The past week was eventful without any of the usual excursions into the surrounding attractions. We did some things we knew from home. Savannah played a soccer game, I rode in an organized bicycle event, and well all found one cache. 
Savannah has joined the local National Youth Sports(NYS) soccer team with some positive feedback from the coach. The team is formed of all the new kids to soccer and the left overs from the previous team. They play co-ed and this piqued Savannah's interest initially. She poured out her effort straining to impress her abilities upon all the team mates. The boys tend to keep the ball for themselves and rarely pass to the girls. We had one evening where the boys refused to pass to the girls leaving Savannah somewhat frustrated. She held her composure on the field, passing and attacking the ball as her ability allowed. Every time the boys had the ball and she was in position they would dribble into trouble and leave Savannah fuming in their wake. We encouraged her to play the ball where she saw the play develop on the field and try not to let the boys bring her down. She fumed the whole evening. Dumb boys! She played well in the game, playing half the time as forward and half in goalie. The team held their own with a 0-3 loss.
We managed to go to the park that evening long enough for the huge moon to pop up over the eastern mountains. Sophie tried her hand at driving the school bus and the fire truck. I think she may have a future in the driving vocation. It was a bright, beautiful moon shrouded in purple and pink dusk light. The photos prove how the full moon affects Savannah making her face contort into goofy expressions. I think she gets that directly from the Townsend full moon genes.
The full moon show broke our appetites wide open and we went to Native New Yorker for pizza and wings, Savannah had a hamburger. The wait was forty five minutes due to everyone planted in their seats in full view of twelve large HDTV's displaying the Arizona Cardinals play off game. It was nice to see Kurt Warner doing so well. I was reminded of the successful years he had in St. Louis and the excitement of following the team to the Super Bowl. I hope they can go all the way. I have a few patients counting on at least one more victory. The crowd was loud and vigorous cries, whoops and hollers rang out with nearly every play. Sophia and Shane had to cover their ears with a pained look in their eyes. They persisted with questions of why these people were making so much noise. We tried to explain but were drowned out by all the cheering. The whole scene was magnificently joyous.
While working in Sacaton a co-worker described the fancy feast of cycling fun that is the Casa Grande Century. The ride is 100 miles of prime desert riding divided in the options of 32, 64, and 100 miles. I decided to commit to the 64 miles. I thought at least I could claim riding a metric century and soak up some of this Arizona bicycling adventure. The ride was put on by the Phoenix Metro Cycling Club, a local bicycling club sponsoring rides weekly. I decided in November I would have plenty of time to train up and glide through sixty miles without a second thought. Horton where were you? I rode, pedal breathe, pedal, pedal, pedal breathe, look at the cool bike passing me, pedal, pedal, pedal, look at the scrub brush, pedal, more flat road, pedal, pedal. The ride was uneventful. The morning temp was 46 and I thought the sun would be up burning off the chill early. The sun came up and the chill persisted. Everyone passing me said "are you cold" eyeing my goose fleshed arms and mottled fingertip. Of course I replied I was a 'little chilly" but damn cold was the truth. My arms were freezing. I hadn't worked in Sacaton for a month so the guy I was going to ride with was either gone or a no show. I hadn't ridden more than 8 miles in the past two months and I made the turn at 16 miles with the decision of hanging my head and turning back for the 32 miler or pushing on into at least three more hours of the pedal, pedal, look at brush, pedal thing. I decided to turn back and only did the 32 miler. Some of you may be saying well you did 32 miles that's good while Jevans s saying you wimp, only 32 miles? It was fun and gruellingly boring at the same time.
I made it home with plenty of time for the family to salvage the day with some activity around the town. We decided to go geocaching. Traci found some cache sites, the kids geared up and off we went. The first one was at a park in Chandler north of our home. We drove out an Traci navigated us north to a eastern turn where I was going to look for Sycamore St. After 10 minutes on the road I asked just where Sycamore might be, back west or further east. After some consultation with the GPS we decided we had gone into Mesa and missed the turn completely. We programmed the coordinated in the GPS and headed off in the right direction. We pulled up to a little roadside park, tumbled out of the car and began searching. The GPS wasn't cooperating and we canvassed from one side of the small park to the other. Once we established a mutual 
understanding with the GPS we quickly homed in on the site of the cache, dug in the gravel, climbed in some trees and eventually declared the cache must have been misplaced or removed!
Moving on we headed back to Sycamore Street. This time the turn east led us directly to Sycamore Street, only a block from the turn. The cache had been left in a roadside green space near a neighborhood. We marked the land where the coordinates were closest to agreeing with the GPS and criss-crossed the bushes, trees, rocks, and trash. When the youngest declared we had another failure on our hands we saw the cache stuffed inside a bush. We collected the notebook documenting our victory then ate lunch. Another cache proved to be elusive to our searching and we headed home as Shane really wanted to swim.
Shane only swam for a quick twenty minutes with Sophia in tow while Savannah began her preparations for her visit home. We pray for her safe return . She is very excited to see her friends and family again. We'll be happy to have her visit with everyone. Her itinerary is completely booked making her trip look more like a job than a little vacation. She has planned visits to friends, family, shopping, games, and luxurious pampering at the hands of her capable and adoring grandparents. They will treat her so well it ma take a couple of months to bring her back down from star princess status to eldest sibling. We hope everyone enjoys visiting with her.
