Light Painting!

As many of you already know, I love geocaching.  ~smile~  It's fun to match wits with someone to see if I can find something they have hidden.  Or to see if I can solve a puzzle that they have made.  I enjoy spending time with my good friends while driving to a cache location or hiking the trails to a cache.  I enjoy visiting new parks and seeing things I never would have seen otherwise.

But another fun part of geocaching is meeting other geocachers.  Most of them are a lot like us.  They enjoy spending time with people.  They enjoy being outside.  They enjoy the "thrill of the hunt."

Geocachers have many opportunities to get together.  One such opportunity was last weekend.  One of our local geocaching teams, AddHam, decided that we needed to try our hand at light painting.  I had never heard of it before, but I was game to give it a try.

The rendevous point was a large tunnel about twelve miles from our home.  The tunnel ensured that we would have darkness.  (Not that we often see the moon in Michigan in the winter!)  Everyone brought their own flashlight, and the geocachers in charge supplied colored gels (flexible pieces of plastic stuff) and rubber bands so that we could rubber band the gels over our flashlights.  This is what would make the different colors in the picture.

They had also built some frames from wood and had put wires in them so that the "artists" merely had to trace the wires with their flashlights.  Some of the shapes needed to be colored in.

The person manning the camera had it set on a tripod and the shutter was open for a long time.  I would guess that to paint the whole thing took 3-4 minutes.

The result was the above picture.

Wayne and I had fun trying our hand at this and are looking forward to further light painting events hosted by AddHam.  While this did take a lot of prep work, if you're looking for a memorable group activity, this might be exactly what you're looking for!

Visit Four Grand Rapids Museums -- For Free!

Being a one-income family, we are always looking for fun things to do as a family that are free and/or relatively cheap.  If you are in the Grand Rapids area (or plan to visit our area), four of our museums have decided to be free to be public on certain days. 

These are the museums:

• The Grand Rapids Art Museum
• The Gerald R Ford Presidential Museum
• The Grand Rapids Public Museum
• The Grand Rapids Children's Museum

And these are the days they will be free (from noon -5:00):

• January 22
• April 15
• July 15
• October 21

Wayne has to work today, but I'm hoping that one of those Sunday afternoons he'll be off and we'll be able to visit at least one of those museums.

(For more information, visit Visit our Museums!

Geocaching - Puzzle Caches

For all of my caching friends out there, especially those of you who don't like puzzles, this video is a must see.  Enjoy!

GVSU Football!

Two days ago I got a phone call. The caller ID proclaimed the caller to be our local hardware store-- True Value. When they call it usually means that something Wayne has ordered is ready to be picked up. Imagine my surprise when they told me I had won four tickets to the "Best Seats in the House!"

Not sure exactly what I had signed up to win, I went to the website to find out a bit more. It proclaimed, "If the weather is hot, don't worry. We'll turn on the air. If the weather is cold, don't worry, we'll turn on the heat." Hmmm... I've sat through my share of football games, and air conditioning and heat weren't a part of them. Their website also talked about food. This was sounding better all the time!

So, we called some friends of ours and eagerly looked forward to our double date!

Last night was Grand Valley State University's first football game of the season. So, things weren't quite as polished as I'm sure they will be later in the season. The ticket takers directed us to the wrong area twice, but we eventually found where we were supposed to be-- directly behind the endzone, right on the ground!


True Value has a patio there and a gazebo that is indeed temperature controlled. When we got there they were grilling burgers, brats, and hot dogs. Add some chips and beverages and it was pretty good. It wasn't until later that they put a small cookie sheet on the grill and grilled cookies for us. I have never in my life had hot gooey cookies fresh off the grill, let alone while watching a football game! They were delicious!

The game was a good one. GVSU scored right away, but the ended up behind at half-time. They ended up winning, but it was close: 34-31. West Texas A&M gave them a run for their money!

We also had sideline passes. These permitted us to wander around on the track, just behind the players. Watching the game from that vantage point was definitely an experience! At one point one of the local sports reporters (FOX) asked us who had scored a touchdown. It was strange to be rubbing elbows with them.


Because the band was in the bleachers next to us, we got to enjoy their music and their antics. Being a former band geek, I enjoyed watching them almost as much as I did watching the football game!

The weather was perfect-- cool and breezy. Typical autumn weather in Michigan. We got back to the van just after midnight. Eight minutes later a big storm rolled through. What a perfect way to end a great night!

♫ Isn't this fun?!? ♥

Yesterday I ran across a site that told me how to make fun symbols!

To do this, make sure your num lock is on. (Some laptops have a blue FN key that changes some of the letters to numbers.)

Then hit ALT with the appropriate number:

1 for ☺
2 for ☻
3 for ♥
4 for ♦
5 for ♣
6 for ♠
7 for •
8 for ◘
9 for ○
10 for ◙
11 for ♂
12 for ♀
13 for ♪
14 for ♫
15 for ☼
16 for ►
17 for ◄
18 for ↕
19 for ‼
20 for ¶
21 for §
22 for ▬
23 for ↨
24 for ↑
25 for ↓
26 for →
27 for ←
28 for ∟
29 for ↔
30 for ▲
31 for ▼

The numbers do keep going, but those are just for things you can make with the shift key. Have fun with this!