Geocaching with the grandsons

It's Wednesday. No nanny. Sarah could do with some help. We picked the darlings up from acac tennis camp at 1:30 pm. They had their lunch at the camp so no worries about that. Owen wanted to go straight home. It took some persuation to stop on the way at the Robious Landing Park we pass anyway. He still wanted to go straight home. Only when I mentioned that it was really a shame that we don't get to stop for an ice cream before going home he quickly changed his mind (ha-ha). 

James had received a little bag with peanuts with shell from a friend the evening before. So we thought it might be nice to eat those at the river. It was quite nice there especially under the trees.

Colin then asked whether we could go to the creek where they like looking for crawfish. That whiled away some time too.

While Papa and I were standing there I suddenly thought of checking whether there might be a geocache close by. And yes, there was. Auntie Helen had introduced them to it when she and William visited in January.

When I asked whether they would like to try to find it they were all excited. Caleb wanted to hold my phone to find the way. I had to explain that the line was 'how the birds fly' when we came to forks in the trail. 

When we were very close one of them found a turtle. Owen always loves picking anything living up ... bugs, frogs, you name it ... but we convinced him not to. 

Three steps further another of my observant grandsons saw this creature. They knew it was a harmless garter snake but it too was not being handled. It would have been too fast anyway I think.

The third boy (Caleb) found the cache. Owen looked into it. There was a nice book into which we put the date and each boy his name with age in ( ). We put everything nicely back again.

Yes, snake and turtle were still there but the snake suddenly moved and Colin was sure it had caught something. Late lunch for it.

Back to the car. Hand sanitizer in the car. And off to Sweet Frog. The boys were happy. Needless to say that the afternoon was a full success.

And what did I get out of the afternoon?

          5 mosquito bites (or whatever insect it was).

James has some too. They itched so badly that I asked James to go to the pharmacy to get something 'compare with Zyrtec'. Amazing how it helped.

News from Nashville (thank you, Helen). She took a membership at YMCA. William had to take a test to be allowed in certain areas without an adult close-bye. She even sent me a photo of the rules and it is a serious test. William passed with flying colors at first try. So proud of him. So, while he had fun going to the slide Helen swam 1 mile. Not sure how many laps that is but I am sure that time there was good for both.

When they went to a different YMCA a few days later he had to take the test again. Funny. No problem though.

James and I are still enjoying playing Five Crowns. It just never gets boring. After James had a streak of bad luck with the cards, I suddenly had a streak of bad luck. And suddenly ... something we had never had in all this time: not a single bad point!

I should go and buy a lotterie ticket for that Multi Billion Power Point Pot.