Treasure Hunt

To those who were wondering, yes, this was a treasure hunt :-) My computer's internet connection went out before I could write captions! We had a good day yesterday. A lot of cleaning was done, although you can't tell! Isabella put together a picnic lunch and we went to their favorite park. We ate, and then took the dogs over to the dog park. Which happens to not be my favorite place :-) Off to home to get a meal sent to a family in church. Then we ate ourselves. My girls love to do treasure hunts. Most of our hunts are very simple. Just some written notes they have to figure out. The treasure is simple too. What ever snacky food we have on hand, like marshmallows, graham crackers or the like. But yesterdays hunt took the cake. I made up a few puzzles for them to do. And their treasure was much more substantial. Come along with us on our hunt!



The girls were armed with their enthusiasm and a flashlight. It was late out, past their bed time by the time I was done with the clues. It didn't help that the baby wouldn't settle down to sleep. But alas, the fun was about to begin. Jeremiah gave them their first clue. Which sent them to the microwave. It took them a while to figure out his clue!

Here is their first puzzle to solve. And it was a PUZZLE. This led them here:

The next clue was under Flannery's pillow (on the top bunk). And for those people who notice such things, please note that the beds have sheets on them :-) This clue was met by mixed emotions. Ha, ha. Being Labor day we had the day off of school....sort of. This clue had to be solved by finding the answers to the addition, subtraction and multiplication problems. Each number stood for a letter. Then they were able to read the clue. Hey have fun and count it as school ;-)
The flash was a bit too bright for the white paper. If you are able to click on the picture to make it bigger you can see their math work.


The next clue was in the dryer. It sent them to the computer to find this jibberish. Some of the clues had the tools that they would need for their next clue. So the clue in the dryer had this little red plastic square with it. The girls were most perplexed. More so when they saw this red squibbly mess of a clue.

With a little prompting they were able to use the square as it was intended. I had used a light blue colored pencil to write the message. Then we used a red colored pencil to make squibbles all over the letters to block out the message. But by placing a translucent red square over it they were able to read the message! Totally cool! This message sent them to Jed's tractor.

Saoirse got to open this one. This was the first clue to send them outside in the dark! Saoirse didn't care for the night time hunt scene. So she stayed inside, only venturing out for a moment.

Ahh, they found it under the cat food bowl. It is hard to see these puzzles, but this is a word puzzle they had to solve to find the next clue. The next clue led them to....

....dog house! Hey, watch out, you better behave or you'll be sleeping in it :-) Just joking. They got the next clue which was in their dad's truck. But hey, check out what the dog house clue contained....

....some handy dandy secret decoders!! Ohhh, aren't you jealous? Printed them from online.

Here are the girls using their handy dandy secret decoders. Too bad mommy wasn't as smart as the decoders as I messed up the messages a bit. Not too bad, but a pretty silly mistake on my part. I broke the message up in half so that the girls could work in teams. That way each girl was involved in the process. We do have problems of certain older children taking over. So I made sure each puzzle clue had something they could all do. This clue sent them to their last clue destination. It was outside on the big rock. I don't have any fancy pictures of that, so just use your imagination. The rock clue led them to the treasure....at last!

Here they are "digging" out the treasure. See, there is the fussy, fussy baby who didn't want to go to sleep.

And here they are holding up their loot. A truck book for Jed (who was sleeping as it was waaaayyyy past his bed time). Two reading books for the olders to read to the youngers or for our learning reader to start doing some more reading. And a fancy dancy computer thingie to make up house plans. I know that last one sounds odd, but Isabella is totally into making up house and barn plans. Arranging the furniture and stalls and water spigots and all sorts of things. She made this HUGE plan that she taped to the wall. It was amazing to say the least. So I am sure she will be spending lots of time with this!

So there you have it, our treasure hunt. Today will be more cleaning. I really don't know how this happens...the mess that is. The baby is now sleeping so I am going to tackle my kitchen. The girls will do school and then maybe we'll go outside later. I am really, really, REALLY seriously thinking of paring down like in the post I linked you all to the other day. I am sure my lack of being able to stay on top of things does have something to do with having a wee babe. But still, I really can't stand how quick things spiral into chaos over here. So I may pull a few boxes down and just start pitching things in. I do have the advantage of putting things up in the unfinished space to deal with later, which is what I really want to do for now. Get this STUFF up there out of our way! Then deal with it all later when we have control of things.

By the way, Moira would like you all to stop by her blog to check out her new post :-)