So Much To Do!

I'm getting married this weekend and there's so much to do. I'm very excited. I also started my new job with Columbus Parks and Recreation. It's a bit stressful since training is the week of my wedding but I'm excited for this summer.
The program I am doing is called 4 Day Art & Play. Each week we go to a different park and do craft and sport activities with kids as well as proving meals. This year our theme is Carbon Footprint. We will be focusing on this theme with almost everything we do. And guess what. I get to run a letterboxing program for our third day! I already have all the images I want to carve and get to work on them on the clock. I'm literately getting paid to do what I love! We will be using the activity to teach the children about how they can make a difference. For example, one of the stamps will be of car pollution and the kids will have to discuss what they can do to reduce it and what other modes of transportation they can use and so on. It's going to be really cool.
I'll be posting some pictures when I finish them as well as some wedding photos so be prepared!

~Catchow

SOHT 2014

SOHT was the first time since my engagement that we got to go out and letterbox. My school is located out in the middle of nowhere and I don't drive, so I haven't really gotten to letterbox which makes me sad.


Anyway, October 11th was SOHT. I've been looking forward to going to SOHT again. I've really enjoyed the event and going out into the middle of nowhere, away from noxers. And luckily it was a nice day for a letterbxing event.


Tyrus and I did engagement pictures before we left for the event. Well...we need to redo the photos. But, after the photo shoot we left for the event, got lost, got on the right path, got lost again, and finally made it.


This year was....different. I'm not sure what it was. It was just different from the past ones we've gone to. Usually as soon as we arrive we are swarmed by people wanting to do trades, especially when there are new people there and I know there were many boxers there I had never met before. This year we weren't approached by many people, and those who did I would consider close letterboxing friends.
Tyrus and I decided to hit the trails right away because we are normally the last ones to find the boxes because we are usually busy doing trades. It took us way longer than I thought it would to find the boxes. It was mainly my fault because I kept stopping and showing Tyrus all the different types of tree where there(I'll explain this in my next post).
Speaking of trees.... there were Tulip trees EVERYWHERE. Tulip trees are my favorite trees.

Tulip Trees

The trail were a little muddy from the week of rain but it was such a nice day out. The boxes were neat with some good carves, but I've noticed that stamps were reused from previous years, but that's understandable since this event is held every year.
There were 3 day trails and we only got two of the three. I was a bit sad we didn't grab the last ones since it was a series about Safari Man, but we were just way too tiered.
When we got back a lot of people left in the time that we were out boxing. It was surprising because it was only about 4:30 and all that were left were mainly those who were camping. So we missed a lot of trading opportunities there... We did hang out a bit and ate. I grabbed some of the table top boxes that I hadn't already gotten, but again not many people wanted to converse with me. From my experience you always have someone to talk to... Most conversations I had with people was them congratulating me and Tyrus on our engagement and then it was over. I don't know if this year was just a "been there, done that" year where people just wanted to get the stamps and leave or that I just appeared to not be approachable or interested...
There was also a lot of debates about things that people didn't really have any idea what they were talking about(not going to go into details) which can get very hostile very fast and was just awkward to listen to.
There was also a lot of kids this year(that or I just never really noticed them) which isn't a big deal, until they are out of control and running around all over the place and beating each other with any straight object they could find. And with children being rowdy comes yelling, and with that comes barking from dogs, and from that can come more yelling and crying and the whole thing just puts other people in awkward situations.
And there was alcohol. I don't know if there has been alcohol at past event and I never noticed, but I definitely noticed this year. I don't know. I've just always had this idea of letterboxing being a clean and family friendly activity. And at events I usually feel like it should be a safe, clean, and friendly environment with not a lot of cussing, profanity, alcohol or violent acts. I don't know, that's just me. I like being able to get together with a group of people, a group of adults, and feel like I am in a safe clean environment to do something we all love. Now, I'm not saying the event this year was awful and unsafe, but there just seemed to be a lot of awkwardness and almost drama. If I wanted to deal with some of the stuff that was going on I would go back to high school.
Did anyone else who attended this year feel like it was different? Like there was just a weird and awkward vibe in the air?

Once it got dark out and the fire really got going I made more s'mores than I should have and then we left. We didn't go night boxing this year unfortunately.

