Today was John's 24th birthday and we went to dinner at P.F. Chang's in Fort Lauderdale. Tery was there with Madison and AJ. Gigi and Stu were there and also Johnny and JJ. We had a really nice dinner. Happy Birthday John.
Today was Johnny's 4th birthday party at Central Park. There was a bounce house for the kids right next to the playground. They had sandwiches and chicken wings for lunch along with appetizers for munchies. Johnny had his own birthday cake along with a huge cupcake cake. We had a great time and so did the kids.
Happy Birthday J4!
Mara's birthday is on Monday so Karen had Mara and their friend Jodi over for dinner and cake. Karen made very yummy chicken parm, salad, and latkes because it was Chanukah time too! After dinner we had a very yummy confetti cake that Karen baked and decorated herself. After dinner I went to work and they girls hung out.
The last day of geocaching started out with a C.I.T.O. event. CITO stands for Cache In, Trash Out. Basically it means you always leave a cache site cleaner then when you found it. You can clean up a little at each cache site while you are geocaching, or you can even have C.I.T.O. events where lots of people get together to clean up an entire area. This particular C.I.T.O. event was put together to clean out all the vines and weeds that have been taking over the shore line of the Loxahatchee River. About 50 people showed up and we all started to pull out vines and weeds from along the river. In about 2 hours we pulled out almost all of the weeds. You could actually see the river now. After the event we hit the trails again to find a few more caches.
Everyone who camped out had to leave that afternoon but Karen and I stayed in Jupiter and extra night. So after we were done geocaching we headed back to the hotel and I took Karen to dinner at a nice seafood restaurant overlooking the intercoastal and the Jupiter Beach Lighthouse. We had a really great time and met lots of really great people. We got a total of 67 geocaches even though there were over 250 in the entire park. We plan on going back a few times in the next few months just to get some more geocaches that we couldn't get during the event. We also can not wait to go to Cacheapalooza 5!Saturday was the main geocaching day. We started early and head out to the trails. It rained all day long, but that was OK because it kept us nice and cool. We ended up riding our bikes 15 miles thru the woods and found about 45 geocaches. For dinner everyone that attended the event got together for a pot luck dinner and BBQ. About 150 attended and we had so much food. There was also a raffle going on during dinner and although we bought tickets, we didn't win anything. After the dinner we headed back to Steve and Sharon's camp site and lite a fire. It was freezing out so we kept warm by marking shmores. Later that night we attended another night cache which required us to use flashlights and find little glowing markers in the woods. We followed these markers for about 3 miles until we found the cache. We were the first people to find it out of a group of about 50 so we got to keep the actual cache container which was an old ammo can. At around 1:00 am, we made it back to the hotel, took nice warm showers and went to bed. One last day of geocaching awaited us.
Cacheapalooza is a big geocaching event held every year in Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound. Since Karen and I just started geocaching we decided this was a must do event. A friend of ours Steve is also into geocaching and he was going to attend the event too with his son, Steve Jr. We also planned on meeting a few other local cachers at the park that we had met and talked to online. Steve and everyone else was camping out in tents for the weekend, but Karen and I were staying at the Jupiter Beach Resort and Spa just up the street. After we checked into the hotel we went to the park and met up with everyone. We all hopped on our bikes and headed out to grab some caches before it got dark. We had a nice bike ride and got about 15 caches.
Later that night there was a night geocaching event, where we had to look around for caches using flashlights. This event was really fun and was a different kind of geocaching experience for us. We then headed back to the hotel and called it a night since we had a long day of geocaching ahead of us.On Saturday I went bike riding and geocaching with Steve and his son in the everglades. Behind Steve's house is a trail where he hid 7 geocaches the week before. He also just purchased a new bike and wanted to go riding with me. We rode out to the end of the trail and then on the way back started to geocache. He watched and laughed as I scrambled to find the hidden caches. I eventually found all 7 and we ended up riding a total of 4.4 miles.
Karen had to work on homework so she couldn't join us for the ride. She did meet us for dinner later on though and we all went to Japan Inn with Steve, his wife Mary, and their 2 boys.
John had family that came into town for a week so we all went out to dinner at Duffy's. Unfortunately Karen was in school that night and could not come.
Johnny IV and J.J. are very lucky. They have a great great grandma who is alive and well and came to visit. At dinner the youngest had a mother (Ashley) and dad (John 3), grandma could not make it, and great grandma (Grandy), and a great great grandma (Mags). This makes 5 generations of children from great great grandma Mags! WOW They even had a great great Aunt (Donna) along with her son (Derek). We had a nice night and a very good dinner.
Here they are;
Grandy and J.J.
J.J.
John III, J.J., Mags
John IV, Mags
John IV, Derek
Donna & Grandy (Sisters)
Ashley & J.J.
Tim & Michelle's Annual Spooktacular
The famous Halloween party is here. This year the theme was masquerade. But before we get to that has anything been missing this trip? Auburndale Pizza! And I dragged all 12 of us there! It was a really great lunch and everyone loved the pizza and garlic rolls. After lunch we walked around downtown Auburndale and went to the local art fair. Then it was time to go back to the hotel and get ready for the party. Karen had found us really great masks when she went to Key West a few months ago. I wore the mask with a shirt and jeans but Karen got all dressed up. I actually picked out and put together the entire costume. She looked amazing and was the sexiest, prettiest, best dressed person at the party. Michelle really outdid herself with decorations and food. She had games to play and prizes to be won. We had a blast and partied till about 2am. Here is a link to the full photo album from the trip and party. http://picasaweb.google.com/fla030/HalloweenParty2009?feat=directlink
