Getting the nieces involved!

Hunter (with his brothers) and I visited my sister Amanda at her home in Charlevoix. It was the third day of overcast skies but no snow and not so cold temperatures. It was coming back though, predicted to that day actually, but I invited my neices Rayne, 8, and Randi, 7, to go geocaching with Hunter, sister Tiffany, Kit and I. They had no clue what I was talking about, but after explaining it, they decided to give it a try. They ran to their rooms and choose a couple small toys they wouldn't mind passing on. Randi is going to make someone happy with the Beanie Baby she chose! We climbed into my van and entered the coordinates of a cache I had researched before heading their way into my GPS.

The first one was called Sunset Ridge and was located along the shores of Lake Michigan. We didn't have to worry about being sneaky because nobody was on the shores that windy and getting colder by the minute day! As we parked the van over a dilapidated snow bank, it began to snow. I had explained the function of a GPS and we headed down a path, looking for the answer to our hint, Watch Your Steps.

As we followed the numbers in the display, we arrived at the top of steps going down toward the beach. A few steps later and we were just about in line. We just needed to go a bit more to the left....

I climbed to the top of a steep hill and spotted right away what I thought was the hiding place. The girls followed by Hunter climbed joined me and Rayne was the first one to spot what I thought was the hiding place; a pile of sticks underneath a tree who's roots had lifted its base at least six inches above the ground.

Rayne reached under and pulled out what looked like a paint can with a plastic lid. Tiffany opened it up and passed me the log book and handed the bag of goodies to the girls. They made their switches as did Hunter, Tiffany signed the book and we placed it back just the way we found it and ran back to the van to warm ourselves up!

I told the girls I had the coordinates to one more if

they were up to it. They said they were so we

entered them into Richard and repeated the process. He led us to a dead end road next to the cement plant on the lake. We followed a path along the fenced property line and after locating the right spot with the GPS, we fanned out from there and looked around. The hint was, In the Shadow of a Saint. I didn't realize the cement plant had Saint in the name, so we were looking for trees or logs/sticks in the shape of a cross, something like that, but we found nothing. The only thing unnatural we discovered was a large pile of bread.

The girls agreed we could try again and do some others when Hunter and I return in the spring.