I was a okay time this year I guess. I really enjoyed getting to see many friendly faces and those who helped Tyrus out with the proposal. And a thank you to the R gang for another year of SOHT! Next year Tyrus and I will be able to camp for the event as rather newly weds.

So before I sign off I have some questions for those reading,

What kind of environments do you like for letterboxing events?
How do you feel about alcohol at events that are not at facility serving alcohol and have children around?

~Catchow

Oh, Canada

Near the end of this July my family and I went on vacation to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This was our first trip out of the country. My mom had been to Montreal when she was younger but the rest of my family has never gone outside the U.S.

We had a relatively good time while we were there. We stayed for 6 days but cut our trip short because we found that 6 day in Montreal was a bit too much for us. We went to get the European experience without having to actually go to Europe. I have to say we did get the French experience.

We went to the farmers market which was really, really cool. I wish we had more in the U.S. The fresh food you could get was just so delicious. My favorite was the strawberries. They were so good and were much better than the ones you can get at the store.

We ended up eating our way through Montreal and only had a couple of real meals while we were there.

Poutine-Fries, Gravy, and cheese curds

Beaver Tails- Pretty much a doughnut type thing with topping.

Mine was a vanilla icing with crushed Oreos and chocolate syrup.

This was my parents'. It had a cream cheese icing and toffy stuff.

We got a cinnamon and sugar one for the boys.

Crêpe- A tortilla shell type thing with a filling

Mine had Nutella and strawberries.

I liked the poutine. It was pretty good. You can also get ones with extra toppings like bacon and pulled pork. I liked the bacon one too. The beaver tails were probably my favorite. The crepe was good too but I didn't really like the warm strawberries.

While we were there we took the metro the entire time. It was so crazy driving there! We didn't feel safe so as soon as we got there we parked the car and didn't use it until we left. Plus, gas was really expensive. It took us a couple of tries to get a hang of the metro. We don't have a subway or anything here in Columbus but we've been on the one in D.C. However, every thing was in french and all of the announcements were in French too. I had 4 years of high school french which came in handy a bit, but I wasn't able to translate everything because I didn't know every word. I didn't get much of a chance to speak French either. People spoke so fast I couldn't catch what they were saying, plus they can tell by the dumb found look on your face that you didn't speak French and would switch to English.

We had to go up and down many flights of stairs to get to the metro.

Now we did go letterboxing while we were there. It was mainly just me and my mother. The males in my family don't really care about it anymore. My mom and I ended up separating from them for most of the trip to do our own thing.

The first box we found was quite the adventure. The box we were looking for was supposed to be a under 1 mile hike to find. Well, the clues were only in pictures....

We had to first find that sign at Mount Royal Park. Remember when I said we took the metro everywhere? Yeah, there wasn't a metro very close to the park. When we got to the park it turned out to be a huge park. My mom and I ended up walking over 5 miles trying to locate the sign to get to the box. Luckily we were able to find it! We took a leap of faith to find this box since it was planted over a year go and didn't have any finds. I understand why now. However, we were disappointed to find out we were not the first finders. A group last September found it but it was not logged online.  

Success!!

I made an updated thing of the pictures in the clues but I forgot to get one of the pictures so enjoy my lovely digital drawing.

I suggest that if you plan on ever finding this box drive if you are willing to endure the crazy, crazy traffic. Also, the name of the box hints where its located. We ended up taking the scenic route to get the box and it was really pretty. Such a beautiful park.

It was a mountain. Lots of going up and down. My mom has a FitBit(step counter) and we did over 15,000 steps and 65 flights of stairs(walking up an incline is tracked as flights).

The second box we found was much, much easier and we had actually gone past the location the day before. The box-well, it was just a magnetic stamp- was in Old Montreal. We did a lot of window shopping around here and we tried poutine there too.

It was very European and very cool.

The stamp was very neat and cleverly hidden. You just have to watch for people since it got pretty busy. At one of the shops we got a Canada pin to go on my letterboxing bag. I was originally going to do patches but I have a tendency of changing bags so I didn't want to sew them on. I'm thinking about getting a vest to put all my patches on but I'm not sure what to get....

Over all it was a good time but I'm not sure if I'll ever want to go back for more than a day or two. I do have some complaints/things I didn't like about Montreal.

