Class trip to DC

Yesterday at 2:30 am I returned home from my son's 8th grade class trip to Gettysburg, Washington, DC, and Mount Vernon.  We had a great time but returned completely exhausted.  They pushed us hard everyday.

We left Wednesday morning at 6 am and drove to Gettysburg.  We stopped a few times on the way for potty breaks, change drivers, food, etc.  There was a wreck on the highway that put us arriving an hour late and we lost our reservations at General Pickets.  I was really looking forward to eating there.

On Thursday, we did a bus tour of Gettysburg.  Our guide was fantastic!  It was educational and fun.  When we left Gettysburg we went to the National Cathedral.  We had a really quick tour there.  It was beautiful and my pictures do not do it justice.  I wish we could have spent a little more time there.  Then we went to the Holocaust Museum.  We were not able to get tickets to the main exhibit of the museum and were only able to go thru a section about children of the Holocaust.  After that we had dinner at a local food court and picked up our tour guide.  He was a great guy; full of info and very funny.  That evening he took us around to the Washington monument, WWII, Vietnam, Lincoln, and Korean memorials.  The place was packed!  If you want to go to DC you probably should not go in May when all the schools are there.

Friday was a shorter day for us.  We went to the Grant memorial in front of the Capital Building for an official group picture.  The memorial is actually being renovated (like a lot of things in the area).  Then off to the Pentagon to see the 9/11 memorial.  It started to rain while we were there.  We also went to the Air Force & Iwo Jima memorials in the rain.  It was not on our schedule but our guide took us to the Botanic Gardens.  It was very pretty and I am glad that we stopped there.  The next stop was the McDonald's inside the Air & Space Museum.  This place was also packed!  I bet we waited in line for 30 minutes to get our food.  After lunch we had 3 hours to tour the Smithsonian museums!  My son said that he was most looking forward to seeing Air & Space so that is where we spent our 3 hours.  He really enjoyed it :)  After that we went back to our hotel for a pizza & pool party.

Saturday was packed with activities.  We started the day off with MLK Jr, FDR, and Jefferson Memorials.  There were a lot less people out in the morning and these spots were nice and peaceful.  Then we were off to the White House where we had some drama.  They could not find our group in the system even though we had a confirmation number.  They had to run new background checks on our group while we waited.  We stood in line for an hour and a half to spend less than 30 minutes inside the White House.  My son and I agreed that the White House was a complete waist of time.

After lunch we toured the Library of Congress and the Capitol.  The Capitol is currently being renovated.  It started to rain on our tour and we he had to run a half mile in the rain to get on our bus.  Then we headed out to Arlington Cemetery to watch the changing of the guard and our class laid a wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier.  I really enjoyed all of Arlington.  Afterward we had dinner at an odd Italian place called Buca's.  It had a ton of half naked pictures on the walls which can be hard for middle schoolers to act appropriately around.  It was so very nice to go back to the hotel and put our feet up after so much walking!

On Sunday morning we packed up all of our stuff because we would be heading home.  It was a very cool morning and we started off at Mount Vernon.  The grounds were beautiful and the buildings were interesting.  I would have liked to spend more time here too.  Afterward, we had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Washington and visited the National Archives.  Then we started heading west toward home.  We made a few stops for food, drivers changes, gas, etc.  We were more than 2 hours latter getting home than we had planned.

We had a great trip and I hope it is one that my son will always remember.  I took 8 letterbox clues with me and didn't find a single box.  I really didn't have time to look :(  I was able to get 13 passport stamps.  I could have gotten two more but that was the one spot where I thought I could actually get a letterbox.  But all the trees looked the same and I couldn't find it.

Purple LTC

Purple...Hydrangea 

This is my card for the "Purple..." LTCs swap.  I really like my stamp and card.

This one is quite simple and I worry that it might not be purple enough.  I stamped the stamp on water color paper, stamped/sprayed ink on my craft mat, and colored in the card with a water brush/pen.

I am also participating in "Green..." and I think I will use the same technique.  My stamp is ready but I have been under the weather and busy with Etsy stamps.  I hope to start those cards soon.

Alice in Wonderland stamps

Yesterday, my Girl Scout Service Unit put on a Mother/Daughter tea party.  I was on the committee and they asked if I would make stamps for the stations at the tea.

I recycled the tea cup stamp from an LTC but the rest are brand new.  I worked on the flower one for a day and a half.

My niece and my daughter after the tea

I also made a dozen of the paper top hats as table decorations.  My daughter loved them so I glued one to a headband and she wore it at the event.

At the tea we ate, made a coffee filter butterfly, a picture frame, played croquet, pinned the smile on the Cheshire cat, and learned how to arrange flowers.

I got the Alice in Wonderland lunch box on eBay and I will now use these stamps as an event box :)

Spring Break Boxing in Bowling Green

The princess took our selfie at Fort Webb

Yesterday Daddy's Favorite Princess, Lil Ewok, G-MA, and I went letterboxing in Bowling Green, Ky.  My boxing buddy, G-MA, picked us up at 8 am and we headed south.  It started off cool and the 2 hour ride went by quick.  I was in charge of plotting our route and I had many boxes for us to find.  Some local boxers had just planted 10 new ones and we looked for some old ones too.

