School, Geocaching, and a Clean Carpet!

It seems like over the summer I did not have anything to blog about! (probably because we were locked up in our air conditioned abode....... we will be enjoying our summer when most of you are up to your knees in snow, ha ha.) But now I think I'm collecting a list of blog ideas! Yay! Yesterday was Rebekah's first day of first grade and it went relatively well, there were the usual first-day confusions and we had a hard time finding her after school... but it worked out and she wasn't upset by it at all. The toughest time I've had so far was writing her name on the inside of her new backpack! It was the night (er... or early morning) before school started (perhaps I could not sleep and was up very late causing my emotions to be a little worse.) But anyway, I sat down cross legged on the floor to write her name in the backpack when I remembered almost 6 1/2 years ago, when she was just 2 days old, I sat in the same position on my hospital bed, writing her name down several times to decide how we liked the spelling. The thought was a tad bit depressing and I went to bed shortly after. Other than the reality that time flies too fast and she'll be graduating high school in 12 short years.... I'm good.
On a happier note................ *drum roll*........... my carpet got professionally cleaned today!!! YEAH!!! Oh wait..... I'm excited about that... which goes back to that "I'm just getting older" thing... shoot. I remember when my Grandma used to clean out the fridge, working hard to wash shelves and throw out those un-wanted left overs at the back. When she was all done, she would get my sister and I in the kitchen and show us the inside of the fridge and make sure we took note of how clean and nice it looked- we were never sure how a clean fridge could get Grandma so excited... but I've come to understand. When Rebekah walked in after school today I promptly stopped her at the tile entrance, explained that the "no shoes on the carpet" rule was in full force again, and I heard words similar to my Grandmas come out of my mouth: "Rebekah, look how clean the carpet is! Don't you think it looks so nice now?!"... almost like I really expected Rebekah to be happy about it. =)
Onto my next subject that has nothing to do with the others: I read on Jodi & Derek's blog about their family fun Geocaching- so we decided to try it for ourselves and have had a blast doing it! (Thanks for getting us into it, guys!) We have only done 5 searches so far, but every one of them brings different adventures! On one of the most exciting ones, we saw a roadrunner, a jackrabbit with BIG ears, and a coyote (they are bigger than I thought!). Most of the time the girls are in it for the toy treasures, while Mom and Dad just enjoy the walks we take into territory that we might not go to otherwise. There was one geocache that we were not successful in finding, though it was at a great park and we had a picnic, so it was a treasure in itself... but I was watching Jeremy look for the cache after the rest of us had given up and headed for the playground-- Jeremy stood there on the sidewalk looking at the GPS with deep thought, then he would take a step forward and stand there..... then a few steps backwards, and stand there.... then climb ONTO the park sign he was in front of and inspect the bolt holes! Maybe you had to be there to appreciate the cute humor of this.... but it was great to see him enjoy it probably more than the kids!
I put a slide show together of pics- so enjoy! That is all for now, but you can count on a blog in the near future when I lament of yogurt being flipped from the kitchen bar counter onto the clean carpet below..... try to contain your excitement.