Dan's Birthday

Since I haven't been blogging... just too busy... there are many things to catch up on! Many of you read my blog because of rug hooking... and several family members read it to keep up on our activities, and family pics. I use it as sort of a journal and method of sharing :) So forgive me when I go totally family oriented, and no crafty stuff for weeks at a time! And vise versa! Dan's birthday was last week :) And somewhere along the line we kind of challenged ourselves to think outside the norm, and try to come up with fun things that we wouldn't do for ourselves! We don't need for anything. Why add to all the "stuff" we've already accumulated and don't really need? Know what i mean? So anyway.. this year i was really short on ideas!!! And wasn't able to pull it all together until the last minute! (yah.. 4 days before is really the last minute!!!) So i was a bit spaztic at that 4 day mark... wondering if i could make it happen! This is what i came up with :) Dan has ALWAYS wanted to go sky diving!! yes... jump out of an airplane... he doesn't believe anything would ever go wrong! Well... needless to say, i am farrr too in love with this man, and even the possibility of something going wrong and him leaving me because of something so stupid, just sends me over the edge! Call me a worry wart - or whatever you want - but c'mon!! I'm just being realistic!! Anyway... there is an alternative here in Colorado! And the first time i found out about it, i immediately wanted to do this for Danny!! But then... thought.. what if this just fuels the fire, and makes him want to do it even more, for real? Well i got over that part this year! LOL And I took him to the "Indoor Skydiving" place! (click on that to see more.) This place is SOOO COOL!!!!!! They have this humongous fan/air tunnel that the building is built around. You get a trainer who goes in with you and teaches you. As you advance you learn a bunch of the little tricks, motions, acrobatics, etc. It's pretty amazing! These pics are pretty horrible.. the glare off the air tunnel didn't really allow me to capture a good shot! He had a total of 4 minutes of "fly time". It was pretty darn cool!! And he loved it - and also realized that now that he's experienced this, he's glad he didn't just go straight to true sky diving! Said he would have totally "wasted" the jump, not knowing how such little movements can affect EVERYTHING !! But yes... i fear he might become a bit of an addict! LOL Talk about an adreniline rush!! Also... Dan's uncle Don introduced us to Geocaching. Oh man! Let me just preface the rest of this post with "yes... we be nerds!" LOL and as my youngest daughter has said to me ... "mommy... we ALL bees nerds sometimes!" haha! ok.. getting a little sidetracked... The easiest way to describe it, is like a modern day, ongoing. huge, scavenger hunt! Or easter egg hunt.. treasure hunt... whatever you want to call it! It's just the neatest thing! And Dan and i LOVE scavenger hunts!! There are over 650,000 hidden caches around the world. Little teeny tiny micro logs all the way up to boxes of "treasures". All hidden.. under our noses, just waiting to be found! There is a large community of people that do this regularly - and i'd never even heard of it!! People plan their vacations around their caching... add extra travel time in for going off on a hunt when travelling across the state, or where ever! Check it out at www.GeoCaching.com - put in your zip code and see how many are within 10 miles of your home! Bet you'll be surprised!! :) So Dan's really been wanting to actively do this... as a couple, as a family, and even off on his own when he's across the state on business. So I got him a GPS unit for his birthday. :)

To locate the caches, you are given the latitude and longitude of the cache. Once you get to that location... the hunt is on! It's actually harder than it sounds!! We are still such noob's to this.. and our ignorance is just cracking us up! To seasoned geocachers, they can view the area and determine pretty closely where they think it will be hidden. But then there are always the clever hiders... you never know where you might have to look! And the KEY is doing it without being obvious and giving away the secret to observers! These guys were looking for a cache in Australia... and their post about it was pretty funny!! Check it out!

Dan and I spent the whole day on our scooters... hunting caches within a mile of our house. There were 9 all within a mile! Had a ball!! Then went "skydiving", and home for a juicy steak dinner with the family. :) It was a pretty awesome day!

This last Sunday after church, we took the kids caching and turned them onto the thrill of the hunt! There were 3 or 4 in a park that we used to live by. Oh my! We spent 4 hours traipsing around and hunting! It was TONS of fun!! Just being outside on a beautiful day... being together as a family, and doing a scavenger hunt along a creek, with tunnels and lots of wild life... it was perfect! :)

That's it for today. I'll be posting about my auction finds from last week, tomorrow!

Hope you have a wonderful day! xo Bren :)

Ps... Tammy... I can't help but think of you and kenny with all those awesome trails and lakes you take the dogs to - how fun to treasure hunt at the same time in that area!! LOL.. or are you guys not as nerdy as us?? :D

And Michelle - with as much as you travel and run and bike?!? You would be marking them all over the world!!

Oops almost forgot! Got this pic from Gav the other day... a stormy day in St. Thomas.