Today marked our 800th GeoCache find. We have been caching nearly every weekend with my cousin Sara. Today we went to Carlton, a small town just outside of Newberg, and then up into the Oregon coast range to the McMinnville watershed. This was a beautiful day…. temperatures nearing 70 degrees… beautiful vistas. And we found a couple of caches that we had been unable to locate previously. Here is the view from one of those caches.

 

On the north side of the mountains, we had to drive through a foot of snow in some places. A snowball fight just isn’t the same when it is so warm!

 

Here we are at the top of the coast range. On a clear day you can see 9 mountain peaks. Today we only saw Mt. Hood as a hazy shadow.

 

I just love the places geocaching takes us. This waterfall was along side of one of the dirt roads we travelled.

 

Baker Creek runs out of the McMinnville watershed. Here is one of the scenic views we saw while seeking a cache.

 

What a fantastic adventure!

I had the honor today of watching 9 students from Mountain View Middle School compete in the 25th annual Pentagames. Pentagames are sort of Math Olympics where students compete in a number of games that center around various math skills.

Zach was one of the competitors and did VERY well. I lost track of his winnings, but at the end of the day he had a half dozen or so ribbons pinned to his chest along with a couple of medals. Not only did he do well, but his 8th Grade team took best of the day for their division. And the school won for highest school score.

Hi, my name is Dave and I’m a FaceBook addict.

Actualy, this social networking site has a lot of real fun ways to stay connected with friends and family that are scattered all around the world. One of the games on FB is called Friends For Sale. Using virtual dollars, you buy your friends which increases their value. Other friends are also trying to buy your friends, so you can see how the value circle can go.

I started this game after my daughter Kara was playing for awhile and her value had sky-rocketed. I made it my goal to raise enough funds through the Friends trade to buy my daughter. I made strategic alliances to help increase my funds, and finally at 6:30 AM on 6-Apr-08 I clicked the “Buy Kara for $117,241″ button! Bet I won’t keep her long as she is quite popular, but it is fun to have achieved my goal.

 My son Zach is a fairly normal teenage boy. He is full of energy, loves video games, has a passion for Bionicles, and has a very vivid imagination which he acts out from time to time… OK lots of the time. I will admit that he sometimes gets on my nerves with his boundless energy.

But tonight I was honored to see a different side of my son. We spent a couple of hours at the High School for Forecasting Night, gathering information about his upcoming Freshman year in school. I was impressed by his thoughtfulness in picking classes, his care in choosing electives, and his reasoning behind the school he should choose (Newberg High School is divided into five small schools).

Sometimes I’m so close to the daily routines of Zach’s life that I miss the young man behind the long hair and creative imagination. I’m very proud of the man Zach is becoming. And I’m excited to see how the careful choices he made tonight will effect him in the years to come.

I have always been interested in genealogy. My active participation in research ebbs and flows based on my time and the tools I have around me. But I’ve discovered a cool new tool that is causing a resurgence in my ancestral investigation.

I’ve discovered Geni.com. This great web page is similar to social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace. I can invite my family members who can join and add the information they have on their family members.

On the first day, I personally added 100 names. In just 10 days, there are now more than 530 people listed in my tree, most of them added by other family members. How cool is that!