More family photos from the Clay Trail

These are are family photos from our first Wherigo geocache, Treskilling Trek...


My boys...

A photo of me I like...

Me and Sean, complete with my windswept hair...

I love photos with the scene and my family admiring the scene...

























For more on this walk go to our family blog Adventures in Geoland (http://adventuresingeoland.blogspot.com/ )


Until next time
Gillian

More phobias! Climbing over rocks

I've already mentioned I don't like heights or bridges. Well here's another one- I don't like climbing over rocks either. Perhaps that's not really too much of a surprise- it's another one with the basic potential for falling after all.


I am trying really hard not to let my fears get in the way. Today we went geocaching at Helman Tor (http://adventuresingeoland.blogspot.com/2011/04/geocache-and-earthcache-at-helman-tor.html) and I climbed right to the top with everyone else. Coming down was trickier- my left knee isn't that strong and I just had to ask for help- any excuse to hold hands with my husband is what I'll tell the rest of the world...


I got this quote from Greatest Minds on Twitter - "Tell everyone what you want to do and someone will want to help you do it." - W. Clement Stone. I like that idea a lot... When I need help climbing I will ask rather than not try. 


It's a good feeling to face your fears and win through!


It will be worth applying that to other aspects of life too, whether they involve work, domestic matters or crafting and hobbies.


Until next time
Gillian

Family days

Monday went by in a whirl, doing all the things you have to do before you go out and have fun...  


We had a family film afternoon watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1. Then we went geocaching (see our family blog Adventures in Geoland for more on that at http://adventuresingeoland.blogspot.com/2011/04/geocaching-6.html).

Sean and me at our picnic

Today we spent the morning geocaching again (see http://adventuresingeoland.blogspot.com/2011/04/geocaching-7-and-8.html for more photos). We also had a lovely picnic in the glorious spring sunshine... 


I took loads of photos so I can digital scrapbook later...  




I've spent the afternoon sorting and labelling the photos- it really saves time to do it on the day you take them, plus your memory is fresh so you can include lots of details you would otherwise forget...


Until next time 
Gillian

Digital scrapbooking our geocache find #2

Here's two digital scrapbook pages I made of our Geocache walk to the bridge near the Lanhydrock Estate. (See our family blog at http://adventuresingeoland.blogspot.com/2011/04/geocaching-1-2.html for the original photos of our geocache find #2)

I used Scrapgirls (http://www.scrapgirls.com) digital scrapbook collections Expedition and Extinct to make the backgrounds.

Until next time

Gillian

Identity matters

I've just finished filling in the 2011 UK Census and two questions have been really interesting. I asked my children how they wanted to describe their national identity and their religion. Whilst my husband and I gave the same answers to both, none of the children wanted to give the same answers as us, and actually all were different from each other. It just shows how important it was to ask them and not complete the form on their behalf. I am really proud of them for giving considered answers that represent how they feel about identity and religion.


Yesterday I told you how we went along the Camel Trail geocaching on Friday. This morning I made a digital scrapbooking page of the walk. I used digital papers and embellishments from the Time Traveller collection by Scrapgirl (at http://www.scrapgirls.com/). I've created quite a simple layout which allows the photos and journalling to take centre stage. With me being the only girl in a family of four men (or nearly men!), my layouts often have a neutral or slightly masculine feel and this one is no exception. I really like the Time Traveller collection as it has a vintage feel but also a steam punk feel, and they are two of my favourite styles.

I've also started a new crochet amigurumi today using  Saplanet's  The Didis pattern (at http://simpleartsplanet.com/). I'm aiming to finish this for next Sunday's show and tell.


Until next time
Gillian

Geocaching

We have had great fun the last two days exploring the countryside whilst looking for hidden geocaches (see my post Thursday 24th March 2011 for an explanation of what Geocaching is). Yesterday we walked along the Camel Trail towards Boscarne Junction seeking a cache- it was only when we got there that we noticed it had a quite high difficulty rating, meaning it was going to be hard to find. Not surprisingly we didn't find it this time but we will be back- hopefully when there are less people about as we had to stop looking everytime someone came in sight (one of the rules is you must not be seen searching by other people). If that sounds a little crazy, well maybe it is, but as my mum would say "it's all good, clean fun", and we had a lovely walk, a good laugh and (my personal highlight) we even saw a heron on the river bank. 


Today we tried a different geocache hunt on Bodmin Beacon nature reserve. This time we found the hidden box. Success!!! Well actually Kieran (aka middle son) found it and was promptly appointed Chief Scout and invited to join all future expeditions (we could have done with him there yesterday!)

Successful searchers!

Again we had a fantastic evening walk and discovered a place close to home we didn't even know existed. As we walked home we saw the most beautiful sunset over the misty hills. I felt privileged to see it and I couldn't help but wonder how many times I have missed this kind of natural beauty because I have sat at home, busy in my own little world,  only vaguely aware that it was getting dark.

Sunset over Bodmin

We've had a lot of fun this weekend and have got a fair bit of exercise. We're already planning where we are going next...


Until next time 
Gillian

Working together to develop

A week or two ago my husband went to a gathering of teachers sharing their ideas about using technologies. He came back with many new ideas some of which I know he is using. I think it is amazing how much both he and I use ideas shown to us by other people. After I posted about Wordle yesterday we chatted about how we used thoughts and ideas from other people to get a solution to a problem. Someone showed him Wordle, he showed someone else, they worked out how to screen save, showed him and he showed me, I worked out how to save the new picture. I can only describe this as a chain of shared ideas- each in isolation did not produce an outcome anywhere close to what we produced together.


Some genius's may work alone but I think that for most of us we need other people to help us learn. I am learning all the time, watching other people, listening and copying other peoples good ideas. This is not some kind of plagerism, its a way of developing as a person, as any idea borrowed must be adapted to fit our lives.


At the teachers gathering, one thing someone spoke about was Geocaching, which was explained to me as being a bit like playing hide and seek with GPS cordinates telling you where to go to find "caches" of hidden goodies. It  sounds like fun and a way of giving a purpose to going for a walk in places which are so familiar we have tended not to want to bother visiting recently. So I googled Geocaching and found Geocaching.com (http://www.geocaching.com/). Its got a massive list of hide and seek hunts to go on, and so we plan to try one this weekend.

 Another Wordle with some of those keywords for learning and exploring new ideas.

Here are two more Wordles from my favourite poems " I expect to pass through this world but once..." and "...Children grow up when your not looking..."

Until next time

Gillian