Day 2 - Is it possible to blow it on Day 2???

Let's just say the phrase of the day is "I should have known..."

The day opened with such possibility.  Tuesday is a good day around here for cheap family activities.  My friend Jamie invited us to go to Olympic Fun Center in Hermitage (about 45 minutes away) http://www.olympicfuncenter.com/cgi-bin/bin/sys/seekup-tz.cgi.  It's free on Tuesdays from 12 - 4 to skate and play.  Can't beat that.  But Ben is going to basketball camp at the YMCA this week, and he was not done until noon.  Also, we were helping out a friend by keeping his kids today.  So Olympic Fun Center was not to be.  Tuesday is also bargain day at the movies - $5.00 tickets with free popcorn.  However, Jordan has a birthday party there on Friday, and I am sure we will all go, so I did not want to go to the movies twice in one week.  There seemed to be a problem with every idea I came up with...here goes...I should have known that it would be a bit of a challenge to find something to write about.  But really, did I want to blow it on day 2?  I had to come up with something.

Really, though, today was one of those days that hanging around the house was the thing to do.  We were watching a friend's kids, but really, it was just nice for my kids to have company and friends to play with.  Jordan played and played and played for like 9 hours straight with neighborhood kids, swimming, riding bikes, playing baseball in the yard.  Ben came home from basketball, ate lunch and went to a friend's house for the afternoon.  Kids being kids - what summer is about.  I should have let that be enough for today.  I should have known not to push it.

But...it's only DAY 2 - I HAD to have some fun family time.  So we attempted to do that after dinner.  My first idea - I have always wanted to pick our own strawberries, and our time is running out for this year.  The problem?  I have no idea where to do that.  C'mon...this is the country - there HAS to be a place.  Our friend Steve told us there was a place on Norrisville Road to do that, so we set off to find it.   Well, we found it, alright, but it was not a pick your own place.  The nice little Amish boy on a bike told us to come back tomorrow and he would sell us some.  Oh, well, so much for strawberry picking.  And by the fighting coming from the back seat, I should have known that it was time to give up for the day.

But NO...it's still day 2, and I was not ready to give up.  We still had our fallback activity when we need to get out on a beautiful evening - geocaching!  If you don't already know, geocaching is like a treasure hunt.  You go online to get GPS coordinates to hidden caches that contain small items for trading. (http://www.geocaching.com/) I love geocaching because it takes you into beautiful places that perhaps you may not have ventured to otherwise.  And I just happened to have been ready for plan B.  However ready we were to go, we were certainly not PREPARED to go.  Geocaching can take you to some remote, wooded places; the one we were looking for tonight was called the Hartstown Swamp Geocache.  I should have known by the name and the location that we would encounter bugs, and lots of them.  Did we have bug spray?  No.  Was the geocache close to where were able to park?  No.  By then, Jordan was complaining he was bored (really...after playing ALLLLL day, you're going to complain you are bored!?)  Ben's eye was bothering him (remnants of pinkeye?  allergies?), and he was actually crying and complaining - my eye hurts....ow, I'm getting bit...I hate these bugs...there is nothing more annoying than gnats.  Really?  I can think of something.  With .35 of a mile to go to find the geocache, Ben and I returned to the car, and Jim and Jordan pressed on, only to return to the car without having found it.  They could not stand still long enough without getting eaten alive. 

Today began as a beautiful day with neighborhood kids playing and neighborhood adults hanging out.  We should have known to leave well enough alone.

Above are pictures of Hartstown Swamp.  It's a great walk for another day when we are wearing jeans and have bug spray.