Double celebration

This year my 44th birthday actually fell right on Mother's Day! So I started celebrating the weekend beforehand at Universal Studios...

 

I left my sunglasses on the Harry Potter ride the previous week and was really excited that they had actually been turned in! 

The next day Maddy and I went up to Oakland for a lovely nature walk and did some geocaching for the first time in years - Maddy still has a very beady eye...

I treated myself to a day off work on Thursday with Mike and after a much needed day of relaxation, we went to Maddy's school's Art Show.

It doesn't matter how many works are on display or how many times we've done this - it's always such a thrill to see your child's artwork. We are so proud of our talented daughter :)

Maddy's house blew up in the kiln so she redesigned it to look 'burned out' and called it "The Blitz" - how stinkin' creative! The art teacher said he'd never seen a student do that before :)

On Saturday, Lu and I did the most beautiful run for a Milk Bank in Florida:)...

But my birthday highlight was getting my new camera lens! Now I can take amazing pictures of birds!!! It's super easy to use and I am really thrilled with how well my first set came out :)

Who would have thought at 44 I'd be a twitchin' shutterbuggin' nerd? :)

School's out for Summer!

For the first day of our Summer vacation together, Maddy, Mya and I took a trip up to Withlacoochee State Park for a peaceful morning hike. It is so pretty up there and we actually saw an owl fly right past us! On the way back the girls picked up 3 geocaches too. So far, everyone except me has found at least one...:(

The first cache was hidden in a rock...

 

Mya found this one as soon as we arrived at the location!

This one was disguised as a sprinkler :)

We found our first Geocache!!

I just discovered Geocaching online (http://www.geocaching.com/), and thought it sounded like a really cool concept. According to the website, 'Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called Geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.' There are currently over 1.3 million Geocaches all over the world, 634 are within 10 miles of our house! There are different levels of difficulty depending on how accessible they are - some are under the ocean or on top of mountains for example or just really cleverly hidden like this one...(fencepost geocache). Anyway, Maddy and I registered online, uploaded the ipod App (all for free) and set off to see if we could find our first one!

According to the App we got within 6 feet of this one but we still couldn't find it...:(

Maddy was so dissappointed that we ended up having to go home empty-handed. However, with just a couple of clues and no GPS, Mike found one right away when he went running a bit later on:). He replaced it in an area slightly easier to find and we took Maddy back again later so that she could find her first Geocache for herself...just helping the process along a little - that's what parents do :)

Maddy was thrilled when she 'found' her first Geocache. According to the logs, this one was first located last year by a couple of teens at 2:30 a.m....and I always thought teens who were hanging out late at night were up to no good...

We opened it up in the car, completed the log and replaced the goodies with some of our own for the next person to find before putting it back.

I have to admit that it was actually a kind of fun thing to do on a Wednesday night. Take a look at the website (here) and see how many are hidden right on your doorstep - you'll be amazed...:) I know, I know...ghosttowns and geocaching...I admit it...I'm a dork...:)