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Saturday, March 26, 2011

Featured in John Deere Magazine

Tim's family's logging business is featured in John Deere's spring magazine, and, as you can see, Tim's picture is on the cover. So proud of him!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Our Kentucky Trip -- Day 1

Our main reason for going to Kentucky for our Spring Break trip was for Tim and Anna Kate to get an extreme cache in a cave in Somerset. The four of us hiked about a half mile up a mountain through very rugged terrain (including tons and tons of briars -- I still have scratches) to get to the cave entrance.
Here's the cave. It's about five feet in diameter and about 95 feet deep.
Tim fed the ropes to the bottom.
Then they got all suited up with their harnesses and helmets. Thank goodness for the helmets because Tim accidently knocked a large rock off that hit Anna Kate on the top of the helmet on the way down the cave hole.
Here's our 11-year-old baby right before she repelled 95 feet into a dark cave.
Here they go.
It was a little tricky at first trying to get their footing.
Tim had Anna Kate go down first so he could help guide her. That's when the rock hit her helmet.
Emma and I waited just outsite the cave entrance. I didn't keep track of how long it took them to repell and climb back out, but I was surprised at how quick they did this.
Tim took this picture at the bottom of the cave when Anna Kate found the cache container.
Here's the father/daughter team.
Anna Kate took this picture of her daddy.
Tim said it looked like the cave went a long way.
But they found this small snake, so it was probably best they didn't go exploring.
Here's a picture from the cave bottom looking up 95 feet to the light at the cave opening where Emma and I were waiting.
Time to go back up.
I know that must have been a hard climb pulling yourself back up 95 feet.
They made it.
This was such a huge accomplishment. Very few cachers have dared to attempt this cache. I am so proud of them. By the way, this was Tim's 4,000 cache. He timed it so this cache would be his milestone cache. It's definitely something they both will remember for a long time.
After we lugged all the gear back through the briars and down the mountain, we drove to the hotel where the girls were excited to take a swim in the indoor pool.

Our Kentucky Trip -- Day 2

Before we left Somerset to drive to Bowling Green, we stopped a beautiful place right off the side of the road. That's one of the great things about geocaching -- it takes you to some of the neatest places.
The water was a neat green color, and the waterfall was so pretty.
It was the perfect place to take some family pictures.





When we arrived in Bowling Green, we stopped at the Lost River Cave and Valley. It was a beautiful area that was great for exploring.
We found another cave, but no repelling this time!



Before we left Lost River Cave and Valley, we bought the girls each a bag of rocks so they could do some gem mining. They both found many beautiful rocks to keep.

Our Kentucky Trip -- Day 3

We started off our third day by visiting the Mammoth Cave National Park just outside Bowling Green.
It was a really beautiful place to explore.
I guess I had taken so many pictures of the girls, they decided I needed one with them doing goofy poses.
And back to a serious pose.
Then we spent the rest of our day at the Kentucky Action Park in Cave City.
The girls had fun wall-climbing.
We all played miniature golf.


Emma's favorite activity was the bungie jumping on a trampoline.

Anna Kate really liked that too.

Anna Kate's favorite thing to do was riding the go-carts.
Emma got a turn around the track too with Tim driving.

Our Kentucky Trip -- Day 4

We spent our last day driving back home, and we enjoyed stopping at a few fun spots along the way.
This was taken at a park in downtown Nashville, Tennessee.
This was taken at a park in Spring Hill, Tennessee.
Our final stop was at Spring Park in Tuscombia, Alabama. The Cold Water Falls is the world's largest man-made natural stone waterfall.



We had a great time on our Spring Break vacation, which was full of adventure, fun activities, beautiful scenery, and great geocaching. Tim and Anna Kate racked up just over 50 caches, including a dozen earth caches. This is their favorite kind of geocache.