A Real, Live Treasure Hunt

There is nothing that kids like better than going treasure hunting. So on this past, beautiful, Sunday afternoon, I packed all 5 kids up, and went out in search of new letterboxes. (In the fall, we found a couple of letterboxes, and the kids have wanted to go searching ever since.......) I won't give away the locations, just in case you decide to go letterboxing yourself, but we followed the clues we found at letterboxing.org. We found TWO letterboxes, one in midtown and one in about 5 miles south of our house. One of the letterboxes, as you can see below, was actually hanging in a bush, right at Kami's eye level. She and Hallie and Ellie peered into the bush, but she was the one who discovered it. Then, the chaos ensued as the kids scrambled to stamp their notepads with the stamp in the letterbox. Each of them were then able to stamp the notepad in the letterbox with their own stamp, which represents their personality. You don't sign your name, just give your "handle."

Here are the kids handles:

Kami - Moon Beam

Ellie - Happy Lemur

Luke - Hot Wheels (real original, huh?)

Hallie - Bouncing Bunny

Lauren - Beautiful Bird

More information can be found on letterboxing HERE.

A Great Family Outing

I read about Letterboxing in Family Fun magazine and never really thought it would be something we could do right here in lil' ol' Tulsa, Oklahoma. I thought only places like California would have letterboxes placed. When I logged on to letterboxing.org, though, I was amazed that there are about 15 existing boxes in our city alone, with dozens more in surrounding areas. So we got our supplies together, followed the clues, and searched, truly searched until we found the well-hidden boxes, one near Hunter Park and the other near ORU. The kids, especially Kami, LOVED it. It was a real treasure hunt, and the reward was stamping our books with the discovered stamps. This first picture shows the squirrel stamp we found at our first stop, and the praying hands we found at the second stop. If you have NO IDEA what I'm talking about, (I had NEVER heard of such a thing myself) you can find an explanation of it here. It is apparently a 150 year old activity and has really become popular in America in the last few years. I'm sure the internet has a lot to do with that. But our whole family enjoyed it; even Luke got into the action, stamping his notebook. We are thinking about planting a letterbox of our own somewhere. But we'll never tell where.... you'll have to follow the clues!!!