other junk I brought!

Here's us excited at the great stuff we found in our 3rd cache. We found 4 out of the 6 we looked for, got a few weird looks and a rash in the process but still had a lot of fun!

Sunday Afternoons

Here is an example of how little there is to do in the way of toys at our house. Recently, one Sunday afternoon, I looked up from doing something that I'm sure was extremely productive to find Nicole wearing some pink underwear she had found. I guess she decided they would make a good shirt. Obviously I didn't take them off right away because she had time to sneak into the kitchen, rifle through the baking cupboard, and find what she was looking for. . . here she is attempting the get-away with the bag of chocolate chips! That's Woodson's arm as he tried to grab her. After she got away from Daddy she came to me, wanting me to open them!
I think she really thought I would do it!
Just thought I would capture the following special moment on film. Here she is a few minutes later, still wearing the underwear, pooping. What gives her away: the facial expression or the death grip on the bench? Meanwhile, here was Matthew. . . we really need to get some more toys.

Memories

I agree with Carmen - you may all have already done this but it IS fun. So if you've got a memory, great! If not, here's a picture for you to look at!

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I have had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember. You can include Woodson or the kids.

2. Next, repost these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It is actually pretty funny to see the responses.

More Family Reunion

Four-wheeling. No, I am not very good at it as is probably apparent from this picture. I had the automatic 4-wheeler and both kids still ended up with Daddy by the end of the ride! Sheesh! I'm not THAT bad! Playing the "cut open the chocolate and try to eat it with the knives while wearing socks on your hands" game.
Sleepy on the boat with Aunt Camilla.
LOVE that water!
DONUTS! Yum! Thanks Mom and Melody! (Congratulations Melody on your mission call to Paraguay, by the way! The Paraguaians(?) and/or missionaries will certainly love you if you make these for them!

Lynes' Family Reunion 2008

Last weekend we all headed up to Evanston, WY to the Diamond X Ranch where we played, laughed, got sunburned, and ate way too much for our Lynes' family reunion! It was a great time and the Ranch house was awesome! There were horses (and cows, but they're not as cool) just wandering around and one dropped a foal in the front yard the last day we were there! VERY cool! Too bad I didn't take any pictures of them! But I DID take pictures of us in our matching T-shirts and hats. Here's the gang! Our fam looking very attractive.
Cousins! Cute cousin Jason (whom Matthew and Nicole LOVE) on the front steps with Matthew and Nicole.
Breakfast time.
Water balloon volleyball: Matthew was our "balloon boy" and delivered new water balloons as fast as his little legs could carry him for our whole game. It was quite a workout, I'm sure, because Mommy and Daddy broke almost every single one they tried to catch (our water balloon volleybal skills are a little rusty!)

For Roshelle

Since I know you will be checking I have dedicated this one to you! And since you have not seen Nicole in real life for a long time I thought I would bring a little of her to you! Get better soon!

Nicole spends a fair amount of time eating, as you can see by the fact that we have 3 videos of her doing it! Here she is cooling off her hot dog.

We must have had a REAL good meal that day - can't remember what it was. . . I think there might have been ketchup involved.

The uncles trying to get her to make faces!

Frogs

Well, Matthew has wanted a pet for a long, LONG time so the other day I saw these frogs at a boutique and thought, "Perfect!" So I brought them home and Matthew said, "I wanted a dog or a cat." Well, he gets frogs. We have enough food for 3 months and after that. . .well, we'll see how much we like them. One of YOU might be receiving a little donation in 3 months time. Right now they are still sitting on the kitchen counter grossing me out with their frog poop water. Luckily, Matthew HAS decided he likes them to some degree and always wants to feed them. He likes to look at them too and became very concerned when their water got so dirty with frog poopies that it kicked up clouds whenever they swam. So one day this week we HAD to change the water. Now, I had never done this before (never having been privileged enough to own frogs during MY childhood!) but I figured it couldn't be too hard. I let the new water sit out for 24 like the instructions said and then when we were ready to change out the old water Matthew and I stood by the sink and I put a little tupperware next to the frog cage to hold the frogs while we dumped the old water and poured in the new. What followed was about 5 minutes of me screaming "Ahh AHH!" as Matthew splashed poop water all over the place and frogs hopped frantically out of the tupperware, across the counter, down the sink, etc. When we were finally done Matthew said, "Mom, let's not ever do that again! That was TOO dangerous!" I agree. We put the rock in there so they'd have a little furniture. Matthew named them Chocolate and Jumpy (or Swimmy, depending on the day).