Soos Creek Trail - Geocaching Adventure

These are our friends, Rick and Mindy, with their adorable children, Megan and Everest. Their kids are the same age as ours and they had a blast together over the long weekend. We've known Rick and Mindy for years. Rick was a study partner of mine in college and he quickly became friends with Michael (both are in the National Guard). Michael was the best man in his wedding. Rick has been on three deployments to the Middle East, starting with the Gulf War. They've moved around quite a bit, but we've always managed to stay in touch with them. They recently moved to Kent, WA and have bought a lovely home. They generously hosted our family over the weekend. We had never been to that area before and had a great time exploring with them.

The first thing we did on Saturday morning, after a delicious breakfast, was geocaching on some kid-friendly trails at Soos Creek. They introduced us to these family treasure hunts a couple of years ago and we've wanted to do it ever since. You really need a hand held GPS to get close to the cache because they are usually very small.  They blessed us with their old one! We are very excited to try this on our own as soon as we get some time (right now the planting our garden in consuming most of it).

We really lucked out with the weather. We had a little rain when we first started, but then it cleared up for the rest of the weekend. I guess it is almost always raining in this area during this time of year, so it was extra special.

Ahhh, I love this picture.

We really need to work on Josiah. When you find a geocache, you are supposed to wait until the "Muggles" (others who aren't geocaching) are out of sight before you open the cache. Josiah kept showing everyone walking by the cache because he was so excited. We're workin' on him, LOL.

Megan and Josiah, "Geocachin' Kids", as Josiah titled them.

It is always interesting to see the places people hide geocaches. They usually aren't too hard to find, especially if you've downloaded the hints.

People hide cheap little toys, pins, etc, in something water-proof. The kids have a great time picking something out and then we put something back in for the next person to find and sign the tiny piece of paper saying we found the cache. This cache fit in the egg.

Rick, pointing to where he found it. 

The best part about geocaching is that it gives the kids (and me) something to hike for, so you can get a lot more steps out of them on the trail if they have a purpose. If you haven't tried this fun sport yet, go to this link for a great website on how to do it. You can sign up for free! If you go on a trip, you can download coordinates into your GPS and make a few stops along the way, which will always make your kids happy :o)

Blessings,

Jackie