Monday, September 1, 2008

Letterboxing

Well it was the last day of summer at the Hendrickson house. It was also dad and kids day. Dean and the boys spent the day with Uncle Jason and Jordan and Caleb. (I stayed home and got some much needed housework done without any interuption). The dads and kids ventured out on their first letterboxing trip. What is letterboxing? Well awhile ago, I saw an article in Family Fun magazine. People all over the world have hidden boxes and then leave clues on the internet site (http://www.letterboxing.org/) about how to find them. Aunt Toni found clues to a few boxes hidden in our area so the adventure started today. Inside each box there is usually a rubber stamp and a notebook. When you find a box, you stamp your own notebook with the stamp from the box and then you can leave your stamp and a note in their notebook. Then you bury the box again for the next person to find. Anyway, the kids LOVED this activity and they ended up finding three boxes today. Dean said that the stamps they found looked like whoever put them there probably made them. Unfortuately, the last stamp was missing from its box so Dean took a picture of a picture of it stamped in its own book (see below)



They also spent some time skipping rocks at Larrabee State Park and then the tried to go bowling but went for ice cream at a local favorite, Mallard's, instead when the bowling alley wasn't going to be open until much later. It was a fun filled day for them and they are now sleeping peacefully getting ready for their first day of school tomorrow.

1 comment:

laurie in maine said...

We discovered letterboxing in June - much fun! We hiked a school nature trail on Labor Day and found a box that had been planted by the 1st grade teacher and her class!!

For the box that had a missing stamp you can log in at the LbNA site you linked to or Atlas Quest (.com) and report the missing part to the owner/planter of the box. A quick peek for myself showed 2 or 3 possibilities by the same name. Your clue printer - Aunt Toni :) - might already know how to do this if she was already into Letterboxing, but I thought I would mention it. Could be as simple as the last person accidentally adding the stamp to their own stuff by mistake but it is the most important part and disappointing to find it missing. The owner might be close enough to get a new stamp carved and replace it quickly...or list it as needing "first aid" :)

I hope you spent some "dad & kids day out" time relaxing a little and not doing housework the entire time!!