Daddy is finally normal again!

Jonesy has had to work every single day this month (including weekends) up until this past Saturday. We decided to celebrate by getting out of Lubbock. We couldn't go too far though (gas prices and all) so we went geocaching and exploring. Hooray!

Here is Ruth finding a hidden cache

Opening up the small treasure

A very strange house we found in Ransom Canyon (about 10 miles from our house)

Jonesy hiking up a hill full of cactus and other pricklies to find a cache...

Ruth feeling very sad that she can't go hiking up the pokey hill with Daddy

Ruth realizing she's getting her picture taken and kicking the sadness up a notch...

We are fans of wind power. I think those wind turbines are beautiful (I'm not kidding, I really do)

This is Gareth as he see's the wind turbines from the car. "Wow!!" he says.

Geocaching Again?!?!

Yes because we love it. I'm thinking if I post even more about geocaching you will all be convinced to go. This time we went with our friends Moses and Garion who just moved up here to Flag from Tuscon. The foot of Mt. Elden is covered in geocaches and we found them ALL -- okay we found three of them, which isn't even close to all of them, but whatever.

Can you believe there's a cache hidden up here?

A really cool tree...

Opening the treasure!...

Picking a prize...

Ruth's first tree experience...

This is called the Alligator tree. It's pretty awesome...

We Love Geocaching

Today was a great day for geocaching! We were just planning on going on a hike to Keyhole Sink just outside of Flagstaff but before we left, we checked our favorite geocaching website and found that there is a cache right at the end of the trail (along with some petroglyphs). So we took along our trusty gps device.

This is a picture of the petroglyphs...they are right in the middle of the pic. Look closely!

There was a small pond at the end of the trail in a little box canyon. When we first arrived we could hear a chorus of frogs singing to (or yelling at) each other. Right as we walked up closer to the pond they all stopped at once. On the other side of the pond were the petroglyphs. Ruth and I climbed (scrambled) over some rocks so we could get a closer look.

Here is Ruth posing by the petroglyphs...

On our way scrambling back over the rocks I almost squished a lizard. I tried to catch it but since I am a pansy my method of slowly sneaking my hand up on it didn't work. I'm too nervous to grab it quickly (I can just imagine what would happen if I grabbed too tightly and somehow squeezed it's guts all over my hand...ridiculous, I know). So the lucky lizard got away.

Here is Jonesy and Gareth on the other side of the pond waiting for us to come back...

This is us at the end of the trail by the information sign. Hooray for hiking!

I'm always happy to post pictures of my rear-end. Seriously, I am proud of my buttocks...I think I have a cute backside. (keep it to yourself if you feel differently!) You can only guess who took this picture...

After this hike, we went over to Williams (I had never been and was curious to see it) for lunch. We went to a diner that had homemade pies! BIG mistake....the pieces of pie were HUGE (delicious too). They had this apple strudel cream cheese pie that I wanted to try but since I was sharing with Ruth and she didn't want that one I didn't get to try it....we'll have to go back there before we move.

On the way back we hit two more caches just for fun. One was by the railroad tracks and the other was along Route 66 at a rest stop.

If you don't geocache you are missing out on so much fun. It's a wonderful family activity (even for young families like ours!) I really urge you to try it.

Geocaching in Sedona

We decided that we were all tired of winter so we got in the car and drove for 45 minutes into a beautiful spring day. Sedona was about 65 degrees with sunshine. We really enjoyed going Geocaching. We went to three different locations and found three 'treasures.' We also had a nice picnic lunch at Los Abrigados Resort Hotel's playground. Here are some pictures of our adventures:

Geocaching!

Okay, so geocaching is a lot of fun! It's like a treasure hunt (okay it really IS a treasure hunt because you get treasure!) If you haven't tried it then I suggest you do. If you don't have a GPS device, call us and we'll take you geocaching with us. It's something that doesn't take a lot of time to plan. There are caches hidden all around Flagstaff. We've gone and found caches on our way to the store even. Ruth loves it too. Hooray for family fun! Our first find was so fun. The cache was hidden in a place that we drive by almost every day in plain sight (if you really want to know where, you'll have to ask me and maybe I'll tell you). We had to follow clues to find a code to open up the box that we found with our GPS and inside we found all sorts of prizes. We took out a doll for Ruth and left a matchbox car for the next lucky person to find it. Seriously...try it.