Thank you to Poise for sponsoring today’s geocaching adventure. Making memories with my family and being able to focus on the important things in life is priceless. #PoiseLinerLove
Family time is one of my greatest loves in life. My oldest just turned eight and I can’t believe how much she’s grown. Or that I’ve been a mom for eight years! The other thing I can’t believe is how busy we’ve become over the past few years. We have more play dates, field trips, and now 4H adventures than I can keep track of. In addition to all of this, we still make time for family time adventures. These are the important moments in life.
This week, we went geocaching.
Geocaching is one of my favorite outdoor activities, mainly because it involves nature (not always, but those are the caches I like), family, exploration and treasure hunting. If you’ve never had the chance to go geocaching, look it up and try. It’s an entertaining activity you can do just about anywhere.
Here’s how one of our geocaching adventures usually goes. First we find a trail that has some caches around it. Just look them up online.
Next, get out your GPS and start tracking your coordinates. Caches are placed by other geocachers, then the latitude and longitude is recorded so you can find the treasure or tracking log they’ve hidden.
We never miss an opportunity for education and nature observation. I think we find something new every time we go out to the lake. Here I think they were taking a look at Maple tree seeds.
After a bit of a hike we finally make it to the cache site. It’s off the trail so anyone walking by won’t notice it. This time it was easy to find, but it’s not always that easy. Sometimes people will hide micro caches that are smaller than your pinky finger. They are only big enough to fit a small strip of paper rolled up tightly in them. On the micro caches there is just enough for you to jot down your user name and date as small as possible.
The style of this cache is what’s called a lock in lock. Basically it’s one of those plastic storage containers that has a lid that locks closed on all four sides. Whoever left this one did a nice job of adding some camouflage tape around it to make it less noticeable to someone who isn’t looking for it.
After a quick photo the girls were eager to open it up to see what we would find.
As expected a treasure trove of little trinket type toys. It’s never anything big or expensive, and the kids love it! The basic courtesy for geocaching is if you take an item out you leave something behind for the next person to find. Oh, and don’t forget to sign the logbook to let the owners know you stopped by.
Checking out the contents of the cache, as well as reloading it with some of our treasures is a family favorite. We usually leave behind rubber ducks, army men and some pirate coins. If anything, we’re quite the eclectic family.
After the log has been signed and toys have been swapped, it’s time to pack up and go. But not before returning the cache where we found it for the next person to find. I took this picture of Charlie returning the cache to show you it’s not always easy. She really had to climb around, under and through some branches to get the cache back to it’s home.
As always we had an amazing time as a family while out geocaching. We explored, learned, observed and laughed… a lot. I’m elated to spend time like this with my family, and for me that time is even more special because it wasn’t that long ago that I had a hard time focusing on my family and enjoying our quality time together.
Believe it or not something as common as light bladder leakage (LBL) had me more worried about what happened if I sneezed, bent over or even laughed too hard. It’s something not a lot of people want to talk about, but it does happen. I try to make light of the situation, which I did a couple of years ago when I told you all about my sneeze dance, but even with that humor I didn’t tell you how much Poise improved the quality of my quality time with family.
When I’m out shopping, it’s easy to restock my Poise Liners too. Walmart is perfect for this shopping trip because I can pick up Poise while I’m shopping for my weekly groceries, school supplies for the week, and any other odds and ends we may need around the house. It’s a one stop shop and that makes my already busy life easier.
My family means the world to me. I want to give them my full attention because we have memories to make together. I don’t have time to spend worrying about LBL. My time is best spent on the important moments in life.
What are your favorite activities to do with your family to build memories? I shared one of mine, I’d love to hear one of yours! Share it in the comments below.
Love this post! You have a beautiful family, Mary! Really loved the video 🙂 Very heartfelt. Have a great weekend!
Thank you so much! That means a lot to me 🙂 Hope you have a great weekend too!
Hope you had a great Mother’s Day!!! 🙂
You too! I think this year was the best Mother’s Day yet!