Wednesday, October 28, 2009

What the kids have learned lately

Josh has learned that no matter how many times you ask the accordion-playing leader of the band at the Austrian Village restaurant to play "Fire Burning" by Sean Kingston he's not going to play it. He went up (between dances with little girls from the dance group) again and again on Saturday night to beg him to play it. I'm glad that our friend John was amused and not irritated by the constant pleading.

Dima learned that when you're trying to imitate the video to the same song it's NOT a good idea to try to break dance on your forehead on the family room rug. You should see the big rug burn on his fore head! Its hard not to laugh at him when you look at it. I guess Chris DID laugh at him until Dima reminded him that HE didn't laugh when Papa got hurt when he hit his thumb with a hammer. He said that everyone in school yesterday was like "What happened??!!" ....bet he'll never do that again, I'd say he learned from the experience... as far as Josh, I'm not too sure he gets WHY his current fav song wasn't played for him when he was all revved up to dance.

Sunday, October 25, 2009

a beautiful autumn afternoon

Dima and I had a nice afternoon together, we put on our hiking gear - he was all set his camo pants and new hiking boots and we set out for Hibernia park near Coatesville here in Chester county to find a few geocaches. Today I can really call caching a sport... - we put 15,000+ steps on my pedometer!

As we were on the way to the park Dima was talking about how he can't stop looking at the leaves on the trees and their colors - he's definitely got an artistic side.

We'd been to the park before we started caching and there are a few of varying degrees of difficulty within a few miles it seemed like a good way to get out and about to walk with a purpose. We did some pretty steep hiking along what are basically deer trails to find the first cache and we found a Hot Wheels station wagon to bring back for Josh (he was at hockey practice at the time) and Dima picked a Superman key chain for himself. You're supposed to trade stuff and we carry a supply of trade-ables when we go out.

The next cache we tried was a walk-right-up-to-it for terrain with a higher difficulty rating. As we neared the cache site Dima was poking around with sticks... throwing walnuts... looking at the nearby creek .. while I was trying to figure out where the cache could be... more poking.. more throwing... more wracking my brains to figure out the clues and I came up empty handed on that one - ARRGGGGHHH!!

Heading back to the car, okay maybe it 's not too late so let's try another cache called Brandywine View on a hill side inside a fallen tree over looking the Brandywine creek - You never really realize how many fallen trees there are in a wooded park until you have to find the "right" one. The GPS gets you close... when it gets a decent signal... and if there are tall trees or hills or rocks around you might not get a decent signal... trust me, we know.... we traipsed up and down hills a while trying to figure out where the cache "should" be and Dima was a trooper through the hills and and rocks and thorns and while looking at fallen tree trunks we did find the cache Dima traded for a Koosh ball as I was starting to think ... 'uh... maybe I should have picked up a trail map to quickly get us out of here before the park closes ..." Whew! the GPS got us outta there before the 6:15 closing time and we now know we can fast-walk at at least 2.8 miles per hour.


http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=1b127cf5-394c-43da-83a9-a089208031b4