McKeeFamily2

Well goodness! I see the Vietitali's showed up in the forum! WOW - I AM impressed! I don't think them guys have ever been to a forum in their lives... whoo-hoo! First time for everything, and thanks for the awesome comments. We just got a chance to replace our stolen cache today - wow. I was feeling so behind on that. Cache owner is a real sweetie. So far I've found that geocachers are a great group of people. No matter "how many it takes". Cache owners in particular. Seems that there is a wonderful feeling of doing something fun and nice for other people, which I guess is why we like it so much. It takes a lot to put some cool stuff out there, waiting to be muggled, never know if you will make someone's day or take a loss on yer cache - it is the passing it FORWARD that counts. Does that make sense? Ha! I know what I mean, but find it hard to articulate it. What is funny... is that it took a few times for the Vietitali's to get it through to me on what the whole "geocaching thing" was. Once I heard their daughter was so upset, I'm like - hmm. Let's check this out and see if we can find one, then if so - we'll show her how to find. Can't be that hard. So we did, and later... the "little sis" found that hey - they really DO exist, and they are fun, and you CAN find them. (Course we were already hooked before we dragged them along to out first find.) Funnier yet - this was the same dang cache - that we ended up bringing HOME! How goofy is THAT? We figured, OK - we have a few good finds under our belt, so now let's go find that one that gave the Vietitali's so much trouble. We looked and looked. My oldest was right on the money, and we all thought that it was just some "thing" laying out there, that was NOT the cache. Couldn't be. hahahah! How WRONG we were! ALL of us. Except the hubby and the oldest. Next time, think we'll listen and try a bit harder to figure it out, when one of the kids says - "Mom, it's a MICRO!" LOL!

I cannot believe that you let the boss catch you eyeballin' the GPSr, when you shudda been lookin' for the cache! Ahahahahahahahhhahahahahaaahhhaa... hey she believes I want her to go with me to spend some "quality time" together. I really want her to go cause she can spot them before I even get out of the truck!! ROFLMAO!!! Yeah I'm the emoticon Queen - I totally got it - which is why it was so dang funny, and still is! Ha "I see it!"

Is that in the lexicon? Thanks for the new word! I love it! HEY - I resemble that! Freakin geotard... ain't that the word of the day. After swiping a cache I had no idea was a cache. I caught one "snidey" directed at me being a newb to this forum - heck, I don't even remember who it was and don't really care either. I had made my first goofy post, and someone had mentioned it in another post - I happened to catch it and left one sentence I think it was - in other words "I see you." That takes a bit of "forum knowledge" and some insight to people in general though - and in no way did I take the comment personally. Some people do take posts personally. Too many times in fact. If a new geocacher comes in this forum, and has never been exposed to "any other forums" before - they can take something said quite seriously. They have no idea of the politics, humor, personalities, and other assorted things that go on behind the scenes. I've been in enough forums to know, you have to "earn your keep" because many come in and out - lose interest, are lazy, don't use the search etc and so on. Newbs are Newbs for a reason - either new to an area, new to a game, new to a way of doing whatever - but they mostly want to learn. Only time will tell if they are serious enough to stick with it or not. Might have been a passing interest that got traded for something more interesting. Forums can be a bit of a learning curve. Doesn't matter if it's geocaching, dog training, humming bird feeding. People make the forums go round. And with people, you can have all kinds of different attitudes, beliefs, etc - but you won't get to know anyone unless they post a few good ones. THEN - you can tell!

Gasp!! Was it a morel? If so... yes. No more donuts for you! Ha! Our buddy just found some Morels today by goodness - said that he found some yellows - about 14 of them made a pound, and the other 36 made up about whatever ounces. I did not know that morels grow something like (what did he say) and inch and hour? I said - man - I should time lapse photo that - and he goes almost wouldn't have to! We'll be cookin up some morels soon I'm sure. Not to mention how abusive it is to not let dogs run free once in a while. Its in their blood, their hearts. It is cruel and heartless to not let them off the leash sometimes. But that's another story. Tell me more about that moron and why does it have to be a "him"? Yeah, I thought that too. I have my geopup leashed when she should be, and she's about 6 months old now. A drop off that ended up here at about 3-4 months of age cause the previous owners couldn't deal with it. Lack of knowledge on how to train, plus a terminally ill child that was scheduled for a bone marrow transplant weren't exactly working with the new pup. I wasn't exactly ready for "puppy duty" again, but you know... it's been fun. Had dogs all my life growing up, and the last GS I had was the best dog in my life. We had to put him down at 10 because of health issues, and I wouldn't get a dog since. 9 years later I'm stuck with goofy eared geopup that was a complete MESS when she got here. How letting her off leash to romp a bit in the park when I don't see anyone else around (and she DOES come back on recall) could harm the environment is anyone's guess. My first thought was DEER! Ha! They eat all my mom's tomato plants every chance they get - so if they do that in the backyard, I can imagine what they do in the wild. Deer rubs (bark rubbed off of trees) trampled round spots where they have "bedded down" for the night or whatever - is a lot more damage than the geopup does on a run through from me to the kids in a high traffic area. Mercy.

