tissa1020-Foxhound: May 9th to May 12th

I decided to take a Vacation Dayon May 9th so that I could get my eyes checked then spend the afternoon with my daughter. After I picked her up from school we set out for the Mission Viejo Mall for "Mom's Night Out". An annual event were various stores set out booths & give away samples. Last year, they had a RSVP email. I replied, I arrived (later than the start time) to find ALL the samples -esp- the Mall Goodie Bag GONE! OK, so it is mostly little samples and "spend $500 and we will give you "blank" but, I RSVP'd & they gave away "MY" goodie bag! Only good thing last year was the guy playing the Steel Drums... I talked to him. He is local. Said he had been there three years in a row. Back to this year, I didn't want to miss the FREE SAMPLES! Took a Vacation Day! The guy with the Steel Drums was there again! Just too crowded to hang around right there to listen so, we wandered around going to the stores with samples & specials "for Mom". Origins did FREE Mini-Facials - they say they offer FREE 20-minute Facials *anytime* & NO obligation to BUY (really??) Might take them up on that. We finished off "Mom's Night" at Muscle Beach - aka Hotdogs-on-a-Stick for my FREE lemonade. We bought dinner there and brought it home.

Friday May 10th. Half-Day at work to come back for Half-Day Saturday. We needed to fill a square on our Geocaching Grid. On Thursday, I had looked for caches very near to home that we still have not found. There are a few but, not too many. Most now require hiking & the weather was forecast to be "HOT". Also, we had a Girl Scout meeting (at least planned). Most the other girls were busy. One just returning from the Annual Spring Trip for her school. So that caches I looked at were very close to home. One happened to be a Puzzle Cache that published in January of 2009. Every time I had looked at the cache before, I just shook my head. Duck had definitely lost it this time. I just did NOT get it. "Quack QuQuQuQu Qu QuackQuQuackQu QuQuack QuackQuQuackQu QuQuQuQu Qu QuQu QuQuQu" I mean... REALLY????!!
But, somehow this time - I found something different. Something like a KICK in the butt or a "dead-give-away" clue as to how to solve this puzzle. FINALLY and OMG how could I have NOT seen that before! I told Foxhound that we would be hunting for this when no one else could be at the meeting!
I picked her up and we confirmed we'd be trying this alone.
We scoped out the vicinity of the cache. Parked the Geo300 and made our approach. My GPSr had me walking in circles but, NOT finding the container.

Hmmm, we NEED to find ONE cache today... Let's go try that other old cache "nearby". This next cache had been there since 2008 & we NEVER even tried to find it before! It is a Tribute Cache to a friend of ours -something about his 2,262nd find" (weird Milestone but, what the heck). We again park, walk towards the cache GZ. Gets to a point that Foxhound will go no further. I knew the thing was a NANO - had an idea of WHAT I was looking for. "FOUND IT!" I shout to Fox. (OH -if anyone who posted on our "Got Spam?" Multi posted they "found" this one...) These little devils are difficult to get the log out of & to sign, especially when the log is FULL as this one was. None the less, I accomplish what had to be done & replace the container. And YES, at least FIVE cachers who complained that they cannot find WP1 of our Multi-Cache (including the HIDER of THIS very cache) posted they "found" this one!!! LOOK HARDER - CLOSER - it is there!

Back at the Geo300 we make a call to the hider of the puzzle. Yup, we were in the correct area... Yup, we are "blind" and Yup, the Duck with one of the ducklings might swing by just to be sure we made the find. We drive back. Park and walk to GZ again. THIS armed with a clue for the owner -- I nearly saw it before I was there! OH what a cleaver camo! And fun tricky puzzle. We chat with Duck and his oldest Duckling. Then we all head off for home.

Saturday - Half-Day work and RECYCLE day. There is a location near my work that pays good $$ for glass, plastic and aluminum. AND they are friendly! We had enough to make the trip worth-while. Enough for FREE LUNCH at Popeye's Chicken! YUM.
Next, we go to O'Neill Regional Park to monitor "our" Western Bluebirds.

Not all good. Our nest with five babies last week has only two remaining.

and another was abandoned - one egg and two chicks -gone- nothing we could do.

But, one nest has a very well feed chick

and both parents are very attentive to the nesting box.

We'd finish the day with Mom Miller at Tulsa Rib Company. It has relocated to a place where we attended a Geo-Event when it was called something else. GOOD eats! We went back to her place and built the puzzle we gave her for Mother's Day. This one was about a million times easier than the last one we attempted. That one was never completed even with four visits. THIS puzzle in less than two hours. Time enough to play a few rounds of Banana-grams.

Sunday - Happy Mother's Day! Blueberry WAFFLES!! A wreath with "robbin eggs" on it and a little Chickadee for me!

THEN, off to Rockreation for Foxhound to do Climb-Time and ME to climb to "ROCKSTAR". A Geocache named "ROCKSTAR"

We received FOUR "Ayden Rockstar" wrist bands from Mama Misty & Miss Debbie. I DID IT! I signed the log (again) for us. and placed the bands in the container.