First Swiss Geocache!

So Brett had Friday and Monday off of work for Easter, so we got out and finally succeeded in finding a geocache in Switzerland!  (In our defense, somehow we were on the wrong grid or something when we tried at first… I’m not sure exactly how, but that’s why we couldn’t find anything.)

Orrin says, “Onward!”

I just love all my little ducks in a row.

 

Guess what- we found where it was hidden right away without even knowing it.  It was right by this waterfall.  But we didn’t know that until later.

See, first we had to go into this cave/tunnel thing, where the next set of coordinates were hidden.

 

Here are the kids at the entrance.

Jethro had a really tiny little flashlight (like the kind on keychains) so he and the girls went in.  So, I came in a little bit after them, and since the light was so tiny, I couldn’t really even see anything, and for just a second I felt really weird/claustrophobic.  But then I caught up with them (and their light).

The next pictures are with my flash, so of course it looks all bright when really it was completely dark.  It was too little for me to walk upright.  And it was a bit muddy.

 

Here were the coordinates on the wall:

 

I love this picture with their big deer-in-the-headlight eyes from the flash.

Here come Daddy and Baby.  It was quite a long tunnel, and like I said, very dark. Pretty creepy and cool.  Orrin started getting scared and crying for a second. And we have no idea why the tunnel is there or what it’s purpose was- it’s a mystery.

Look- ghosts are in the cave!

  

Then the GPS was telling us to go up the side of this hill, so we bushwhacked our way up (Talmage even started crying, since it was muddy and slippery – but I pushed him up and told him to crawl, and he survived) where there was this other waterfall (watertrickle?) almost just like the one we had seen earlier.  We thought for sure this is where the cache was, so we searched high and low to no avail.

Finally we went down to the lower waterfall that we had been to earlier (all our climbing/slipping up the hill had been for nothing), and Ta-DA!

On the way back to the van we saw cool chickens.

And a heron?

Ethne is cute.

Looking at something on the GPS.

And we walked- or cartwheeled- merrily home.

The end.

p.s. Moral of the story- you should geocache!  You get to discover awesome places you would have had no idea existed!

My favorite red-headed baby boy.

I love all his expressions.

  

 

LOOOOVE that face!  He’s pointing at something, so that’s why there’s a blurry thing at the bottom.

Good-looking kid.

 

Sometimes before he goes outside to play he says, “I love you.” And then I say, “I love you too.  Have fun outside.”  And he says, “Have fun inside.”

I like when he says, “I am wiwwy gong,”  (I am really strong) and other fun things like that. 

     

Love this picture:

  

 

So last night Ethne came into our bed (this is unbelievably rare, we do NOT share our bed, but there is the exception when Brett will let a kid climb in on his side if he’s tired enough) because she said her tummy was hurting.  Then I woke up to Brett shooting out of bed, holding Ethne, in top speed, racing to the bathroom.  The gag sound before the vomit.  Nothing induces such lightning-quick reflexes.

So, I stayed home from church today with Ethne, even though she was just fine and I think the only problem last night was probably too much Easter candy and not enough good food.  But that was okay, because I didn’t have to get up early to get ready (and I was also not feeling at my peak, because I have a cold and last night I had a really hard time sleeping due to my stuffy nose).

Tomorrow Brett doesn’t have to go to work.  Yay!

Purple Polka-dot Ethne

 

Lots to report, but not tonight.

Happy Easter!

Spring Break.

So, the kids are off school for three weeks for spring break.  It started out great!  Yesterday we all went for a long walk and had a picnic.

 

And that night Hazel gave the Family Home Evening lesson she had prepared- first she read a book about the plan of happiness (thanks Megan!), and then she gave everyone the puppets of themselves and we all went to the “Seshtol Kingndon.”  Awesome!

(Everyone has pretty great smiles in this picture because I almost fell backwards off the couch I was sitting on the back of.)