Wayne county here. :-)

Now That is hilarious!

Hmm, interesting question that I never thought of. We're new - but here's how we've been doing it. Our "team" is our family of 4. We all go searching together - many times without the hubby, so it's the kids and I. We have one account, McKee Family 2 - so whomever finds the cache - we just sign the logbook as McKee Family 2 - then I log the online part as just one find for the whole family. When we go with the Vietitali's they are a separate team - but do the same thing we do. One is a "handicacher" so she physically CAN'T climb - but enjoys watching and taking pics. I have handed her the logbook to sign both our names (as family/team names) while I help the kids. So, if one finds - we all find. Sometimes a parent will notice a cache and go "I see it" and stay in that spot until the kids then make the find themselves. Sometimes we'll give hints even if we haven't seen it yet. We like the kids finding as many as they can without help. They are a bit young to deal with all the signing and online logging - so we cover that end. To us it just makes sense to have the two teams, and one sig for each team, and one online log for each team. Be interested to know how other folks deal with it though.

Thank you on the avatar Yes, I did email the cache owner right when I got home, told them what happened - and asked if they would like me to replace the log. It's a bit tattered and full - speaking of - I best go check the email. Gotta run out for a while, and would like to replace that one asap. What a noob.

Heh, we're on about our 13th find, and we stole the cache! Some odd lookin bolt thing, that I didn't understand how to open - even though my oldest son handed it to me and said "Mom, it's a micro!" I look at the thing he handed me, and said hmmm. It's welded. It's solid. Don't think that's it. The pal we were with today - said "take it home to the hubby, he'll get a kick out of it." so we did. Handed the hubby the bolt looking thing, and he took a look for a sec. Then opened it right up - and there was the log book. Ok, so can you imagine about how stupid I felt? And NOW... I have to take that thing back!

Hey, thanks! We shall check with you on the handicaching too, because the Vietitali crew like to go - but some areas are just a pita to get through on wheels. I take their daughter out when we have her over here. Let us know if you want help putting your other 2 RH ones up, we'd be in for adding to the cache. I have a small round lock and lock container that we haven't used yet - be happy to let you have it. We also have some nice "gem bags" including mystery rocks, an apache tear, arrow heads and the like that would make great swag for RH. Plenty of "bug wipes" and other assorted too. Would be a great day to go caching down there today - but the kids and I have a bit too much work to do today before we can go out to play again. Shoot me an email if you guys want some help, I think the kids would really enjoy that! (well, ok, and me too.)

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...f7-10495463acab

Hahahah! Hey there Knight! Awesome, I'm about to upload some more here. We're saving Rogue's Hollow for a real nice day to go do about 4 of em ;-) Ya, the beer box cracked me up too - dang hicks around here.... lol!

oooooo should I delete that pic showing the cache box? I did try to make sure that I don't give away a hide, but I didn't much think of the cache...

Yay, I think I got it. Before I post more - how is this for showing cool pics but not giving the find away? http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...c8-dbe864e2f6e3 or this one? http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=e1...cb-69d0ba186db6 crap. When I preview the post and go to either link, they do not show me what I just posted. grrrr - OK must be too tired to deal with it. Nite!

Face it this thread is idle chatter. (Like "How about those Mets?" ) The only people here are those procrastinating on their work and too tired to anything more interesting. Oh man, I have been totally busted. How the heck did YOU know I was supposed to be working? Yeah, I agree - and dangit - now I've got to go back to work, since you said something about it. Thanks a lot!

I would assume that the adults that are doing it for the logs are not the same people that are putting the broken toys and crap in them. In that case this topic would be of no issue to them. It is more for the family's that do it with kids for the enjoyment and family time. :::nods head in agreement::: Now that I'm reading a bit more in the forum (where as I had not before) I'm getting a better idea of what others do, what not to do, a good idea on how many actual families are in this with kids, how many are not, and what their ideas and reasoning is for geocaching. It's actually very helpful. I mean, look on the www.geocaching.com homepage - what do you see up top? A kid with a swag bag. Seems to me, that it's almost leading people to think mostly the same things we thought. Good thing to do with kids, good learning experience on how to run GPS - what longitude and latitude mean, and of course - some "treasures" in the process. If they want this site to be geared more toward the serious and hard core geocachers, maybe an image of a guy doing a rock climb, or something. But then I like to design websites for a living, so heck what do I know.

