Labor Day Hike

We went out looking for two boxes, but came away empty-handed, so Brown Eyes took us to her first ever letterbox. We still had fun, and saw lots of neat natural things. Mugsy McGee is here with us and is a lot of fun. He was trying to show Brown Eyes how to read her compass.

Tweeter takes Alaska!

Hi!I arrived safely to Anchorage, Ak. Brown Eyes and K were very excited to see me. We spent the first day getting to know each other and doing exchanges. I stamped in a postal Brown Eyes got the same day I got here. Today was more fun. We mailed out the postal and then got 2 letterboxes. These 2 were in the public library. How cool is that! here are some pics.

I also helped plant a new letterbox!! Brown Eyes kept saying it was 27 steps but I told her it was 30 since she fudged 3 steps when she almost fell in the mud going down the hill.

lots of love~Tweeter

Tweeter the Magnificent

Beware! I am Tweeter the Magnificent, the mighty Wizard! At least that is what I got to be this morning. Nitrocat made costumes for all of the buddies: Pinky was a princess and Frankie was a Knight. My wizard costume has a sparkly cape, a pointy hat with a funny sprig at the top and a golden wand with a jewel in it. We told stories and acted them out and it was very silly.
We also got to finish the King's Ransom series that we started with the Kittens and Nitrocat's nephews a couple of weeks ago. We battled humidity and mosquitoes mostly, but we found and defeated the Dragon, rescued Princess Karis, and received a reward of a golden rose. We also did something extra and found a new buddy for the Dragon Phystax so that he would stop being lonely and kidnapping princesses to keep him company.
I'm a little sad though. Frankie and Pinky Poo are leaving me tomorrow. I have had so much fun meeting them and playing with them. I will miss them, but Stacy said that Bob the Turtle will be here shortly and then the fun will start all over again! In the meantime, we will work on our night time boxes.
Later!

Quick Update

Today was a bit exciting. We got to exchange stamps with Kirby. He has a two-sided personal traveler that makes you get ink all over you when you stamp it. And there was a really scary storm with lots of loud lightning. And Nitrocat told us that she has a surprise for us tomorrow! She felt bad that she wasn't going to get to take us to the Faire like she had planned, so she is working on "something else," but she won't tell us what. We'll find out in the morning, I guess.
Frankie and Pinky Poo will be heading on to their next hosts this week, but Nitrocat said I get to stay a bit longer. We have been learning about how to make a letterbox that you have to hunt for at night and she said she needs my particular talents to plant it. We have decided what the box is going to be about and she is looking for the image to carve. She also said she wants to find a glow-in-the-dark marker and "fire tacks", whatever they are. If it goes well, she said it may even become a series. This will be fun!
I will write again when we find out about the Surprise!

Modern Art

(from July 30)

We spent the day yesterday lying around in the air conditioning trying to recover from our trip this weekend. We had a great time even though it was very hot and humid! We went to Rockford with Nitrocat and met a couple of her letterboxing friends, Pastor's Wife and Prairie Dog. Pastor's Wife lives near Rockford and took us all around to find some really neat boxes.
I really liked it at the Sinnissippi Gardens near the Rock River. There were modern sculptures throughout the park, as well as a rose garden and greenhouses. The red sculpture is just called Symbol and the other is the Rockford Crab. Pinkie Poo liked the floral clock there too.
We saw lots of wildlife, including two fawns, a Bald Eagle, a Barred Owl and a Great Horned Owl (the birds were in cages), and butterflies everywhere!
We found 17 boxes in all, including one with a cuckoo clue. The stamps were all fantastic, and one of them had a funny story about someone falling in the hole of an outhouse!
It was a wonderful day and we got home just as it got dark.
Nitrocat picked up the book about Silverwing and we are going to start reading it tonight. She said we will start working on our night time box this week.
Until later,
Tweeter

Exploring Nature the Easy Way!

(from July 23)

We are resting up after a busy weekend and I thought I would send some pictures and let you know what we have been doing. We went to Nelson Lake on Friday morning, but Frankie is going to write about that. When we finished there, we picked up some lunch and drove to the Red Oak Nature Center in North Aurora. Nitrocat wanted to check on a missing box for a friend and then let the kittens explore the nature center. The Fox River had flooded recently and the spot where the box should have been was in pretty bad shape. We searched through the mud and debris, but did not have any luck finding the box.
So Kirby took a nap in the car (Nitrocat left the air on for him) and we all went inside. There was a really big scale model of a section of the Fox River, the nature center, bike trails and a small cave. Then there were also some small rooms that were designed to look like the inside of a leaf, the inside of a tree trunk and underground. As you walked through them, you learned about the parts of a leaf, the different layers and rings of a tree and some of the things that you might find if you dug underground. The kittens really liked it and skipped from room to room even though they had already walked a long ways that morning.
There was also a room with a special bee hive attached to the wall where you could watch the bees working. That was really neat to see! Another room had tanks and cages of the different animals that you might see living along the river. My favorite was the soft shelled turtle. Just his pointy nose was sticking out of the sand, but there was a picture we could see and his shell looks like a pancake!
When we finished at the nature center, Nitrocat decided that even though we hadn't found any letterboxes she would take us all home. She said we had been such good sports that we could stop at the video store for movies and she'd get pizza for supper. She also got some special bandaids for J's blisters.
Pinky Poo is going to tell about what we did on Saturday. I'll write more later.
Miss you,
Tweeter

PS-Nitrocat says that the picture of the leaf room is really not very good at all, but she only took one.

Rain, Rain, Go Away....

I just wanted to let you know what we have been up to since I wrote last. Combine Kid and Fast Track, who are Nitrocat's letterboxing nephews, came over a couple days ago (they just live next door) so that we could exchange with them. We forgot to do it when we went letterboxing with them last Friday.
Yesterday morning there was a big storm, so it wasn't safe to have the computer on and we were all bored. The two cats, Caper and Moppett, were fighting with the puppy, Kirby (Nitrocat says he is a purebred mutt, but he looks like a Border Collie to me) and making a terrible racket. And the girls were arguing and complaining. Finally, Nitrocat decided that she had had enough. The cats went in the basement, the puppy went in his crate, the girls started a video and the buddies went in the kitchen to stamp postals in our logbooks. Then Frankie had this great idea that we cootie Pinky Poo. When she discovered it she was none too happy. She stormed off promising revenge.
With another day of rain we were about ready to go stir crazy, but we found Nitrocat's stash of cooties left over from a gathering in Columbus, OH. It was like an explosion! Cooties were flying everywhere, and we pulled out the carving supplies to bring in reinforcements. But then Nitrocat found a whistle and quickly took control again. She efficiently organized a cootie event, complete with it's own event stamp and then we had to take a nap!
Nitrocat's plans are to take us letterboxing on Friday -- she is still working on reaching her goal of 100. On Saturday, if the weather cooperates, we are going to a Ren Faire. I'm not exactly sure what that is, but she hinted at there being letterboxes. Right now they are off at swim lessons and I think Frankie is up to no good again....
More later!