First off the city is dirtier than I expected it to be. There is a big homeless issue and most are very straight forward and/or aggressive. The first homeless guy we came across we came across started screaming at us telling us to turn around and kept doing so until we were about half a block away from him. That really freaked me and my brothers out. I know that in America we have a homeless issue too but theses guys were just so rude and up in your face(not all but a lot).

Next, I don't think I've come across a ruder group of people in my life. We all end up coming across rude people in a batch but it was like everyone was rude. People would not move out of the way. No one said "sorry" or "excuse me." People didn't respond to you when you said "sorry" or "excuse me." If you were holding hands with someone people would just walk right between you! They pushed through people but if you pushed through them since they wouldn't move, they would look at you like you were the rude one. I talked to a friend of mine who went to France this spring and she said that it was a culture thing. They don't have a lot of space in France so sidewalks and everything are crowded and they can't apologize to everyone. That's understandable but there was typically more than enough room for people to go around us but chose to plow through us! It just baffles me how rude and inconsiderate people were. They also seemed to lack any personal space

People were also rude if you didn't speak French. A lot of the people at the market were nice to us if we spoke English but a lot of people everywhere else where not nice about it at all. We were at a souvenir shop and the lady there gave us the nastiest look and was rude to us since we didn't speak French(she ws a lot nicer to the French speaking group behind us in line). I understand if we were in France we should try to communicate in French. People appreciate it if you at least try to speak their language since that is all they know, but Canada has two languages-English and French. Everything was in French, almost nothing was translated.

We decided to cut our trip short and spend some time in New York. We left Quebec and hoped over to Ontario and had dinner. We expressed to our waitress our thoughts on the rudeness and such. She said that she and her husband never go to Quebec, especially Montreal, because of how rude they are and how crazy their driving is. She said it was unCanadian of them to not have things in English too since their country has two languages.

When we got back my grandpa explained to me that Quebec has a grudge pretty much against all the rest of Canada because of the stuff that happened between the French and English. Quebec wants to be it's own country too. He said that they are rude to other Canadians that didn't speak French but we nice to people from America. That was not the case for us. There were quite a few times where we stated we were from the U.S. and they did not act any nicer to us. It was just all strange. I want to go back to Canada but probably not Quebec.

If you go and you don't know any or much French do not say hello in French. If you do so they expect you to be a french speaker and will ramble off in French. If you just say "Hello" they can tell you are an English Speaker and will most likely switch.

I am happy that we got to go and that we got to go letterboxing. That was the one thing I wanted to do before we left.

Thanks for reading! 

(and for surviving though my rant about rude people)

=(^._.^)=

Exciting News! We are Engaged!!

This weekend has been so overwhelming and exciting!

Yesterday(June 1st) Tyrus took me out letterboxing. Little did I know that he would propose!

Well here's a little back story of how we met and then started dating and such:

 

 

That pretty much sums up our relationship. Tyrus played football in the park with my brother and his friends. One day they ditched him so he and I hung out for a bit and learned we both liked Doctor Who but he had only seen a few episodes. I invited him over to watch DW and we started hanging out and eventually he asked me out. Then we learned we both letterboxed and over time we fell in love and now we are engaged.

So now here's the story,

I will be on vacation during our three year anniversary so he asked if he could take me out the day we met, June 1st. I thought it was strange since he couldn't wait for a day that we didn't have church or graduation parties to go to, but I agreed and began to get a bit suspicious.  For the past couple of weeks and even on the day of, I kept going back and forth on whether or not June 1st was the day.

We started the day at Steak & Shake for breakfast. This is our favorite place to go. After breakfast we made our way over to the Hoover Dam park. He printed out a couple of sets of clues in the area but the one we were looking for was titled "No Bologna."
Hoover Dam park is very beautiful and there were a lot of people there for a Sunday morning. I was in charge of the clues and took us the wrong way the first time but we got to meet a friendly Husky and his owner. Tyrus played along quite well during our hunt since he knew where everything
was hidden and knew where we were going.
We found the first box and here is what's inside:

I have been a first finder before and this was pretty different than what I have had before, but non the less it was pretty cool having a bunch of scrolls I couldn't open until the end.
Here are the Stamps we found:

 



