Geocaching with Kids

A few years ago a friend of mine mentioned something about this thing called geocaching that she had been doing. It sounded like fun, but with a house full of wild little boys I never had the time to research it beyond what she had told me. Fast forward a few years, and my boys are older {and still wild} and we are now a camping family looking for fun things to do while we are traveling all over in our Airstream. We ride bikes and make s'mores and go on hikes, but surprisingly geocaching has become on of our favorite camping activities...and the most exciting part is anybody can go geocaching almost anywhere!

What is geocaching?

It's sort of like an outdoor scavenger hunt that uses GPS {most smart phone are perfect for this} to locate hidden treasures. I did a little research online, then I downloaded the free geocaching intro app to my phone to see if we liked it as much as I thought we would....we did! So I bought the full app {it cost around $10 & it's totally worth it} and we got started! This is the app that we use {Geocaching by Groundspeak Inc.} There are quite a few different ones to chose from, but this one has worked great for us so far and I love that it is connected to geocaching.com so you can plan out your adventures at home before you hit the road {or trail}! 

We've had quite a few geocaching adventures over the past few weeks and most of them have been on our bikes at a couple different local state parks. We start by picking a cache to look for then we head out on our adventure. Once we get close according the app, the boys park their bikes and start looking. For the most part, the first to find the cache gets to open it up, but sometimes we save the easier ones for Eli:)

We spent one afternoon on our last beach trip geocaching, and we found this really fun coconut cache near the beach! The boys had fun with this one because it wasn't the typical box or bottle that we had been finding:) 

Here's a picture of what the log looks like. For some caches you have to bring your own pen to sign the log because they are too small to hold a pen {which was the case with this coconut}. When we find a cache, we sign the log, and check out the log to see when the most recent find was! It is fun to know that other people have been out looking for the same thing you are! We even saw a guy grabbing this one the day after we found it...which was really neat because we knew exactly what he was doing:)

We went on quite an adventure this past weekend too {and introduced my aunt to the world of geocaching}! After a really close encounter with a really big poisonous snake, we found this cache hidden in the woods buried under a pile of pine straw. 

This is what a typical geocaching adventure looks like for us: 

We really have been having a blast on all our geocaching adventures, and I would recommend it to anyone! If you are looking for a fun way to get your kiddos outside to burn off some calories, geocaching is a great way to it! 

Linking up here..

Eli's Barnyard Brunch Birthday Party

My baby turned four a few weeks ago. Thinking about it almost makes me cry...because really four is not a baby anymore...it's also not a toddler either. Four is officially a preschooler which means I will soon have a 'schooler' and I will be left all alone with no kiddos at home!

Despite the tears {that I almost shed}, we had a SUPER fun Barnyard Brunch birthday party for Eli.

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Here's a quick look at the party:

I bought a little over a yard of black and white gingham to use as a table cloth. I wanted to have a more elegant, less kiddie look to the table for this party and black and white with pops of color seemed like the way to go. Jason brought home an old pallet for work for me to use as the backdrop of the table. I slapped on a little bit of white paint and added a cute bunting to it. I think it gave the table the perfect barnyard feel! 

 I found some cute cow print napkins and I bought red plastic-ware for a little more color. The cute chalkboard came from Hobby Lobby and I added some colorful washi tape to the frame.

We had a fun and yummy cereal bar set up with five different kinds of cereal and milk in a big drink dispenser. It was fun {plus SUPER easy} and what kiddo doesn't like cereal!

 I also fixed small mason jars filled with chocolate milk for the kiddos. I added a white cupcake wrapper to the top as a lid to hold the cute orange and white paper straws in place.

 We had Chicken Feed aka Chex Mix...

 ...Pigs in a Blanket {that I bought premade because I knew I wouldn't have time to make them the morning of the party}...

 ...and fun licorice Wagon Wheels:)

 I also set up a table with a couple of sodas and some yummy orange juice, along with the birthday boy's cake and some cute cow print plates.

 This is the same cake design that Henry had for his 3rd birthday. Eli saw it a couple of weeks ago and decided that he wanted one just like it:)

 Farmer Eli in his overalls and his straw hat had a SUPER fun time at his Barnyard Brunch Birthday Party!

Linking up here..