Rock Bridge

Public Service Announcement:
An earthcache is a special place that people can visit to learn about a unique geoscience feature or aspect of our earth. It is NOT a traditional geocache, in which containers and/or logsheets are found.

Darran and I bought a geocaching gps for my dad for Christmas. We have had such fun with geocaching and knew he would too. So he and Brenda made a trip to CoMo and we thought we would show them the ropes.

What better place for a hike and adventure than Rock Bridge Memorial State Park, right? They had never been to this beautiful park, so we grabbed some lunch and set off for a picnic and hike.


After lunch we plugged in our "earthcache" and set off. Darran and I had never done an earthcache before and didn't know there was a difference. When we couldn't find the first one near the Rock Bridge, we moved on to another one at Devil's Ice Box. I even used my ninja-like skills to climb into the cave, across the water, and still came up empty.




So we headed back to the Rock Bridge. We searched FOREVER. Under rocks, up on top of rocks, on hillsides, across the creek. You name it, we searched it.







We finally gave up, not something we Wendling's do easily. Really. We are stubborn that way.

After parting ways I went home to put a comment in about this ridiculously hard geocache when I realized that it was just an earthcache. Boo! I have four children who need an actual treasure to find, not some stinking natural treasure! Ok, I'm kidding...kind of;)

Pretty sure my dad thinks geocaching is for the birds now thanks to "Arthur & Trillian" --creators of this earthcache!


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March for Babies

It is that time of year again--our family is once again walking in the March for Babies walk to raise money for the March of Dimes.  March of Dimes raises money to help prevent premature births, birth defects and infant death.  Since the birth of the triplets in 2003, I have joined the March for Babies walk each year.  Obviously, we have THREE terrific examples of what research and medicines can do to help babies born at 30 weeks survive and thrive!  See the link on my blog to contribute directly to my team.  Thanks!

Finding out..at 19 weeks

about 5 weeks old

about 2 1/2 years old??

5th birthday

Last week at Brendan's baseball game:-)

Wendling fun

Happy 1st Birthday to my nephew Grayson!  It was a great excuse to get the family together.  Here are some pics of the fun...

The birthday boy

One of rare pics I got of Emma because she was trying to avoid me:-)

Cool pic of Brooklyn...she's a hoot!

Mama and her girls:-)

They all decided this was the perfect spot to eat their Dilly Bars!

I missed getting a lot of pics....got too distracted with visiting.  I missed one from every family here.  And next time, Travis needs to not be working so hard so he can visit more.  I guess I'll need to have everyone over to our house so he doesn't have to do all the work!  Happy Birthday Grayson!

Tooth Fairy

Claire has worn out her Tooth Fairy lately...she must be broke with all the teeth Claire has lost in such a short amount of time.  She lost SIX teeth in a matter of weeks, for a total of 8...it's been fun trying to get her to say certain phrases--we've all had fun quizzing her!

Not to be out-done...Owen quickly realized that Claire passed him up on the Lost Tooth Tally.  In a matter of less than 24 hours, he had loosened and lost his 7th tooth.  He still has one more to go before he catches up with the girls..and Brendan:-)

Emma has already lost all 8 of her teeth months ago.  She wrote a note to her Tooth Fairy thanking her for all her hard work and letting her know she will miss her for the next 2 years (since she won't see her until she loses molars--Brendan warned her this would happen).  How cute!  Her teeth have already grown in and she has that big-girl smile:-)  This pic was from Dec (in Key West) and you can see them growing in!

Snow fun

We had lots of opportunities for snow fun....we have had a whopping 55 inches of snow this year.  I kid you not!  Here are pics of what we fun we had in it.  I can appreciate them a little more now that it is 60+ degrees out today.  Last week when we had another few inches I was not feeling the love!

Weeeeee!

Perfect Snow Angel...or two:-)

This is on the big "Midway hill"

Snow ball shooter--too soft to shoot unless you let them become ice balls, which I don't recommend!

Go Claire, Go!

 Charlie loved the snow...it was like catnip for cats!

Making snow ice cream--yum, yum!

Blizzard 2011

Blizzard 2011. I didn't buy into the hype. We've all been there when they've predicted lots of snow and we got nothing. St. Louis got pretty much all ice after all. I thought the local weather folks were going to bust with excitement. It was like Christmas for them...even better than tornado season!
? Nearly 20 inches! Seriously!

Thank goodness I did stock up on some staples as we were completely snowed in. Even Darran was forced to stay home from work and even close the drugstore.  Columbia was pretty much completely shut down except for emergencies.

Here are some pics of the fun...

During the storm...

After the storm...

Thank goodness for neighbors with big tractors!

Igloo fun!

Yikes

Wow!  Has it really been 3 months since I've updated?  I should be fired from blogging:-)  Well, we have been super busy (when are we not?)!  I've debated doing catch up posts but it seems overwhelming and then I just put it off and get even more behind!  So, I'm going to post a few short blurbs and mostly pictures to summarize the last few months....that's what you really want to see anyway, isn't it?