 The Ferris Wheel was the first one we found. I got really excited because he asked me out on a Ferris Wheel so I thought he may be proposing.
The next one we found was a cross. Now finding this one made me really frustrated because the clues were wrong so were weren't in the right spot but we did eventually find it. It really helped make it seem like that he wasn't going to so I guess the mess up was an addition to everything but I was also confused by the cross.
Then the third one was a key, which I didn't understand either and threw me off. Then the last was a Top Hat and a rose which I also didn't know.
At the end he explained what each stamp meant:
Ferris Wheel-Where he asked me out
Cross-Our faith and how I had my heart so guarded that he had to go through Jesus to get to me
The Key-He game me the "key" to his heart
The Top Hat and Rose-All the event we have gone to and all that we will go to
It was all very clever because I didn't understand until the end.

At the end this was in the box:

 

I was kind of getting really giddy at this point. I was finally able to get out all of the scrolls and read them. They all had these little Velcro dots on them that allowed me to attach it to this card stock paper stuff. 

 

I got really excited after reading the Bible verse and the Doctor Who reference. Then there was this sheet of tracing paper that I had to lay over top of the quotes.

Mother Hen drew all of the stars and the moon and music notes and stuff which is really cool. Well when the paper was laid over the quotes it circled letters from different words. I had to press the paper down in order to see all of the letters in the circles. I read the first two words out loud,

"Will"

(My lovely ring ^-^)

 "You"

 

 

"M-A-R-R-Y Me"

 

As soon as I finished I looked up and there he was on one knee with the ring and asked me to marry him. I was sitting on a bench and I slid off of it and into his lap and just started crying(happy tear of course) and said yes.

 

I took off my promise ring that he had given me on our two year anniversary and he tried putting the engagement ring on my index finger until I asked what he was doing.

Oh I cried a lot I was so happy.

Here's the view from where he proposed:

 

This is where he proposed :)

We finally gathered everything and made it back to the car and we went to see the dam.

 





As we were walking around he began to explain how he pulled everything together. He asked Jeeves to help him from the beginning to plant the boxes. He also asked GypsyLadybug to carve the stamps. Thank you to both of you for making that day possible! It was so unbelievable!

Every time he had gone up to "help his uncle with his garden" he was actually searching for or planting the boxes with Jeeves. I just can't believe that he was able to plan something so elaborate even with the help from others. It just blew my mind how everything just came together. He had been planning all of this since February. He even asked my parents for my hand in marriage all the way back in February. I also had been sleeping under my ring for about a month or so because my parents had it in their safe.

This entire things has just been so exciting. I'm so happy. I'm also so happy of how we were able to become a part of the letterboxing community that treats everyone like family and helps people plan special days like our engagement. :')

 

 

Later we went to Jenni's ice cream at the Easton mall and hung out there for a bit.

Dark Chocolate ice cream mmmm

 



Later that day We went to my bestfriend's graduation party and she knew that he was proposing today. She sent me this before we made it to the park. She's lucky she didn't give anything away.

 

 

 

After her graduation we went to another friend's party and both she, her mother, and sister all flipped when we told them about our engagement. It was pretty funny.

 

 

So yes, this now means we will be planning a wedding. it's going to be a year or so but the time is coming. :)

 

 

~Catchow

 



Turn of the Tide

My life has been pretty busy last couple of weeks. I graduated High School last night and had my graduation party today. I graduated with a 4.0, the W.I.S.E. award(one of my schools awards), best student in visual arts(photography), part of National Honors Society, and with around 9 credit hours or so of college credit.
I am planning to attend Hocking College in the fall and get an Associate's Degree in Natural Resources Law Enforcement. In other words, I would like to be a park ranger.

I have found there is a lot of preparations for this degree. I don't' have to do a whole lot of GE courses, which is nice, but I have a lot of specific things I will be doing right off the bat. I'll be doing a lot of science classes as well as a physical fitness class every semester. This means I have to get up and start working out(oh joy). I'll be doing things like first aid, rock climbing and repelling, and equipment courses too. I think I'm really going to enjoy college.

