A Birthday and Local Letterboxing

I celebrated my birthday last weekend, and I must say, this birthday was one of the best.  I was so lucky to be able to share my birthday a day early with some wonderful close friends over dinner.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get photos with everyone together that stopped in but that is a-okay.
Luckily, the next day had such wonderful weather, the boyfriend and I decided we would venture out again for another letterboxing adventure. We found clues to two boxes on the campus of a local un university.

We were able to find both letterboxes!

 We had such good luck finding both letterboxes. Each one was quite easy to find and I was thrilled to have the beautiful weather for such a great day. Overall, a wonderful birthday celebration.

DIY Artwork

I am so excited to finally be able to share this with everyone. I had told y'all here that I was creating artwork for a couple of bare walls that we have in our place and I can finally share my project.

Simple Artwork

It was super easy to make, and it costs less than $25 to make. I purchased the canvas at a local craft store and purchased a bulk pad of scrap booking paper (with coupon) for the cut outs. I already had a heavy-duty punch for the project as well as heavy-duty spray adhesive (any kind will work, or you can use rubber cement).  All I did was punch two pages (12x12) scrapbook paper with my punch, and after gluing, laid each piece down to dry. **Tip: Let the project dry at least a few hours so as to not have any pieces falling off** And there you have an easy and cheap piece of artwork.

New Family Member

Sir Bruce

I am so excited to announce the newest member of our guinea pig clan. His name is Sir Bruce. He is a recently adoption (an early birthday gift for me, if you will) from a local pet store. He comes with a sad back story. He was born with a really bad ear infection in his right ear that left his head permenantly tilted to the right. His owners were no longer able to care for him so they brought him to the pet store in hopes that someone else may care for him. The pet store took Sir Bruce in, cleaned him up, gave him a new haircut (he was apparently matted up very badly) and with a new home, placed him out for adoption.
My heart always goes out to those animals that were harmed/mistreated in any way. And, the boyfriend is no different. Knowing how many families of young children that will probably overlook this beautiful 8 month old pig for a younger pig without his special traits, we quickly adopted Sir Bruce and brought him home. Already he is showing so much improvement. With a new home purchased for him to sleep inside and a better bowl (so he can eat easier as a result of his head tilt), he quickly adjusted to his new home with happy squeaks as he ran around his new cage marathon-style.
Welcome to the family, Sir Bruce!

Early Birdy!

It is always exciting to spend a great evening with friends. The boyfriend, my friend AT and myself thought it would be fun if we spent on Saturday evening before the crazy holidays began to just spend time with those who do not have families that live by - be their stand-in family for the night. Thus, Pre-Thanksgiving Early Bird Dinner was created.  We were quite excited to get everyone together for a nice Thanksgving feast.

Some of the ladies of the evening....

I must say, for our first year doing this, it went off without a hitch! I cannot wait until next year. And, maybe, just maybe, we will celebrate our 1/2 Turkey-Palooza in the spring....... details to come on that (of course)!

Double Letterboxing

I told you guys in my first Letterboxing post how excited I was to discover a new and free way to not only visit areas of my city I had not ventured off to but to also be more active in the chillier months. This time we decided that we would try TWO letterboxing adventures to see if we could do it. Why not, right? So, we found our next two clues (to two parks we had yet to ever visit) and off we went.

Our first trek took us to a park the boyfriend had closely ventured to, but was not even aware it was in the area. How exciting to find a new amazing park. We were thrilled to know this adventure of letterboxing included a beautiful trail walk. Along our walk, we found our first letterbox of the day!

Hiding under a fallen tree!

I was excited since I was the one to find the box this time. We like to take turns finding the boxes and leading the way. We both enjoy the chase of the boxes and it is so much fun to 'discover' a hidden secret.  We were upset to not find a stamp in their box (maybe someone had taken it?) but we left our notepad with our stamp and note so they knew we had stopped by.
Our second adventure of the day was a bit harder to find. We apparently had bad directions thanks to the boyfriends GPS on his phone, so we ended up about 5 miles away from where our next letterbox was located. After being pointed in the right direction by some locals that apparently went to this second park, we found our staring point and began our next journey. We went on a rather short walk this time, compared to some of our other hikes and found our box not too far from the tennis courts in this local park.

He found it hiding under some thorned vines and a tree stump!

This one was a bit harder to get to. The prickly vines cut my hands up so I had the boyfriend grab this box. My hero!! It was exciting to find this one since it was so far off the beaten path. This one we would mark is very EASY to find.
I will say, you can do more than one letterboxing adventure in a day, if you wanted to. I think from now on, we will just save our adventures to one letterboxing at a time.
So, for those of you that letterbox out there, Happy Hunting!!


Bacon Strips  & Frog Legs!