Letterboxing

I'm interrupting my topical "Post of the Day" series with a post about yesterday's family outing.  Daddy took some vacation days this week.  We were so excited to play with him outside.  March has been SO nice this year.  Temperatures have been up in the 80s some days, but of course the week Daddy is home with us they drop down to the 40s.  Really? Boo!!!!!  Wednesday was supposed to be in the 70s, but rainy.  So we planned on hanging out at home most of the week with a possible trip to the library for story time.  Wednesday came and the sky was blue as can be.  So, that afternoon we decided to go Letterboxing.  Has anyone heard of this?  My friend Krista told me about it, and it is awesome!  Here is a link with more information about it. Letterboxing All you need is a stamp, ink, notebook and pen.  We thought it would be fun to make a "family" stamp to use for this so Daddy and his special girl went to the store to buy an eraser and brainstormed ideas for a stamp.  C decided that a lion would be best.  After Daddy made the stamp we set out with our clues to find a letterbox.

We followed the trail up to the Nature Center and took a little break to look at a turtle and some other stuffed animals that are native to our area.

We then got back to the trail to find our "treasure."  C is a big Blue's Clues fan.  So she was so excited to carry around her own "notebook" and follow clues.

There were a lot of stairs on the trail.  Little man needed to hold Daddy's hand going down them since he still crawls/slides down the stairs at home.

One of the clues was to follow a certain path that was noted by a symbol.  We told C to keep an eye out for it.  She was so excited when we found our first one.

We finally made it to the hiding place!

The trail name of the people who left the Letterbox hidden here is The Pirates.  C was SO confused.  She still thinks that it was real pirates who left "the treasure" there in the woods.  They actually left a little bracelet in there for the first people who found the letterbox.

Here's a picture of the sweet stamp Daddy made.  I'm impressed even if you're not because I have not artistic ability for that kind of stuff.

And then we let C stamp our notebook with the stamp left in the letterbox.

We sat down and shared a little trail mix snack before we headed back to our car.  J man was pretty worn out from the hike in so he got to ride Dad's shoulders on the way back.  I think it's the happiest he was for the entire outing.

Have you been letterboxing?  If not, go do it!  It's so fun and we will definitely be doing it again.