Christmas Videos

Just when you thought Christmas was over for another year I'm finally getting some pictures posted. Guess I'll just let the pictures do most of the talking here. I will mention that none of us had our makeup on for these shots as you can probably guessed.
Make sure to check out the 2 videos at the end as well.
**One more thing! There are 2 other blogs posted this month as well. You'll have to click on "blog archive" to view them. Thanks for looking.














Jason's rendition of "These are a Few of My Favorite Things"

Annalie talks about the "Littlest Pet Shop" airplane set that she has been wanting for many months

Here comes Santa Claus 2011

We saw Santa Claus a few times this year. Here are two places he visited:


Our local bookstore invited Santa one week. Santa actually had a bag of presents that he distributed. We asked to be able to be seen first as it is so hard for Jason to wait. Jason managed to pull some of his beard hairs out and ripped Santa's hat off. Luckily his hat was not attached to his "hair" on his head or that would have been an unpleasant surprise for the other children...



A week later we went to the Christmas Lights at the Wildlife Safari in Winston (just outside of Roseburg). When Jason started pullng beard hairs again, Santa told us here that he had worked with special needs children. It was a big relief to us to know that he understood and didn't mind his beard being a little less full after we left. We also were the first to see him there that night (and Mrs. Santa!) so there was no line to wait in. At the Wildlife Safari they provide materials for kids to make gingerbread houses. A camera man who was taking footage to promote the program next year actually filmed Annalie making her gingerbread house. Perhaps next year you may see her on television!

We hope you had a wonderful holiday season.

New Hobby.........Geocaching!

Happy New Year!

Prologue:

As Christmas was drawing near, I was trying to come up with a combined present for Dave and the kids. I had seen a family friendly GPS that is specific for geocaching (cache locations are programmed into the device). I had also seen a book at our local bookstore on the hobby. I thought it would be fun to make up a "package" of different items for geocaching. So I bought a leak-proof ammo box (as I knew Dave would want to make and hide his own cache with treasures). I loaded it with: the mentioned book, a log book journal to record all the caches we hope to find, the GPS device, an update kit (as new caches are always being created), some "cache buddies" to attach to items that travel the world (we can follow their progress on the computer) and a starter kit to help make our own cache. What fun it was finding the different items and putting it all in the ammo box for a gift! Dave loves to be outdoors, Jason loves to ride in the jeep, and Annalie is always talking of finding treasures. Geocaching seemed to be a good hobby of choice for our family!

As we are Disney fans, we had also bought a "Duffy" bear for Jason. The story of Duffy is that Minnie Mouse made him for Mickey. Mickey took him on his travels around the world and then Minnie made more Duffy bears for all of their friends. There is a saying "Where will you take your Duffy?" So I thought it would be fun if Duffy came with Jason on our geocaching adventures. You will see him in the pictures.

I'll let Dave finish the rest of this blog...


***4X4 Trailhead Cache***


***Easy to Miss Cache***


***Pyramid Rock Cache***


***Pyramid Mine Cache***


***Flycatcher Springs Cache***

I found a file picture of the little gadget that makes all this possible and I must say it has been fun. It's amazing to me how many of these caches are hidden within a 30 mile radius of our home. I doubt we will live long enough to locate them all but we're sure to have fun trying! I never really needed an excuse to take a drive or a stroll through the woods but now I definitely have one. Thankfully this is something that our whole family can enjoy. Who doesn't like a good treaure hunt!