Sounds great Swiz. I may just sit and think about a decent domain name/idea that would not intrude on any copyrighted/trademarked material and create a new site. Matter of fact, might be worth an email into Groundspeak to make sure that's OK with them. I would be happy to link their site to mine, so anyone stumbling across my site would be able to hit this one as well. When we first started, we didn't quite know what to expect. The first cache we found was a Knight2000 - who also has kids, and is a super nice guy on top of it. He took the time to email me on our first find, and the cache had a couple things that were right up the boy's alley. It wasn't a difficult find, but we all really thought it was fun. Our second cache was also a Knight2000 - in a very cool place. The kids were fascinated with the area where it was hid, and HOW it was hid - and very pleased to find that one. Both of these had nicely kept caches, plus they got to meet the local mayor, etc. In essence, we got pretty lucky with most of the finds around here - they were nicely kept. It's not that we thought when they say something like left "gold nugget" we would expect it to be real - but on the "off chance" that it might be... So they got used to the caches being nicely kept right off the bat. Only when we found a couple in poor shape did it lead to some disappointment. For me - it's mostly about a sense of pride I guess, to where I don't understand why people can't follow the simplest rules, like CITO. For the kids, it's more of a "well that was a bummer" type thing. lol. Nobody cried or anything - ya know, just one of those - uhg. Comes with the territory I understand now. Thought other people would like to know as well - if I was a CO - I would want to know what new folks thought about it. I tend to be pretty detailed in my logs (not necessarily in the log book) but on the online logs. Figured the more info CO's have about their caches, the easier it might be for them.

Ahha - thank you very much! Yes, I think that will be helpful. Might have to crop a few pics here and there to make sure it won't spoil the find, but have some decent ones. Thanks!

Hello, back again. We have a bunch of pictures from geocaching, that I would like to put online somewhere. It seems like the gallery would be the place to do that, but I'm having trouble finding the right place to upload them. Would this be a premium member thing?

Good thread with some really good posts. New to geocaching, but we've figured out how the swag goes a bit. There's another thread by us in "getting started" that is similar to this one. We enjoy finding and my kids loved one park we hit in Wooster - so the areas around here are fun to go to. Another local park is the boys favorite local park - so they were thrilled to find a cache there. One that none of us ever knew existed, even though we've been to that park countless times. After the boys got the idea of what the "treasure" was like - they are still - even with disappointments - totally excited to even find it in the first place. Of course they want to LOOK in the cache - but are not overly concerned about not finding something cool. I'm probably more concerned about it then they are - and they have no problem leaving things. When it comes to dollar store stuff, some of it can be decent - most is not that great. My kids happen to LOVE the dollar store too - so finding dollar store stuff is fine with them. I do however, think it is the best idea to help any caches out that have been soaked, trashed, or depleted. If it's trash, get it out. We took an old pack of instant coffee out of one because it was just gross. I have also replaced plastic bags, dumped out dirt and pine needles, etc. and so on. Same with CITO - if everyone could apply that (yes maybe in dreamland) it would make this hobby even more fun. Suppose you could always create a new "geocaching for kids only" and break that away from the main geocaching site. That way Groundspeak can be geared to the serious hunters, and a new branch could be geared to just the families with young kids.

Very good points. Being new to this hobby - with KIDS that we need to keep active/busy, it's just what we have observed and thought about so far. I've read some of the history, and did some other research - so definitely would not try a difficult hide with the kids. We keep to the easy stuff, and people in our local area seem to be kid friendly. We'll probably keep our caches (when we get to hiding them) kid friendly too. It's not that I EXPECT everyone to bring things for kids - it would just be nice for folks to keep in mind that kids do go to the easy caches at least. Honestly, my youngest is so into "deer hunting" archery, fishing etc - if he sees anything related in a cache he pulls it out. He found one bullet - large pointy thing - that I assumed was not live. He brought it home, the hubby looked at it - and said it is very possible that it IS a live bullet, and that he probably wouldn't know for sure unless he took it apart. So, we just took it from the youngest explaining why - and put the thing up. As a parent, it's MY job to say no, of course - but I didn't think it would be an actual LIVE bullet of course. Next time I might be a bit more careful. Another thing that the kids found and begged me for was candy in a cache. I said heck no, absolutely NOT - and explained WHY. No idea how long that candy had been there, no idea if it could be contaminated, and there is candy at home anyhow - so NO WAY! LOL. Thank you. We're colorful people - so it seems to fit well. You can find that image here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Compass_Card.png The license allows reuse under the terms stated on that page - so it's OK to use as an avatar.

