We returned to Queen Elizabeth Park today. It was another gorgeous day, and we wanted to tackle the puzzle cache again.  This time, armed with the knowledge that the cache was 30 m south of the given coordinates, we found it in no time.  Well, yes, you guessed it,  Gwen found it.  But to be fair, I didn’t even get a chance to look as I was taking the long way around the garden with Aidan.  That cache gave us another set of coordinates, and after making our way there, *I* found the next part of the cache.  This third location was pretty close to another cache in the park.  This one was up a small semi-buried pipeline into the trees.  Aidan and I played in the adjacent field (“catch me! catch me!”) while Gwen searched.  She didn’t find it so we switched jobs.  I located the cache, which was a peanut butter jar.  It was hidden behind some rocks buried under some tree roots.  The jar had lots of loot in there, but nothing that appealed to us.  However, we were able to leave our first speckled frog!

The fourth part of the puzzle cache was located beside a small stream in the park, and after 10 or 15 minutes of searching we found the cache.  We got the general location from the GPSr, and set about finding “large flatish” rocks under which the cache was supposed to be located.  I fixated on one good candidate, but it wasn’t the right rock.  Gwen suggested moving downstream, and after locating several more candidate rocks, I managed to point out a likely location and Gwen pulled out the lock box.  This one also had lots of loot, and we took a small metal heart-shaped “worry stone”.  We left another speckled frog too.

So, although we found four caches today, we were only able to log two.  :(  Oh well.

It’s been a great weekend — Aidan and I walked Gwen to church today and spent some time in the playground at the Granville Loop.  We’ve easily spent 5 or 6 hours outside both yesterday and today.  The boy slept well last night and I’m sure that it’ll be a good sleep tonight too!

Today, we went geocaching in Queen Elizabeth Park. The park has at least 6 different caches, only had time for two. Well, actually it’s a bit more complicated than that…

When we got back to the park, again (we forgot the PDA with the cache notes the first time), we were parked pretty close to a cache, and so started with that one! This cache was the start of a multi-stage cache. This means that the first stage contains information on how to find the second stage, the second tells you how to find the third, and so on. The GPSr got us pretty close — right beside a tennis court — and after a little bit of searching, I found a magnetic key holder stuck inside a metal overhang/flashing. That’s right kiddies, I found one. Inside the cache was a laminated piece of paper with a new set of coordinates and what seemed to be a Roman numeral III or maybe a drawing of a ladder, we’re not sure. Going to the new location, which was beside the lawn bowling club, we had some problems. There wasn’t anywhere obvious where the cache was hidden, and we didn’t have any clues other than the coordinates. We searched for quite some time and then decided to go look for a different cache.

So we headed up the hill a bit and discovered that the parks board apparently installed a pedestrian plaza beside the Bloedel Conservatory, replete with a huge fountain and what seemed to be bus shelters. It’s hard to explain. The weather was gorgeous, so we let Aidan out of the stroller and run around a bit. Well, kinda. Gwen kept pretty close tabs on him.

After spending quite a bit of time at the fountain, we made our way down the hill a bit to the next cache. This one was a bit frustrating. It was in and about a clump of trees, so the GPSr wasn’t great in locating the cache. And the hint was “Between the tree and the boulder”. In a park. Do you know (a) how many trees are there? and (b) how many boulders are there? Worst. Clue. Ever. Seriously. So, we pushed the “mall stroller” up and down a rain-saturated lawn, several times, looking around every single tree and boulder combination we could find. There were many. I looked under one particular tree that happened to have quite a thorny bush beneath. Or so I discovered once I dropped to my knees to look closer and duck under some branches. I can’t believe there wasn’t blood.

Gwen picked up one box she thought was the cache and, um, it turned out to be a rat trap. Ewwwww. And then she found another. Didn’t pick that one up, though.

We spent quite a bit of time looking for that darned box. Eventually I gave Gwen the GPSr and not 5 minutes later she called that she had the box. Keeping score? Gwen: 4, Anthony: 1.

