Homecoming

Today we brought Abigail home from the hospital.

For a hospital Caldwell Memorial maternity ward was excellent.  We got good care, attentive nurses, and decent food from the cafeteria. It didn't hurt that we were the only ones on the ward for most of the time.

This afternoon, right after supper, we packed up the family and brought Abigail home for the first time.

This momentous occasion is captured in pictures below.

Abigail is still getting settled in, but everyone is now safe and sound in the confines of our little hut, and hopefully soon the house will be quiet - at least for a few hours.

First time in her car seat.  Nana (my mother) made her sweater and hat.

First ride in the car - she wasn't impressed, but calmed down when we started moving.

Bailey the wonder puppy meeting Abigail for the first time.

Asleep in her crib.

Introducing Abigail

Our daughter arrived this morning!

She was born via planned c-section at 8:50am.  Her vital stats are:

Weight: 8lbs 13oz
Length 19 1/2 inches
Eyes: blue
Hair: brown

Other interesting information (extrapolated from existing data):
Favourite Food: milk
Favourite Beatle: Paul
Favourite letter: 7 (we're still working on letters).

Zeke (our toddler) came to meet his new sister.  It took a while, but he eventually warmed up to her, and even tickled her belly.

Both mommy and baby are doing fine.  We are expected to stay in the hospital for a couple days.  In the mean time Debbies parents are in town, and are taking care of Zeke.

I'll leave you with some more pics from our adventuresome morning.

Watch This Space

Important announcement coming soon...

Just The Three Of Us

This is (likely) our last Saturday before the new kid comes (She's due on Friday).

So we headed off to Hickory NC to get some  adventuring and geocaching in.  We checked out several parks, an old cabin, and a duck pond (sans ducks, sadly).

These are the pics from our morning.

Checking out the magnolia buds

The fourth of us is hidden in this picture - can you see her?

There is a nano hidden somewhere on that cabin

Zeke loved caching in the rain.  He'd run around saying "fun!"

A Brief Moment Of Fame

One of my blog posts has been mentioned on the TV show Geocaching World!

Geocaching World is a show that runs on RVNN.tv.  Their most recent episode is on painting geocache containers.  They used my post called Geocache Camo 101: Lock'n'Locks as part of one of the segments of the show, and said some rather flattering things about my technique.  Thanks guys!

The show can be viewed in its entirety here: Geocaching World: Painting Caches. My blog gets its brief moment of fame starting at 20:48.  I encourage you to watch the entire show though, especially if you are interested in making your own containers.

Cheers!

In Casus Ursus

Shown with my Garmin Montana for scale.

I received a gift in the mail today.

It is a hand made travel bug called In Casus Ursus, which means The Adventure Bear in (my best understanding of) latin.  It was designed and crafted by a geocacher from Maine who goes by the name brdad.  I have not met him in person, but we hang out on the #geocache IRC channel together, along with a great bunch of geocachers.

If you are not aware, a travel bug, or TB for short, is an object that is intended to travel from cache to cache.  Sometimes they are an object of some kind, or sometimes just a dog tag, but they all have a code that can be used to track it online.  As cachers find these TBs they move them from cache to cache so they end up travelling around, sometimes great distances.

The code is smudged out - only people who physically
discover a TB should be able to log it.

Most TBs are released to the wild by placing them into caches.  This one is too nice for that, so I am going to take him to caching events, and let people I meet discover enjoy him in person.

The bear is 7 1/2" by 4 1/4" in length, and made from tiger maple.  Since I am Canadian we have decided to give him a Canadian accent, as you can see from the tag on his belly.

In Casus Ursus has been dedicated to my son, Tonka Tyke, who at the age of 2 has discovered the joy of geocaching, and loves to go on adventures.  Here is to a lifetime of seeing the world through the wonders of a toddlers eyes.

You can track In Casus Ursus online at geocaching.com (http://coord.info/TB4DCHT)

This, my friends, is one awesome gift.  Thanks brdad!

Scenes From A Sunday Cache Run

So my wife is 38 weeks pregnant, and may pop at any moment.  We are as ready as we can be for the new kid, so all we have to do is wait around and watch my wife's belly move with the baby kicks.  That can be fun, but after the 3rd hour, it gets a tad stale.

So I have been getting out on the weekends and caching to kill some time.  Today was no exception.

I've been staying relatively close to home for reasons stated in the first paragraph, and I have already done the epic caches in the area, so the caching itself, tho still fun, is nothing to blog about.  However I have been getting some decent photographs.

So without further ado, I give you "Scenes From A Sunday Cache Run" in stunning 2D!

These are a small example of the nice thorns that infest North Carolina woods.  Imagine vine after vine of these placed just out of eye level so they sneak up on you.  If you step on them they snap back into your face.  Yeah, evil incarnate in a plant.

 

Note the large root still stuck in the ground.  This stump has been here a long, long time.

Geocaching Adventures: Riverbend Park

Last year I spent an afternoon hiking around Riverbend Park near Hickory NC (blog post here).  There have been many new caches published in the park since then, so this afternoon I spent some more time hiking around the park.

Riverbend Park is truly a hidden gem  in the Hickory NC area.  The trails are all well groomed and easy to walk on. The scenery is varied: pine forest, deciduous forest,  rivers, creeks, ponds, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, dog park, picnicking.  It has it all.  Everyone who visits Hickory and has any interest in the outdoors should really do themselves a favour and check out this place.  This goes double if you are a cacher, as the caching is really rich, and the options plentiful.  Any cacher will find what they are looking for in this park.

I spent 3 hours in the park, and hiked 6.3 miles.  I could easily double that number.  All of the caches I found this time and last were interesting and unique caches, and all seem to be well maintained.

Today I did 7 caches, including a puzzle and a multi cache.  There were even a few ammo cans to sweeten the experience.

All in all a good day of caching, and I have the photos to prove it.  There are still several caches in the park I was unable to get to this time, so I will be back. However until then these pics will show off some of the awesomeness of Riverbend:

 

Creative Caching Video

A video from Groundspeak about creative caches.  I've actually found the phone booth cache.  Some very good ideas here:

Geocaching Adventures: On The Way To Raleigh

On Saturday we did some geocaching on our way to Raleigh to check out an NHL game.  The following are some select scenes from that day.

Check out the pregnant belly!

On this spot the last remnants of the Confederate army surrendered, ending the civil war., two weeks after Appomatox.

 

Discarded cactus that took root and are taking over this mount of dirt.

Where is the log book?  1 in 50 chance of getting it right on the first try.