SparkDad

For the second year in a row we have gone skiing. This year was much more fun than last year, mostly because I did not get elevation sickness.

Last year we skied at Santa Fe, New Mexico and had a great time. It was our first year however and the all day lessons we were in were quite frankly exhausting! By the time that the class was ready to head up on the gondola the students are simply too tired to do much.

This time we decided to go to Sandia Ski report which is right at Albuquerque where we were staying. The resort was a little smaller than Santa Fe but it was nice and the snow was great.

Stickman went up the mountain with Big Aaron, his cousin, who snowboards and came down the bunny slop twice before even took his second lesson.

Since I got sick last time I decided to do the never ever skier lesson again. I luckily remembered most of the things that I was taught last year. Mama moved to the next level up and got to actually go down the slopes. I should have moved up to the next class, but did not.

The problem with the lessons is that you spend all of your time “side stepping’ up the training hill to ski down and demonstrate some skill like slowing down turning, etc. After three hours of the lessons I was ready to go for a stiff drink, not ride up the mountain! So I did not ski down the mountain. Next time I will!

Porkchop did lessons and can perform all of the turns and slow downs. He is ready for some bunny slopes with a strong skier. I helped him ski around the area at the bottom of the hill since I could not take him up the slopes. He had fun and wanted to ski more when we were leaving. Next year he and I are going down a hill!

The day was a lot of fun! The entire family had a good time and enjoyed the cold and the snow!

We are thinking about going again for spring break so that should be fun!

If you are interested in going here is some information:

Sandia Peak – http://www.sandiapeak.com/

Santa Fe – http://www.skisantafe.com/

- Spark Dad

Christmas day was wonderful. The weather was very nice and there was no wind so it made for a nice day.

We travelled to Lamesa, Texas to spend time with my parents and sisters. Shortly after we arrived and ate lunch we all sat down for present exchange. The boys were very excited about that for obvious reasons.

I will preface the rest of this story with some background information. Stickman and Porkshop are saving for a super expensive toy. The Lego Deathstar. This set has 3,800 pieces!

Now keep in mid that Stickman is 10 years old as opposed to Pork Chop who is 6. The ability to see and work toward long term goals instead of short term happiness takes someone more mature. Well I know a lot of 30 year olds that cannot save for a goal either, so maybe I am off here : )

At any rate, when the presents started getting opened the boys got what they asked for, Lego Gift cards. Pork Chops face was long and he looked very distress! He was upset. He wans to buy what he wants with his gift cards, not the agreed upon Deathstar. Stickman is having a hard time understanding why Pork Chop would veer off course!  We will see how this one plays out.

After all of the presents were opened a few of us jumped in the car for some more Geocaching. Our success was more limited today however. We were looking for a more traditional “Take and leave” type of cache. We purchased some $1.00 items to put in any caches we successfully found. We looked for GC1M91P – “Lamesa Rodeo” and GC1ED2K – “la-mee-suh” but both of those were either muggled or we just could not find them.

On our last try we drove up to the Lamesa Skyview which is one of the only operational drive in movie theatres in Texas and were sucessful in finding GC22VH3 “The Big Show”. This one had a paper log and the coveted items!  Porkchop selected an army man and Stickman grabbed a cork. We dropped in two mighty beans, signed the log and drove away smiling!

Tomorrow we head to Albequerque and I am about to research some caches on our path!

Merry Christmas to all!

- Spark Dad

After the first find yesterday the boys and I are very excited about Geocaching. The excitement of going out and finding the hidden treasures had us up thinking. So during down time I did some research and it seams that www.geocaching.com is the premiere site for Geocache enthusiasts around the world.  I created a new account on the site so that I can find caches, hide caches and “log’ caches. Logging caches is simply the process of letting the person that hid the cache know that you found it. My account on www.geocaching.com is SparkDad ( would you have guessed otherwise? )

I looked up some more caches around Hobbs, New Mexico and told Pork Chop and Stickman that we would be going again the next day. They were very excited.

After breakfast on Christmas Eve we headed out in my truck to find cache GC1K91B “ Hobbs, NM*”  The live map in the C.Geo on my Droid cell phone. We pulled up the site and began looking around. After a few minutes, BINGO! We found it! This one was in a small tube that is called bison tube. We signed the paper log and replaced the tube in it’s hiding spot. With sweet success on our lips we were off to our next site.