Always gotta be one in every group. Hahah just kidding. Good points actually, because I would not have thought about rubber bands, balloons, crayons and the super glue turning into a chunk. lol! The nail clippers and scissors I would just leave in the new pack, so that it would be pretty difficult for anyone to get cut with them. Will have to go back and check on the rules though. I'm sure I'll learn a lot more as we try to figure out how to create our own hide. Uhg, and those dollar store batteries, no kidding there. They seriously should be boycotted. I've tried them once or twice - and that was it. Never again. I didn't hear about the explosions, so scratch extra batteries off our list!

Nice Bill! Great story with the bats and golf balls... heheheh. Gotta love it. But I think you're right on the coupons. I'd love the same thing, and my boys would fight over a free sundae. It would have to be the correct placement (near a dairy queen) - and it should be timely for sure. This one would go into September, but it's not necessary to have anyhow. The whole thing with the "mystery rocks" would send one on a mission to find out what stones they have, and learn about how it was formed, etc. The apache tear is pretty cool. You can see through it slightly, and it's like black glass with a brownish tone when you look through the stone into a light. The story behind it is pretty cool too. I'm excited to go start placing some fun swag in some caches.

Whew, finally - a break with a quiet house. Heh. Other things I wrote down from just a local dollar store that might be helpful to others - and not necessarily kid oriented are things like: tweezers bee sting wipes/kits nail clippers bandaides rubber gloves can openers soft grip jar openers (I love them things!) lint rollers scissors duct tape super glue glow sticks or mini flashlight extra batteries, although I don't like dollar store batteries - they'd be fine in a pinch bungee cords pet toys, like tennis balls, etc (both cat and dog toys) black lumber crayons (don't ask me why, but I bought some) shoe strings (all sizes) metallic party beads ("mardi gras" kind) ipod nano plastic cases paperback dictionary grill brush bug spray wipes nylon rope window markers playing cards different music CD's CD cases in fact too - to use for backup discs on the PC and more! All those should be a buck a the "dollar tree" - but they are cheap end - and prone to breakage, or lack of quality. But, say you got a splinter on the way in to find a cache - a pair of tweezers would be a nice find no matter what age you are. junk stores: Oh my gosh, the things you find in junk stores. I found packs of glass eye-droppers 5 to a pack for like 50 cents a pack, and plastic "test tubes" with screw on tops (probably not too waterproof) and those were a buck for a pack of five. In one cache I left an eyedropper in a plastic test tube. Must have been in the falls, because there was a river that I thought someone could "collect a sample" from. Other places: We went to a local gem show on Saturday, and here are some of the things we found: Gem mining area - which even the ole mom likes to do - you could mine out about 20-50 pretty neat looking stones for a buck a bucket. Porcupine quills for a buck Sharks teeth for a couple bucks Silver and gemstone rings for as cheap as five bucks Old large pennies for five bucks (not the greatest shape of course, or they would have cost much more) - but interesting and cool find. Neat looking foreign coins for a buck each Arrowheads for 25 cents each - not the real old found kind, but newly made and a whole lot more there too. I'm sure I'll have more ideas - but that's a great start anyhow... and I didn't even get into "kids stuff" whoops! Kids actually like anything for the most part - especially stuff that adults would like too. Like scissors or nail clippers.... But, stuff like (also from the dollar store) Marbles River stones, or those glass stones. Card games Cool looking pens and pencils Small hand puzzles Activity books Regular books Music CD's PC Games - yes I've bought pc games from the dollar store that got played a few times. Crayons Colored Pencils Small plastic animals and other figures Hot Wheel cars Fishing lures Fishing sinkers Fishing bobbers - haven't seen any fishing stuff in a while Jewlery Small diaries or notebooks Glue Sticks Googley eyes Pom poms Beads Pool toys Water Balloons Bubbles Chalk (especially sidewalk chalk) Uhg, I could go on... but now I'm getting tired.

Nice ideas simpjkee, I thought it would be neat to do some "themed" cache hides, yours would be geared to a "survival type" cache, which has ran through my head a couple times. Also stuff like a "book cache" where you can trade books - but how to keep them things dry could prove to be interesting. Dog cache, with dog leash (that we always seem to be losing) dog toys, dog nail clippers, etc. I've thought of bug themes, animal themes, music themes, cooking themes, kid themes, educational themes, of course gem/stone themes.... it's almost as fun to think about creating and hiding a cache as it is to find one!