manatee geotours, thanksgiving meatballs in jan, and a firearm (not a flaming body part)

after my first adventure in geo-chaching, i started to look around (on the app), trying to find out a little more about certain caches called geo-tour: TAKING FLIGHT. it piqued my curiosity. so i went to the website and found out that this is a special geotour series in manatee county, the first (and currently only, i believe) geotour in florida featuring native birds! note: i am NOT a bird-watcher, but i have enjoyed and been quite fascinated by the birds here, not to mention all the migratory birds.

so i guess i'll be exploring birds over the course of the next few months! i had to stop at g.t. bray park to pick up my passport, and while there, i asked the guy-aiden- who might i contact when i am ready to begin participating in creating my own caches? he said it would be him for any of the parks in manatee county....that was easier than i expected! although it will be awhile before i create my own, as they suggest finding at least 20 in order to understand and see a variety.

also while at the parks office, i may or may not have picked up a calendar- hopefully it was complimentary... and if not, i will offer some compliments right now- GREAT PICS!!! and interesting information! we're all good now!

if we go to 12 of the 17 geotours, they will give us a free geotracker (basically a tracker you hide in a cache and other people find it and it begins traveling...reminds me a little of a flat stanley!)

 i also received my books... i decided to check out the series, because a radio talk host had mentioned reading it to his son every summer. what grabbed my attention is that the main character, the hero if you will, has tourettes (not severe), and is a young teenager. if you have teenagers, or pre-teens, this might be a fun book for them. super easy read, and they can learn some great trivial information along the way!

book 3

 in other news, i had some ground pork i purchased this week that i needed to cook up before i take off for the weekend! so i made some italian meatballs, a cranberry dipping sauce (from my favorite paleo cookbook), and i had a hard time putting them down and putting them away!! ugh. i had also baked some blueberry lemon muffins (same cookbook) and they are great without, but also taste great with the cranberry sauce!

last night i got a text from shea, who was expecting a lady to go over to pick up a dresser. it's always somewhat of a wild-card having someone come to your home to buy a large piece of furniture, so it's good to have back-up. i was inside checking something on my phone when she went out to get the dresser ready. when i walked out, she said, "it's all good, i have a can of spray paint and a tennis racket within arm's reach, just in case." i smiled and told her i brought my gun... good to be prepared...just in case. her response was, "at least let me give it my best shot first, then step in if i need it!" smile.

it was a really nice little brazilian family, unfortunately the dresser dimensions were a little too big for the suv, and they had to reschedule to borrow family's truck. but it was fun listening to them speak in portuguese, and the daughter was a little bilingual whiz! #translator #bilingualisabenefit

speaking of guns, i need to go down to the shooting range in sarasota and renew get a florida permit... learn the laws of this new land.

this morning i had a good pre-planning session for some trainings that will be coming up in february. it's always fun working with people we don't usually get to play with, because that is the best way to get ideas and share insights!

there you have it, looking forward to a fun, whirlwind weekend- hang in there, it's almost here!
julie