Posts Tagged ‘Geocaching’

One Year; To Fredricksburg

by Scott

Look at your calendar folks, it was this time last year that you were all invited to attend our wedding! Tina and I are very happy with our lives together. To celebrate, and just have a relaxing weekend, we wanted to explore old Fredricksburg, Texas. For a three day weekend we drove across the State with our two puppies; joining us were Phil and Tara. We stayed at Barons Creek Side and it was wonderful. Daniel, the owner, has built a romantic getaway perfect for a weekend trip to Fredricksburg. On the property there are several cabins situated around a babbling brook with ducks. Each cabin has a theme with one or two bedrooms. The property is uniquely decorated with fiberglass cows from Switzerland, Daniel’s homeland and lovingly handpainted. We mostly relaxed for the weekend, took a few trips to main street to visit the shops and enjoy a beer garden or two.

On the way back we did some Geocaching and stumbled onto Sculpture Ranch for Pharoah’s Treasure. There is a huge property out there filled with sculptures some of which are really awesome. See the pictures below. Apparently this painter/sculptor/artist from Italy settled in Texas to make a gallery out in the middle of no where. It feels wired and disjointed to find this in east Texas. Definitely recommend if you’re driving through Johnson City it’s worth the stop.

Here’s a sampling of pics from our trip, but visit our Flickr page to see all of them

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Geocaching Coins Update

by Scott

Front and back of our wedding Geocaching coin. The tracking code has been removed.

Each guest at our wedding back in March were given a Geocaching Coin as a party favor. This post is an update on the coins progress as they’ve traveled around the world, and they’ve been busy!

Geocaching is a geeky treasure hunting game where people hide and seek treasures hidden around the world. Someone starts it off by hiding a cache somewhere in the world and recording the cache’s GPS coordinates on-line. Then later others will try and find the cache with nothing but the coordinates. When they find the cache, they will take some treasure and leave some treasure, typically the treasures are: small toys, pins, or similar objects. The fun part of Geocaching is the adventure of finding the cache and exploring areas where you would not otherwise go. The best caches take you to an interesting spot; one with a great view, an historical place, or tell and story.

 

Geocaching Coins, like the one we gave as a party favor, each are stamped with a unique tracking code. The code is registered on-line with geocaching.com. When a Geocacher finds the coin they will log it on-line. Then when they visit another cache in the future they will leave the coin for someone else to find. Using this we are able to track the coin as it travels around the world.

View Geocaching Coins in a larger map

 

Our coins have been on the move! Only a few coins have been released in the wild. I suspect that many guests are holding on to them waiting for a vacation where they can release the coin at some exotic location. Or possibly they think the coin is too cool to release? Either way, the coins that have been released have visited some exotic locations: Las Vegas, San Diego, Hawaii, Canada, the Great Lakes, Ireland, Germany, and numerous towns around Texas. They have seen beautiful sandy beaches, the great lakes, awesome cities, and even spent the night in a castle. Someday, if we win the lottery, Tina and I may trek to all these places. Until then it’s cool to watch the journey from afar.

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it’s been a month already?

by artjynx

I’ll just jump right in here and answer the question everyone (and their dog) has been asking since we said “i do“, brace yourself, “How does it feel to be married?” Scott and I discussed this after the 15th time we were asked this question:

Tina: So…do you feel any different?
Scott: uhm. not really.
Tina: me neither.

So there you have it people, not a huge difference. Other than Scott getting used to wearing jewelry and me trying to change my name. The latter is more difficult, but Scott may have a different opinion. The name changing so far has been quite an experience. Note to other brides changing their name at the DMV, fix your hair and wear make-up. They WILL be taking your picture again. *Sigh* learned that the hard way.

Here’s my take on it. I would rather have it this way than feel like I’ve been transformed or something new. I didn’t view my wedding as a big pep rally (Team Awesome!) but rather a cozy celebration with family and friends whom we hope will continue with us on our journey. As of now, our journey consists of trying to get rid of over 200 peacock feathers… know anyone? I can hook you up people. That’s where I think true happiness lives… in the small little details of life. Scott and I can appreciate that, and that’s what makes our marriage awesome. Seriously, how many couples can discuss hamburger recipes and the best place to walk 2 little schnauzers?

The wedding pictures are available…we included anyone else who would share their photos on our website. BTW, I LOVE how well the moustaches went over before the ceremony. It was a last minute thing while preparing the programs, but I think it set a nice informal, but fun tone for the wedding. Thanks for making that work people. We’re all in this together so we might as well make it fun. We are going to try to get our wedding on a couple of wedding blogs just for fun. We’ll let you know if we make it.

One thing we’ve noticed though is people not hiding their coins. I knew it was a long shot to introduce this obscure hobby as a wedding favor, but seriously, try it… it is so much fun and you spend quality time with your loved ones.

Also, always bring your iphone. I’ve been getting hooked on iphone photography and hipstamatic, rocks! They even have a way to print your photos! just make sure your camera is set to high res and they can print up to 30″! I’m about to test this out fairly soon and considering using them for business cards.

Hipstamatic photo of Scott with two Schnauzers.

 

We're engaged!

by Scott

On April 16th, 2010 Scott Phillips proposed to Tina Messinger. She said yes. The event occurred while we were on vacation in Port Aransas. We were walking along the beach with our two puppies, Mia and Maisy. On the way back to the car walking over the wooden walkway across the sand dunes, with the sun set in the background, I kneeled on one knee and popped the question. Even though she had a good idea it was coming, Tina had tears in here eyes. As we hurriedly took some pictures before the sun completely set.

Scott and Tina

Tina and I met while working for the library at Texas A&M University. Tina is a designer helping make the library look good; I am a software developer working on digital library projects. We went on several Geocaching expeditions around the local area. Geocaching is a geeky treasure hunting activity where you explore your local neighborhood and other places by simply finding caches that other people have left. Not many people can say visiting Aunt Jemima’s (Yes, the syrup) gravestone brought them closer together. These expeditions culminated in our first date, with a Geocaching trip to Port Aransas for Sand Fest. Walking along the beach we first expressed how the felt about each other. Just a few days shy of two years later walking along the same beach is where I proposed.

The Engagement Ring

After telling both of our parents the first question was do you have a date set? Nope, we don’t have a date or a venue set, but we are aiming for this fall or next spring. Check back here for details later.