In the car we ventured deeper into Hobbs. This time I put C.Geo on compass mode which tell you how many meters to reach the cache and which direction to go. I gave the phone to Stickman who guided me along the small town streets for a few minutes until we reached the site of “Parkin’ in the City”  GC1RWFF.

We got out of the car and followed the compass across the street but the location did not make sense. I put it back in Live Map mode and saw that the cache was not where the compass was pointing. I am not sure the reason for this, but will report it to C.Geo’s developer. We looked around and then we found it! Another log only cache. It was nicely hidden but not terribly difficult!

By this time the 50 degree weather and wind was getting to us and we decided to call it a day.

Stickman and Porkchop liked the hunting process but we all wanted to find a more traditional cache where the cache has items in it for you to take and replace with another instead of just a paper log.  Some of the things that I have heard about are – toys, corks, dice, coins, etc.

So my goal for the next cache hunt is going to find one like this. So for now we are out!

- Spark Dad

Last night while we were sitting around the dining room table shooting the breeze, as we often do at Tia Mena and Tio Shorty’s house, I was messing around with my phone. I clicked on a Geocaching application that I had downloaded and saw there are several cache’s around the house!

Today after breakfast we decided to set out and see if we could find it!

It was cold today so we geared up in beanies, gloves and coats. Uncle Dee got the dog out of the kennel, leashed him up and we were ready.

I turned on the C:Geo App on my Droid and hit my live map icon to show where the nearest cache was.

GC-Code: GC1QCPB

Type: Traditional Cache

Cache Name: Diamond in the Rough

Distance :  1092 meters

Location: Hobbs, New Mexico

Not too bad! We were off walking. We walked about 15 minutes to the nearby softball park and looked at the tips. Several people said they had found it and that it was outside the fenced area. It also denoted that it was a magnetic key holder with a log in it. The most interesting point on the description was that “there will more than likely be a lot of mugglers around”. What the heck is a muggler?  Here is the definition from About.com

Muggle: (or muggler) A non-geocacher. The discovery of a cache by a non-geocacher is a very real problem and a cache needs to have an identified purpose included in the container. When someone refers to a cache as having been muggled, it almost always means it was stolen or vandalized.

So we started looking at the fence.  We went up and down the fence with my Droid compass on but could not get to the exact location. I came to the impression that the Droid’s gps was not exact.

Finally after about 10 minutes of searching we found it! You can see in the photo above that it was simply a log sheet with names and dates on it! The front was filled with about 60 names, so we wrote on the back:

“SparkDad.com – Dad, Porkchop, Stickman, Tio Dee and Nico”

It was great fun! I think later we will search for another one!

If you are interested in starting out in Geocaching you can buy a GPS device. Here is a recommended device.

Garmin nüvi 205W 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator

At the time of posting this GPS was only $79.99

It will help you with Geocaching and directions!

- Spark Dad

On Saturday we attended our first all day soccer tournament with the Shadow Creek Soccer Apollo Academy.

We had never been to an tournament before so we did not know what to expect. We packed chairs, canopies, snacks, games,blankets, warm clothes, cold weather clothes and water. It seems like a lot of gear but when you are playing seven games in a day you have to be prepared! The tournament was a lot of fun and not as bad as I had imagined.  There were some very competitive teams there.

Our team is very new. This is the first time that they have played together and it showed. We spent most of our time defending our goal and did not score a goal in seven games. Poor Stickman was upset because he was scored on 3 times in one game. Some of the kids on the other teams were making moves that you see in pro games! The teams were however very nice. There were no parents making fools of themselves or getting crazy mad. It was a very friendly tournament.

The keeper jersey that Stickman has on above was provided by his coach. Stickman loves to play keeper, so we may have to find him a good priced keeper jersey to call his own.  I found some nice ones at Soccer Garage. You can see the site here and get Free Shipping on Soccer Gear.

Overall the tournament was a lot of fun. We got some great photos and even Pork Chop managed to have some fun in the fall leaves!

- Spark Dad