A Hunting We Will Go!

We finally had some really pretty weather here this weekend. It was warm enough to get outside, finally, so we did.

Josh spent the night at a friend's house on Friday. He stayed up too late and got up too early (of course) so we wanted to take it easy but still get outside. So in the afternoon we headed over to a local park. It was really nice being outside in the fresh air and just the thing both the kids needed to expend enough energy to tire out their bodies!

The weather on Sunday was even nicer than Saturday so we got up and headed out to our local Georgia State Park for a walk. Now normally when we go for a walk, the boys complain so we wanted to make it fun for them. We decided to have a Nature Scavenger Hunt with a "Treasure" at the end.

They were so excited! This was a stroke of genius if I do say so myself! I found a website that had lots of different ideas and lists. I edited this list and printed up copies for the boys, packed up pencils, water and a snack and we were off!

Sam inspecting the list. "Hmmm... What do we need?"

Eagle eye Josh finds "something orange" right away! I thought this would be the hardest one, but nope. First thing!

Checking to see what floats. Where we are standing is normally underwater. We watched fish jump up and catch flies one year where we are now standing. The drought has really lowered the lake levels and reduced this part to nothing more than a stream.

The boys each picked something to see if it would float -- Josh's stick floated and Sam's pinecone got stuck in the mud. But then it floated once Daddy "unstuck" it!

The "Future Scientist" writing down his findings.

Some other things on the list that I got photos of were: a tree with no leaves, something an animal would eat, something pointy (also worked for something brown), and something green.

Once the boys found all 17 items on their list, they found a treasure!

For a smart kid, sometimes Josh amazes me! He could not figure out how the "treasure" got there -- even though he practically caught Rich putting it there! And he kept wondering who put it there.

In the end we decided it must have been the Woodland Faeries!

And you know, the "treasure" the Faeries left looks just like the coins Santa left in their stocking! Imagine that!

Sam was quick on the uptake though. He said, "Thank you Mommy and Daddy for my chocolate!"

We continued on with our walk and stopped a bit later for a snack.

Finally, we reached the end of the trail!
See, I did go on the walk too!

Josh declared himself the "winner" and then it was time to go home for lunch!

We had a great time -- the boys thought the scavenger hunt was fantastic! The website I found has lots of ideas for future scavenger hunts too.

Next time, I may do a different one for Josh and Sam. I may have a place for them to draw what they see or put pictures on Sam's list so he knows what he's looking for. Make it a bit more age appropriate!

But it was lots of fun and definitely worth doing again!