Well, with graduation and everything I've been very busy so no letterboxing. I have seen the Eevil that has been going on. Since there seems to not be any boxes in Ohio I guess there's not too much for me to do. I have decoded the entrance riddle thing but can't figure out the username or password. I've kind of given up a bit...I may or may not try again.
Tomorrow Tyrus is taking me out letterboxing. It should be fun since we haven't gone out in a long time to letterbox. I even got some new gear and a small buddy to take along with us. It also looks like I may be going letterboxing with Mama Huntin Dog too this summer.
I do have quiet a few boxes I want to plant this summer so watch out everyone in Ohio, I have boxes comin'! However, I do need to do some maintenance too...

~Catchow

Tools, Techniques, and Treats 2014

I know. It's been forever. I'm a senior in high school and the work has been piling up and there have been so many scholarship applications and such I've had to do. Well now that we have seen the last of this winter(hopefully) it's time to get out and letterbox.

Mother Hen and I went to the Tools, Techniques, and Treats event hosted by Gypsy Ladybug and Cookie Cutter. I am so glad that we went to this event. I learned so many things that I've been wanting to learn and everyone was so helpful.

I got all of my stuff ready and together to leave Saturday morning at 7am for and hour and a half drive to Greenville. 

We decided to wait until we found a Time Hortons to stop for breakfast. I was trying to find a TH location on my phone along I-70 and just could find one. We gave up and was ready to get off the next exit for some food and low and behold a Tim Hortons. While there, eating my blue berry muffin and smoothie, I realized I forgot the suet donation for the park at home. I knew I would forget something. I always do. Luckily there was a Walmart across the street so we picked up some suet and bird seed. However, this made us late(plus we got a little lost...) and so we missed the first log making class but that was ok.

Got there and the nature center was pretty cool. It's different from the one a volunteer at but it has a lot more classroom space which was nice(plus a kitchen).
 

 

 

I tried packing all of my supplies in the fewest and smallest bags I had. I hate having so many bags and stuff when I travel. I ended up with my little scrapbook travel case full of my ink and stuff and then an old laptop bag I keep all of my carving stuff in. I also had my personal bag, magnify glass and large paper cutter. My plan was to carve at least one stamp and cut out LTC cards from card stock. Yeah that didn't happen.
 

As soon as we got there we were swarmed by people who wanted to do exchanges. After the first few exchanges I found out I grabbed the wrong logbook. I have two little orange logbooks. One is for exchanges and personal travelers and the other actually goes with one of the boxes from my event I hosted from last July. So I ended up doing all exchanges on regular paper so I could then cut and paste them into my exchange logbook.

We did a lot of exchanges for about the first two and half hours and it was a bit overwhelming. Cookie Cutter showed me how to do the acetone transfer but the images I brought were print on an inkjet printer so we had to copy the image and print it on a toner printer. The transfer was awesome but I have a inkjet printer at home so I still need to find a different type of transfer. I think I may try the parchment paper transfer. I did get to carve a little bit of my new stamp. I've decided that there are some solo LTCs I want to do so I've dropped most of the LTC trackers I'm in. 

Mother Hen got us some needle carvers and Gypsy Ladybug taught us how to carve with them. I think they are pretty cool and who would have thought that you could have using a needle! I've just been getting into knife carving, which I like, and I'm hoping that the needles will help me do the tiny detail I'm doing now. I did manage to get some more of my Bigger on the Inside stamp done to make more LTCs. I've been using StazOn ink which smells bad, is very expensive, but have a very good color to it.

Lunch was great. People are so good about separating the peanut products from the rest of the food(mostly). There was so much to eat. I love pot lucks with so many options. The night before I spend 3 hours making homemade corn bread muffins and 4 dozen of them. About 2 dozenish were eaten but that just means I have plenty for the next few days(I love cornbread). Someone made this shredded creamy potato stuff and it was soooo good. So good. There was like a million cupcakes too but I didn't have any. I didn't know if they were lemon or some other gross flavor so I spared myself from that tragedy. But with most potlucks, you eat until you are full but you want to continue eating, so it becomes a toss up of "to eat or not to eat."

After lunch was more exchanges and some chatting and such.
 

 

 We went to Cookie Cutter's paper painting class which was really cool. I'll just have to figure out what I will do for my next cards.

 

We also went to the logbook making class. I was so happy to get to learn to make log book. I've been wanting to learn how to make them. They are an upgrade from what I usually make. 
 

 

In the room we were doing classes in has some pretty cool animals in little exhibits. My favorite one was the turtle one. You could get underneath it and see the turtles from below.

