Treasure Seekers

CONCENTRATE: Right out of the gate this morning, the kids and I played a "concentration" style game where you had to turn over (virtual) cards, but instead of matching two pictures, you had to match a picture with a word that describes it - for instances a thermometer and the word "temperature" or a measuring cup and the word "capacity." The game - along with dozens of others - was on the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Web site.

We also played a couple of games that are tie-ins to their first grade textbooks, but they were way too easy, so we bumped up to second grade, which was a bit more challenging. One of the exercises was a slideshow related to fire fighting. It showed a series of photos, and then would ask the kids for related ideas. For instance, a photo of a ladder truck was shown and the narrator said, "Working with your partner, talk about some of the things firefighters might use the ladder for."

I liked that it encouraged the kids to brainstorm ideas amongst themselves - and they worked nicely together. (Regarding the ladder, Annabelle suggested it might be to help them rescue pets stuck up trees, while CJ reasoned it could be used to rescue people on upper floors of burning buildings.)

TEAM GREEN: It was a gorgeous day outside and I decided we were going to get plenty of fresh air today. I'd been meaning to bushwhack the laurels, roses and blackberries that are trying to overtake the alley. I decided today would be the day, and figured with their Earth Corps work crew experience from Saturday, Bee and CeeJ would be big help on the project. Yeah, well, what I found interesting (and a tad irritating, actually) was that they were totally NOT into it and not really much help at all.

However, they did get in at least an hour's worth of good exercise (scooting, biking and running around) which has real value, and it seemed appropriate since Michelle Obama recently rolled out her campaign to battle childhood obesity. More exercise = a good thing!

GOIN' ON A TREASURE HUNT: In yesterday's Seattle Times, I read about a Seattle man who started hiding vouchers redeemable for a small ($25) amount of cash around town - sort of a random act of kindness thing. He posts clues on his Web site (SeattleTreasure.com). Checking it, we learned that a treasure was hidden right here in Magnolia!

Clearly, a treasure hunt had to be on today's to do list. The clues we had to work with were as follows:
Hint 01/26/10: Part of this neighborhood is named after a man who died sometime in the 1890's.
Hint 02/03/10: This Seattle neighborhood is isolated from the rest of Seattle, cut off by train tracks. (This is what cued me in to the fact that it had to be in our neighborhood, Magnolia)
Hint 02/06010: In a normal treasure hunt, "X" marks the spot. For this treasure, a piece of tape marks the Spot.
We were given this photo as a clue. We knew it would be in a public place, and clearly it was outside, so parks came to mind first and foremost. We started off at "our" park, Bayview, checking the perimeter of the concrete restroom. No dice. From there, we checked four other parks. No dice. We cruised through "The Village" ('downtown' Magnolia), looking for concrete walls meeting sidewalks. We saw those, but nothing like this.

And we checked the library. On the way to the library I told the kids, 'I think I know where it is. It's at the Ballard (Chittenden) Locks." There are tons of concrete walkways and walls there. So, we headed for the locks and within 10 seconds of leaving the car, I knew we were in the right place. These thingees (sidewalk lights, as it turned out) were located about every 30 feet or so along the walkway.

We excitedly made our way around the park, checking every one of these pathlights (around 50 in all, I suppose) that we found throughout the park. None of them had a piece of tape by them, as was the case in the picture. Frankly, I didn't really expect the tape to be there, given the lights are outdoors/in the elements and the first clue was more than a couple weeks old.

We know the park pretty well and I am confident we saw each light. I was a little less confident that Annabelle and CJ had given every one a thorough once over. ... We left the park with no treasure, but we felt pretty good about at least figuring out where the treasure was hidden.

We reported our findings to Christian when he got home and we decided to give it one last go (the locks are less than 5 minutes from our house). Photo clue in hand, this go round we found THE exact path light depicted in the clue, thanks to Christian who had the idea to look for a golden toned rock in the concrete wall to the right of the light that he spotted in the photo. We found that about 10 lights into our hunt this time.

Alas, the treasure was nowhere to be seen, but it was an educational, fun adventure nonetheless. (It's always great to visit the Locks - today the Victoria Clipper was passing through while we were searching.)

And now we have "the fever." We'll definitely check out other hunts featured on the SeattleTreasure Web site.