Family History Search for Smileys ... a cache published in honor of family and veterans for Memorial Day Weekend 2019.
The inspiration for this hide, including the naming of the cache, is inspired by my family. When StarPop and I first started caching our own children were already adults. They all had young children of their own. As of last November we regaled in the birth of our first great-grandchild ... a lovely girl, the spitting image of her mother.
The Family History part of the name is because .....
...throughout the growing up years of our grandchildren we were blessed to serve in the role of surrogate parents. Two lived with us, with their mother, from birth thru 18 years of age. Two others, Navy children, lived with us during deployment of their parents. The fifth also spent several cumulative years of living with us during summers and some school years. The sixth grandchild is in a position to ask me to come stay with his family in Russellville for extended periods of time. I am very happy to oblige.
Our relationship with the grandkids has been joyful and rewarding. Part of the fun times with the grandkids in particular was thru geocaching. During one year four of them were with us, all on different schedules. After we dropped off the older kids off at school the younger ones would want to play in any park for a while before lunch, naps, and picking up the older kids. Geocaching presented the perfect opportunity to find all the parks in our area. I never dreamed there were so many pocket parks tucked in neighborhoods, just calling for geocache placements or opportunity to find existing ones. We had a blast doing that.
By-the-way, since cemeteries are also "my thing" we visit cemeteries ... hopefully with caches ... quite frequently. They all share my love of visiting cemeteries, with appropriate respect shown.
We also did other caching with all four kids in tow. The youngest usually could find them before the rest of us were out of the truck (from an toddler viewpoint.) The kids learned mapping, compass reading, awareness of surroundings, being invisible, and so many other skills that serve them well.
So far none of them have become passionate about geocaching in general, but they all still appreciate going out with their grandparents from time to time. They all have had some terrific creative ideas for cache placement and cache building.
That's the part of the Family History of our three-going-on-four generations of geocaching. Now, for the Family Search part ....
...those five older grandkids are all now in their mid teens to mid twenties (15 to 25). They know that next to geocaching I love to research anything. Mostly, I love genealogy with equal passion to geocaching. In my mind, the two are interchangeable words and activities. I use hints to seek Treasures from the Past.
I have been absolutely thrilled in recent years to have those kids asking me to help them learn about their Family History and how to do the research. We have been having a blast sharing the experience over long distances (gosh, grandkids grow up and move away!!!!). One of the resources we all have for family research is similar to the one that is near to this cache. That is how I picked this spot.
Smileys part ....
...if you haven't figured it out, the memories of our experiences and time together has created a lifelong bond between grandparents and grandchildren in particular. We all share stories and smiles. They have come to appreciate Family * History * Search *with Smileys.
With their lives progressing others have joined our core family. Several of them also geocached when younger (with their respective foundation families). Like my own most of them geocache but are too lazy to log their finds. They just don't care about the recording of numbers when they have the important parts etched in their memories. Go figure!
My co-owner on this particular cache is a new account name set up by blending (marriage) of the members of my son's family. They are "permanent" Russellville residents. When I am not physically here spending time with them they will take care of any cache issues. Please contact me first ... I'm more available for online questions, etc. They will take care of the physical issues that may arise.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your interest, and, in advance, for your visit if you choose to find this cache.I appreciate your logs.