 

After the classes we were planning on getting the traditional boxes at the nature center but they already took out the outdoor boxes. We ended up stamping those in at our table but we got to find the ones hidden inside.

I really enjoyed the event. On the way home we accidentally ending up in Indiana...but we were only there for a short while. We stopped at Steak 'n Shake, which was packed, and finally got home. Boy was I tiered but had such a great time. Can't wait to get some new LTCs and boxes done.

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I have a little dog names Chuck that travels with me and I'll take pictures of him and post the on Facebook. Feel free to check out his page!
 

~Catchow

SOHT 2013

It was a dark and stormy night...... Wait, no. It was a cloudy and dreary day, perfect for SOHT 2013.

This year the theme was Alfred Hitchcok movies. It was cold and cloudy and we were out in the country. Perfect setting for a horror movie. But fear not! 'Twas just a bunch of letterboxers gathering together for an event. No murders or ghosts.... Well, there were 13 ghost there that night...

 Tyrus and I piled into his parent's new car the morning of October 12, 2013. It was very cold and luckily the fire was going by the time we arrived. Eventually it got warm and sunny. This year the entire event was held at Cat's place, which I liked much better. We weren't running around or getting lost this year.

This year I wore my tail to the event. People got a kick out of that and the kids had fun playing "Pin the Cootie on Catchow's Tail." Half of the time I forgot I was even wearing my tail.

 

Food. FOOD. I love events so much because of the food. People were ever so kind to label food with peanuts so I wouldn't eat them. No trip to the hospital for me! Pretty much everyone picked at the food the entire day. There was more than enough to go around. I really liked these rice crispy pumpkin treats someone made. However, it had a tootsie roll in it for a stem and I don't like those, so I gave them to Tyrus.

 The day trails were pretty cool. Tyrus and I went with a couple of other letterboxers to find one of the two day trails. It was fun letterboxing with people you don't normally letterbox with. It was also nice that I wasn't reading the clues. What I liked about this trail we did was that there were these crows at most of the boxes.

When we returned we had lunch and then went on the second day trail with Tyrus' parents. It was his dad's first time being at an event for the entire time. It was interesting letterboxing with his parents. It was a first boxing with both of them.

 

The trails were so pretty during the day. I love Autum so much. The property was beautiful and the rebuilt houses were so cool. It was so tranquil except for the neighbor's dog that wouldn't stop barking!!

 

The nice thing about arriving at the beginning is getting all exchanges out of the way so you can hang out for the rest of the time. Although, you still end up doing exchanges throught the day but not in one big chunk that takes up most of the event. I love seeing everyone' signature stamp. It's so interesting.

 Night boxing. Oh night boxing. We were the third or fourth group this year to go. Last year Tyrus, Indiana Tim and I were the last to go. Indiana Time wasn't able to make it this year due to car troubles. Oh well.

Tyrus, his father, and I were on our toes the entire time while boxing. Mother Hen read the clues while the three of us scanned the woods for anyone who wanted to try to scare us. Tyrus's father was a military cop, Tyrus is in school to be a cop and has had some training, and I'm going to be studying to be a park ranger.we all were pretty much acting like cops on a search while we were boxing. We found the two just about every time and avoided being scared. However, when we finished the trail, that's when he got me. Came up behind me and scared the living crap out of me. I spun around and almost socked him in this face. Luckily, for him, Tyrus had his arm around me and so I wasn't able to go through with the punch.

 

All the stamps were excellent like always. Some of my favorite stamps were actually personal travelers. There were a couple of trail stamps the got me on a rant about some of Stephen King's movie... That's a story for another time.

 

I want to say thanks to all that carved. An event isn't the same without stamps and I know as a host, you don't have a time to carve a dozen or so stamps. I wished I could have helped out but I didn't know anything about Alfred Hitchock and his movies.

 

I really liked the 13 ghost night trail based off a movie about 12 ghosts trapped in a house and they needed 13th to open something that led to something bad. I don't know. I want to see the movie though.

 

I had fun this year. I can't wait until next year where I will seek my revenge(muhahaha).

And next year it should be Supernatural(the TV show) themed. *hint* *hint*


If you want to see more pictures from SOHT 2013, check out my Event Photos tab here on my blog!

~Catchow