The+Family+Adventure

by Kathleen Williams

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Geocaching is something that I have wanted to do for a long time. I have been trying to talk my husband into trying it with me. I finally had an excuse to force him into it! I am going to discuss our first four caches as a family. They were interesting to say the least. On a Friday night, we dropped our oldest son off at football practice and proceeded to locate our first cache with the other two kids in tow. My middle son, Austin, wanted to be our leader so we gave him the phone with the c: geo app running and when we got out of the car at the first location, he was in charge. My daughter, Haley, thought it was great to be going on a treasure hunt! As we got closer and closer to the location given on the cell phone, we all began to look harder. We were looking all over road signs and lamp posts. Eventually, my husband came up with it. We were thrilled to have found it and it seemed so easy! Just a short walk and some hunting around. We had this! We signed the log, took a picture, and decided to try another one. =====

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The second hunt wasn't quite as simple. It took us to a field with woods on the edge. We started walking through the field toward the woods. Once we got to the edge of the woods, we noticed thorns and no true path. We decided to trudge on anyway. Haley stayed on the outside (we could see her!) and the three of us went on a hunt! Austin had the phone again so he was the leader. My husband and I both searched all trees and piles of sticks to no avail. Finally, we heard Austin calling that he found it. We crept our way over to where he was and noticed a large container shoved into a hole in a tree. It was COVERED in ants! My husband attempted to pull it out but when the spiders started to appear, I made it stop! We took a picture of it and slowly worked our way back out to Haley. She was upset at missing it until I showed her the blood on my arm from the thorns and told her about the spiders. After hearing that, she was glad that she had waited for us. =====

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We still had plenty of time to kill before we headed to pick Chase up from practice so we went for one more. This one happened to be at our favorite ice cream place, Sunni Skies. We all loaded ourselves back into the car and away we went! Once we arrived at the ice cream place, Austin was again in charge of the phone and lead us to the open sign. After searching all over it, I finally discovered it hidden in a very inconspicuous place! I was so excited to be the one to find it! You would have thought I was a kid on Christmas morning! I took a picture of me and Austin with the cache. We felt that our three (mostly) successful caches deserved a treat so we headed into Sunni Skies and got all of us some ice cream. We were nice and even got Chase some. By this time, football practice was almost over so we started back to the park. =====

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Once Chase finished football practice, he wanted to know what we had done (we usually watch his practices so it was strange for us not to be there). When I mentioned geocaching, his face lit up and he informed me that he "loves" geocaching! He went on to explain that his 5th grade teacher had done a few with them the previous year. That being said, we asked all three kids if they wanted to do one more before calling it a night. They answered with a resounding yes! So off we went! Cache #3 was a little more difficult but not because of the terrain. We were at an intersection at the Wake/Harnett county line. We searched EVERYWHERE! A car pulled up to the stop sign and asked if we were geocaching. We said yes and they told us good luck because they could never find that one! At the time, I didn't realize that you weren't supposed to let other people know what you were doing...oops! As soon as they drove off, Chase found the cache hidden very well! We pulled it out, signed it, took a family picture (minus the photographer), put it back where we found it, and began our journey back home as some satisfied geocachers! =====

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My whole family is hooked on this fun, adventurous, FREE, and exciting hobby! We have completed 4 more since that day and have plans to continue this as a family. I want to thank Dr. Roukema for forcing us out of our comfort zone and into a fun treasure hunt! At times, it can be frustrating but the reward of finding the caches makes it worth it! ===== This was the first cache while our oldest was at football practice!

Cache #2--The ants and spiders own this one now!

Cache #3- Me and Austin at Sunni Skies! I promise he was having more fun than what it looks like!

Cache #4- A picture of the family (minus me as I was taking the picture) and a picture of me and the hubby with the cache. This was our final cache of the evening but not our last ever!