Geos + Caves = FUN

Jacob had been wanting to take us on a hike that he went on last year with the scouts, and it was in Auburn above the river.  There are various caves (small and short) left over from the gold rush days that you can walk in. The trail actually goes all the way down to the river, but we didn’t go that far. 

Whenever we go anywhere, a quick look at the geocache map and we almost always find some cache to find. This time, the caches were inside the caves, so of course we were off!

It was a fun hike and different geo cache find! 

Here is the entrance to one of the caves:

Here is Jake getting ready to go in:

Here is the 2nd (larger and longer) cave:

Here is the view from inside looking out:

Jake and Hannah inside finding the cache:

Shelley going in:

View of the river from the trail:

 

MOOO!

So if you get my emails that I send out every so often about good deals, you would know that Friday was free food day at Chick-Fil-A and if you dress up like a cow, you get a free meal.  Not just a cheap biscuit or something like that, ANY meal including fries/drink on the menu!

So of course we went!  We LOVE their waffle fries and dipping sauce – the Chick-Fil-A sauce – it is SOOO good!

When I took photos of Shelley and I dressed up, somehow the camera was all blurry and the pics didn’t turn out. We weren’t dressed up as good as Hannah and Jake – we just had signs and stickers on us, but it was still good enough for free meals!  Our meal (for the four of us) totaled just over $30, but it was ‘on the house’ .  Quite a deal!

 

 

Celebrate America!

It’s time for our new favorite 4th of July tradition!  Celebrate America!  Remember last year I blogged about going?  It’s a FREE 2 hour show with singing and dancing for 4th of July. Well, it was time again but this time, we were going early to get good seats! Last year, we were smack in the middle of 10,000 people and had not very good seats to see the stage, but there were lots of worse ones!

This year, the gates opened at 4 and Jake and I were there to set out our blankets and get good spots on the lawn.  There was a line of people with the same idea, but we got EXCELLENT seats!  2nd row in front of the stage!

We thought it was good last year, but it was so much better being close!

This is the 3rd year it was held, and it’s sponsored by the Sunset Christian Church, (because the city has no money) so there is a small amount of ‘preaching’ by the pastor, for about 10 minutes in the middle of the show, but his message is good and is about putting God in our life more, and being thankful for the blessed land we live in.

The end of the show is always filled with excellent fireworks. 

Stadium of Fire it’s not, but it’s a good alternative!

We are looking forward to next year!

This is about where we sat last year:

This is this year:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a sky diver this year at the start of the show, and he landed right in front of the stage. There was about a 20 foot section between the front of the stage and the beginning of peeps sitting on the lawn, which is not much room for him to land!  He came in fast and clipped the bottom of the stage with his leg, but he was OK!

SkyDiving

 

Very cool bagpipe players:

Bagpipe Players

And of course, fireworks. The 2nd video I turned the camera sideways and didn’t think that it wouldn’t turn the video to match! duh! So just turn your monitor sideways to see it correctly.

Kaboom!

 

Boom!

Jake’s Graduation

So last month was Meg’s graduation and then we had Jake’s Graduation. Jake was so excited to graduate from the ‘baby’ school (elementary school) and move on to the big kids school, aka Middle School for 6th grade.  Lucky for us, they are both right around the corner, so both schools are each only 2 blocks away.

Works out nice that way.

Can’t you just see the excitement on Jake’s face?

First, Jacob got an award for being on the “Principal’s List”  which does NOT mean he was on the naught list!  It means he got all “3’s” (equivalent to straight A’s) on his report card for the last trimester.  This group of kids was pretty big.

Then, he got the “Platinum Award” for getting all 3’s for all of the trimesters, or all year. Why don’t they just say all year? This group of kids was smaller.

Jake

The next group was the “Super Duuper We Don’t Know What To Call It” award for the kids who got all 3’s for the last two years (4th and 5th grades). This group of kids was much much smaller and Jacob would have been in it, but since we moved, he didn’t go to this school last year, so they didn’t have his records, but he did get all A’s (3’s) last year too! So Jake, you should have gotten the SDWDKWTCI award too!

The next group was the ‘Safety Patrol’ which Jake was part of. They all manned the crosswalks after school and help up stop signs to help the smaller kids cross the street.  Many times during the winter it would involve standing out there as a crossing guard in the wind and pouring rain!

Here is the graduating 5th grade class:

Jake graduation

Here is Jakes class:

Then all the 5th graders sang a little ditty. Here is a sample:

Sing Song.

Here are some pages from the yearbook at some of the activities Hannah and Jake did:

Here is the whole school:

We are proud of you Jake!