My Top 10 favorite moments of 2013… #10

Why hello there! Long time no see.

We're already six days into the new year! Woah.

I'm anticipating exciting things for 2014.  I just have a holy flutter in my heart and can't wait to see how the Lord is going to use us for His kingdom.  My one little word for the year is "new".  We are in a new season now that the girls are all married and I just get excited thinking about this next chapter of our lives serving the Lord together.  I just want to be willing for whatever He has.

"But forget all that- it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.  For I am about to do something new.  See, I have already begun!  Do you not see it?  I will make a pathway throughout the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. " 

Isaiah 43:19

But in the midst of my goal planning and dreaming, I want to take some time to look back at this year.

God was faithful at all times. He grew us through difficult times and He blessed us with times of refreshing too. There was much I didn't get around to sharing on here and want to take the time in the next few weeks to do so.  

To look back and remember His goodness…Kind of a top 10 of my favorite moments if you will.

So without further ado…

here's my #10 favorite moment of 2013…

The discovery of Geocashing.

Have you heard of it? It's been around for years and years. I'd heard the word here and there.  But during our trip to visit the kids in North Carolina during the holidays, my awesome son-in-law introduced me and Nick to it and well…..got me hooked.

So what is it?  

Well here is the technical definition…

 Geocaching  is an outdoor recreational activity, in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS)  or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook where the geocacher enters the date they found it and signs it with their established code name. After signing the log, the cache must be placed back exactly where the person found it. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperware or similar) or ammunition boxes can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little financial value, although sometimes they are sentimental. 

I can sum it up like this….

Adventure  ~ fun  ~  treasure  ~   family

And the best part about it ….it's basically free to do! Woo hoo!

Here are glimpses of my very first geocache!

Rosalyn is hard core about it. She is a serious Geocacher.  She knows how to follow the arrow on the gps and she went straight to this first one. It was attached to the bottom of a park bench by a magnet! It was just a micro one so there was no treasure….just the thrill of finding it.

But y'all…these are everywhere! You've provably sat on one and never even knew it. Parked your car next to one and never even saw it.  It's like a secret world waiting to be discovered.

Now on to the next one…

Julia Rose was taking advantage of some Paw Paw time…usually Nate is hogging him.

  

  They found it.  It was another micro.

 Jules had to take a short beauty break to freshen up.

Chris was eager for us to find an actual treasure before the sun went down so we piled back up in the swagger wagon and tracked one down.

And let me just say, this was the hunt that hooked me.

It was a real adventure…we were racing against the clock, the park closed on us, we had to sneak in a closed area, trek through treacherous grounds….it was awesome.

 And then there is was!

The log book dated back to 2005!

The code is if you take a treasure out of the box, you must replace it with something you brought.

  Rosalyn loved the glasses but we convinced her to leave them for everyone who comes behind to have fun trying them on….

 Like her Paw Paw for instance.

So. Much. Fun. 

We put our treasure inside and hid it back right where we found it for the next adventurer.

It was one of those epic days where you realize how much you love your family and doing anything with them and wanting to experience everything with them.
You know what I'm taking about it?

Which leads me to this…

Of course I wanted the rest of the fam to get in on this.  So next week once we were back in Mississippi and my mom was up for Christmas that is exactly what we did.

My momma the fire starter.

We went to see the movie "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty".  SO good. Definetly one of my favorite movies.  And it was the perfect thing to see before taking my momma on her first geocache hunt.

We felt like kindred spirits to Walter Mitty when we were climbing hills in the woods just before sundown.

 Three generations of giggle boxes right there.

Then we saw it! 

You see it?  This one was so big and just sitting there in plain sight.

My mom after we made it out of the woods…

I think it's safe to say she loved it!

It was a great day.

 Now to take Lauren and Blakey-Poo and Marky.

Let's go. I'm ready!

Thank you Christopher for introducing your old maw-in-law to this epic adventure! xoxo