This particular cache is the Vancouver Travel Bug Hub. Inside the cache box, there were tonnes of travel bugs! The picture below (taken near, but not at the cache location) shows what we found in it!

We didn’t take anything, but we’ll be sure to visit this cache before we go travelling next (when ever that will be).

On our way back to the car we tried to find the second stage of the multi-cache again. And once again we were stymied. Fatigued but not defeated, we headed home. Where I discovered that there were clues to the other stages, but they weren’t available on the PDA! The clue for the second stage was, of course, to look for the cache 100 ft south of the given coordinates! Huh? No wonder we didn’t find it. Maybe we’ll head back out tomorrow to close this one off.

I have been excited for a few weeks, lets face it almost a month about taking Aidan down to the Ocean Concrete Open House on Granville Island. Aidan loves trucks of all kinds and I thought that the chance to actually get into one of the cement mixer and seeing some of the other big equipment would be one of the most exciting things a Mommy and her truck loving son could do. (Well, maybe a Dad might have fun too.) So to remember the date and time I took the pictures below. (I actually checked the picture last night to make sure that I had the time correct.)

Ocean Concrete, Granville Island Vancouver

Cement Mixers

Factory and Trucks at Ocean Cement

We headed out at about ten this morning with Anthony pushing the stroller and Aidan and I walking for a bit to get rid of the nervous energy he had. As we turned down Spruce Str., the chanting of “Walking, buses and trucks!” turned into “Walk, the park, the park wow the park!” Aidan recognized the way we go to go to the playground at False Creek Elementary school. Anthony and I figured that Aidan might want to go to the park. :)

Aidan and Mommy Under the Trees

As we strolled into Ocean Concrete we saw huge trucks, a big front end loader and tons of kids. Aidan got his balloon (bah-oon) and we took him out of the stroller. I am starting to think that Aidan may not like crowds too much or maybe when he gets too excited and over-stimulated. I don’t know, but whatever it is Aidan was trembling and shaking and while he seemed to want to be there, he didn’t really want to be walking — just holding Mommy or Daddy’s hand and he was clingy and wanted to be in Mommy or Daddy’s arms. Of course there were a lot of people and it was very loud (lots of different horns and back-up beeps as children pushed all the buttons they could in the trucks.) We tried to line up to get in one of the cement trucks. Well, we made it into the line and here is the result.

Daddy! Daddy! :{

So, as you may have guessed we did not get up into the cement truck. Damn I was so looking forward to being in a really big truck! We let Aidan set the pace and we went into a small bobcat with a shovel on the front. He was happy and wanted to be in there when there were other children in the cab, but wasn’t as thrilled when he was in there by himself. Mommy had to join him. It was fun and we have the pictures to prove it. That’s my story and I am sticking to it. He did love being around the trucks but he was a little intimidated at being so close to something so big and loud.

Aidan and Mommy in a Bobcat

We would have taken more pictures but sadly after Anthony took the picture below, he pressed the button to turn it off, the damn thing up and died. We would have felt better about it if we had dropped it. Instead it decided to skip while retracting the lens and got stuck. Shit, it was less than a year old and I loved that camera. Sorry for swearing but nothing else fits what I am feeling except a worse swear word. At least the pictures we did take today turned out.

Aidan and Mommy just before Mommy’s $#@%ing Camera Died

The highlight of the open house for Aidan was the sand pit with about 100 little kids, and a whole bunch of Tonka trucks. It was after the camera died so we do not have any pictures of all the toddlers playing separately together.

I loved the idea and next year I think we will pop a couple of ear plugs in Aidan’s ears and Mommy will get into all the trucks she can.

A conversation this morning…

Aidan (bringing a book to me): Fire engine!

Me: Yes, Aidan, that’s a fire engine! But Daddy has to make his lunch and go to work.

Aidan (more insistent with the book): Fire engine!

Me: I’m sorry Aidan, but I have to go to work.

Aidan (looking me straight in the eye): That’s crazy.

Me: …