The first stop of the day was a new two part series that we found very easily.  Then we found an older box.  This box was at Fort Webb and the kids enjoyed all the rocks at the Civil War Earthworks.

Inside the train museum.

Then we moved on to a Historic Train Museum.  It was an interesting place but the clue was really vague and we wasted a lot of time here.  The name of the box was Letters and Boxes.  Finally it hit me that we needed to look for the mail car.  Then it was easy to find.  The stamp was store bought but nice.

WKU

We found a few more boxes and I planted a box in a cemetery while we were there.  One of the boxes we found was on the Western Kentucky University campus.  The campus was very pretty and we ate lunch in their food court.  Another box was located a local pizza joint.  The stamp was great and it had two cool sculptures outside.  Unfortunately, my phone was dead at that point so I got no pics of them.

We got a new box near a local ice cream shop and had to get some ice cream while we were there.  The princess and G-MA got "Petite" sundaes while Lil Ewok and I just got a small scoop.

Ice cream break

The last box of the day was at an old bridge.  We started off looking at the wrong end of the bridge but eventually found the box.  Local legend has it that a young woman fell off this bridge and drowned.  If you stop your car on the bridge she will push you across.  And if you put powder on the back of your car you will be able to see her hand prints. Spooky.  Well, we didn't stop on the bridge.  It actually had a lot of traffic while we were looking and stamping.

Metal truss bridge over Barren River

We looked for 18 boxes and found 16.  One of the ones we couldn't find had two snakes in the hiding spot.  We left two hitchhikers and found none :(  The letterboxes took us to several parks with playgrounds and the kids loved playing while G-MA and I stamped.  We got back home about 9pm.  It was a little windy but a beautiful day to be out boxing :)

Stamping on Calendars LTC

Stamping on Calendars:
Hiking Across the USA

I'm in the LTC swap "Stamping on Calendars."  I've had the idea for this card for a while but no reason to make them.  My cards are called, "Hiking Across the USA."

I went online and found some mini National Parks calendars and bought 2.  My husband thought I was crazy for buying perfectly good calendars just to cut up.

The stamp on the inside is a stamp I made several years ago as a table top/event stamp.  I was happy to get to dust him off after a few years.  Daddy's Favorite Princess said that it was cheating to reuse a stamp.  I carved the camera & pics on the outside to make her happy and spruce the card up a bit.  I'm very happy with these :)

700th Find

Ft Branch Cemetery

The weather this weekend was very nice and I spent most of Saturday out letterboxing & geocaching.  I started off the day planting a box in Ft Branch.  This town is about 30 minutes north of me.  I planted the stamp that I am using for the "Extravagant Cultural Attire"  LTC swap.  I am almost finished with the cards and I will post a pic later.

Sculpture at the Azalea Path

The next stop off the day was at Azalea Path Arboretum & Botanical Gardens.  This place is about 30 minutes north of Ft Branch (1 hr from home).  They were closed for the season but I thought the web site said you could walk the ground year round.  I guess not because the owner tracked me down after seeing my car.  He was nice but made sure to let me know they were closed.  I got a geocache an heading out.  I will come back when the flowers are blooming and see about hiding a letterbox. 

On the way home, I stopped to get another geocache.  I am thinking about hiding a letterbox in the same cemetery for PAL Day and wanted to check it out.  Yes, I am thinking about PAL Day.  I didn't plant anything last year but I may plant 2-3 this year.

Me & the princess at my 700th LB

Then I got the princess.  She had stayed the night at a friends house.  We went out and found 4 hybrids (planted by a geocacher) and 1 regular cache that we had looked for before but could not find.  We ran into some real geocachers while we were out.  We told them that we were really letterboxers and they encouraged us to join their Facebook group and I did.  We were going to try another cache but the phone died. 

The 4 hybrids pushed me up to 700.  I will probably be stuck here a while.  We are going on a family vacation this summer so no LB events for me.  Which means very few boxes to find :(

Oops!

Daddy's Favorite Princess has been asking a lot lately to make cards.  She participated in the kids Valentines and wanted to make more.   We searched thru the open trackers and she wanted to do the "Gift Card" swap.  You were supposed to make cards like regular cards that were blank on the inside so people could write a message and sign their name.

I asked the host if she could participate (being a kid) and she said yes.  We both signed up and made our cards.  I had gotten a free lolly pop stamp when I purchased a stamp on Etsy and she used it on her cards.  I carved up something Valentine-ish because the cards were due late January and I played with the "old school" label maker.

We finished our cards and mailed them off.  When I get the cards back I see that we didn't read/follow the directions!  The cards were supposed to be 4.5"x 5.5".  Oops, I totally didn't read that part of the tracker!  I guess I better read them more carefully in the future :/