Micah and Samuel almost share a birthday, with Samuel's birthday being the day before Micah's. This being the case, and my struggle with planning well in general....I barely pulled off both of their birthday's this year. It didn't help that we were at the tail end of a 2 month project of finishing our basement. The carpet was laid the day of Micah's birthday party and finished within 10 minutes of us having to leave! It all worked out though.....sort of.
I had planned for us to go "letterboxing". A form of treasure hunting where people bury boxes in public parks and leave directions on how to find them on a website devoted to the hobby. In the box is a homemade stamp that you can stamp in your own blank book, to keep a log of sorts of all the boxes you've found. Here Micah is reading the clues (and clicking his fingernails...yes, clicking. He bites them, but not off, just enough to make a clicking sound that is SO irritating!)
This person had buried and left directions for three boxes. Here we are, off through the East Meadow, in search of box number 2. Box number 1 was nowhere to be found. The directions sent us to "three fallen trees" and when we turned to look, about 20 trees were fallen in that area. A storm must have passed through since the directions were given on the website. Bummer. We weren't too disappointed though, as we were off to find box number 2.
Pine cone wars abounded which made everything much more fun anyways.
And signs of Spring were all around. Yipee! Fall used to be my favorite season...but no more. It's definitely Spring.
We took a short cut through some very dense grass so the men and young men heaved those strollers over the unpassable ground.
Signs of a recent horseback ride dotted the trail through the meadow.
Now into the woods we go. The directions said to walk for "a while" and then look to the right for a tree that was hollowed from the ground up. After "a while" we became concerned that the directions were a bit too vague.
So we just kept walking.
And walking.
Some members of our party grew tired. Really tired.
But I was determined that maybe we hadn't walked "a while" long enough...and so we ventured on. This may be the spot where we saw about 8 deer in the forest. Beautiful they were!
At the bottom of the long, winding hill, we discovered our "treasure". A beautiful meandering creek.
(Box number 2 was never discovered)
I'm not sure what all the fuss was about, but my friend Kelli really had a LOT of fun hopping up and down on this fallen tree. It was a natural trampoline of sorts and provided (her) abundant entertainment.
At the end of our adventure Kaleb took a dip in the water. Apparently the small twig of a tree that he was holding on to, wasn't quite as strong as he thought. Upon leaning all his weight into it, the tree leaned all the way down and dipped him into the creek. It was quite humorous!
After much prodding by my husband to hurry along in the forest, for it would soon be dark, we made it back to the meadow...to a beautiful sunset....to the sights of more deer along the forest's edge....and to home again.
Pizza was collected, a phone was lost and found again, children wrestled and delighted in the great expanse of a playroom now ready for them in a basement long finished, and the traditional ice cream cake was shared by all.
Happy Birthday our dear Micah. We love you dearly.
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