Mother's Day Asskicking

OK, it was more like the Day Before Mother's Day Asskicking, but close enough.

Jake and Camille and I went for a hike. Well, Jake and I hiked, and Camille rode. Seriously, she's like a frickin' Roman empress being toted around all day. Luckyyyy.

Miller Park

I went geocaching!

Miller Park is in a nicer part of town, and is mostly just a ravine between two neighborhoods. It's so nice in there, though! The only thing I heard that wasn't rushing river or twirping birds was a garbage truck one time. Other than that garbage truck noise, I might as well have been in the middle of the wilderness.

Bell Canyon Hike

It's a beautiful day! OK a little bit chilly, but nothing too terrible. And at least it's not raining!!

Baby, It's Cold Outside

I went shopping yesterday. I probably don't have to tell you that retail therapy is the best way to de-stress (except maybe a deep-tissue massage on the beach somewhere fabulous), and yesterday I de-stressed a lot.

I went to Ikea for some shelving stuff (which is technically shopping), but the big wonderful purchase occurred at Target.

Jogging stroller!

I purchased the BabyTrend Expedition jogging stroller. The link is to Amazon.com, but I bought it at Target for the same price. The only upside to ordering it from Amazon would have been that I wouldn't have had to drag it inside from my car. The box is huge and ungainly!

It was a total breeze to put together, and I took it for its first road test this morning. It was awesome. If you don't care about bells and whistles and want a jogging stroller for a great price, this one is it. Two thumbs up!

I wanted to road test it yesterday when I first put it together, but I really didn't have the time. So last night, I set my alarm with the intention to get up early, strap Camille in, and go for a nice walk/jog. I was woken up an hour before my alarm (Camille decided that an early-morning party was in order), but I got up and got ready for strollering.

Then I checked the weather.

30 degrees.

Shit! That's cold!

You said it, adorable kitteh.

Now normally, I'd be a weenie and say it's too cold to go outside, and I'd promptly turn on Netflix study for my physio test. But today, I was hellbent on taking the stroller for its maiden voyage, so I put Camille in, wrapped her with blankets, and off we went!

My goal today was to find a geocache that's nearby. I read about it whenever I look up caches, but I just never got around to it. Well, it happens to be right along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, which is a bike/walking path that is nice and smooth and wide. Perfect for a stroll!

The cache is called the Suicide Rock Book Exchange, and is a large weatherproof box full of paperback books (and one hardcover Book of Mormon). Since I'm a genius and I know everything, I didn't consult my GPS as I struck out on the trail. I thought, "Suicide Rock, eh? I know just where that is!" and off I went. Well, the cache isn't all the way down to Suicide Rock, so I went aaaaaaalllllllll the way there for nothing.

OK, not for nothing. I did get some nice pictures. :)

Don't worry: none of these pictures shows where the cache is. In fact, none of them are even near it!

Suicide Rock

The path down to Suicide Rock.

View of the valley from the trail.

The trail is very nice and scenic. I walked it almost every day when I was pregnant.

I found a coin in the cache. It's not a GeoCoin; it's called a PathTag. I looked it up and logged it, and I guess PathTags are different from GeoCoins in that you don't have to place the PathTag in another cache. You can keep it forever if you want! Well, I'm not sure if I want to keep it. It's cool and all, but I feel like I should keep it going. So hopefully I remember it the next time I go caching.

I just had a great idea. I'm going to crochet a geocaching bag. I will keep swag in it. Yesssssssss.

Sunday Funday

Jake and I are sinful non-churchgoers. Our Sundays are usually spent lounging around in our underpants, doing homework, and cleaning up the mess that was developed over the previous week so we have a fresh house to mess up during the next week.

We recently decided that we "never do anything." OK, I decided that. Jake seemed to agree. He didn't disagree, in any case.

When I was in high school, I participated in a sport called orienteering. Basically, you use a compass and a map to find locations on a course. Courses vary in difficulty. The best time wins. That's it in a nutshell.

I enjoyed it a lot, mostly because I'm a giant nerd. But it came in really handy when I went to SERE school. I think I was the only person in my group who didn't get lost while navigating. I rule.

I heard about geocaching when I lived in England. A few people in my unit did it practically every weekend, and I was mildly interested. Not interested enough to go buy a GPS and actually do it. I hated England, especially being outside in England. If you've never been to England, the only time it doesn't suck hard is in the summer. Fall, winter, spring... are all horrible.

It's been about 4 years since I escaped from England. I would think about geocaching now and again every few months, but I never seriously considered doing it. About a month ago, though, something changed and I decided I wanted to do it.

I think it will be good to get into. Jake and I both like hiking and being outside, and I like finding treasure. Geocaching gives us a destination when we go out hiking. When Camille gets older, I think it will be a fun activity for her to do, plus it will get her outside and moving around. No fat kids!

Today for our first geocaching experience, we went to a nearby park where there were several caches listed (to find local geocaches near you, go to www.geocaching.com, make an account, and enter in your zip code). It's a nice walk, and it's a nice day, so we figured there's no better time to get started.

We couldn't really get our GPS to work (or maybe it was working fine and we just couldn't figure out how to use it), but fortunately I have an iPhone and it has a compass feature and also a geocaching app. The first cache we tried to find is located in a pine tree that's currently being used as a homeless person's house. Wait... that means they wouldn't be homeless anymore. OK, it's the dwelling of a hobo. That sounds less contrary. Anyway, I didn't actually find and log that cache because I'm afraid of homeless people.

The next cache we did find, and fairly easily. Here's proof!

The next one we tried to find wasn't at the coordinates it was supposed to be at. Or maybe it was and I just couldn't find it. My iPhone told me that it was located in someone's front yard, and I'm not into trespassing.

Camille was pretty done with being carted around by this point, and she was growing cranky. We had lunch at a diner down the road from our house (which turned out to be pretty tasty), and then we came home. Now we're watching the A-Team TV show on Netflix, and one of us is blogging.