Carving Treasures

It is finally spring & the kids are excited about going letterboxing again. We took our first trip of the season afterschool on a nice afternoon, and the kids have been asking about it since. Unfortunately, our schedule and the weather haven't lined up properly, so we have begun doing some indoor letterboxing preparation.

In a couple weeks we will be introducing the Tumbleweed's Daisy Girl Scout troop to letterboxing so we decided to prepare a new stamp to hide for our trip. I have only carved a couple of stamps myself, but since the Tumbleweed was so eager to try I let her help me carve the "Daisy Learning Petals" stamp. She did a great job :)



We have picked up stamp pads in each of the colors of the Daisy Girl Scout learning petals for the girls to use on our hike. They look great with the stamp :) I will be heading out to hide the new letterbox before the event in a temporary location, then afterward we will move it to a permanent location. I am participating in a letterboxing challenge to plant 100 Girl Scout themed letterboxes in Connecticut before the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts next year, so the box will eventually find a home in northeastern Connecticut.

Just Barely

It was a big weekend for the Dandelion! He is finally tall enough to do all the rides at StoryLand and most of the rides at Attitash (potty training kept him off the waterslides, and you have to be 4 years old to rock climb). Fortunately they only measure in shoes or he would not have reached a whopping 36 1/2" LOL!

He was so excited to bounce on the EuroBungy Trampoline, fly down the Alpine Slide, ride the Polar Coaster (twice) and get drenched on the water rides. He was not as thrilled to wait in the lines, but now that he can go on some rides I think he is starting to understand why people wait in lines (at least I really hope he is!)


The Tumbleweed also reached new heights this weekend making it to the top of the rock wall (although she is still eagerly anticipating her 6th birthday so she can climb the rock wall at the Y).


She also did her first back flip (actually 8 - she counted!) on the EuroBungy Trampoline. After watching that, I must confess that I am starting to develop new gymnastics fears. I never could understand all the flinching parents who couldn't watch their kids in the gym, but it is a bit more difficult to watch her attempt something new than it was for me attempting tricks myself or coaching other people's kids. Very strange!

It was a jam-packed couple of days, but we managed to do a lot of fun stuff and even find a few letterboxes!

Our First Plant

No this isn't a garden update. It's actually a letterboxing update.

While visiting my parents the kids and I planted our first letterbox for others to find. It was a little more challenging that I would have liked to find a place to put the box and I am not entire convinced that it won't be found by a "muggle" (non-letterboxer). Perhaps when we go back I will move it some.


This box (Rochester Junction) has my first hand-carved stamp. I was debating about sharing the stamp image, because I am proud of how it came out, but it seems as though that is frowned upon in letterboxing so I guess if you want to see it you will have to find it ;)

Edit: Someone has already found it!

Family Day

To kick off Memorial Day weekend, we headed up to New Hampshire to visit the Eagle's cousin. On the way up we stopped to find a letterbox. This was our first letterboxing hike with all four of us. The Eagle got to christen his log book, and we all got to stretch our legs a bit after being the car for a long time.

And I got a picture of myself letterboxing ;)



At his cousin's, the kids had fun playing on the new swingset and splashing in the water on the dock.

Treasure Hunting

Over the weekend, I read about Letterboxing on a friend's blog. I guess I was interrupted and left that page open on my computer because later that day, the Tumbleweed pulled me over the computer and asked what her friend was doing (the little girl was in the photos on the blog). We checked out a few links and talked a little about Letterboxing, and of course she wanted to go "right now!"

There was a little preparation necessary, so a few days later we went in search of our first letterbox in Grafton. The kids were really excited to use their new stamps and I was pretty excited to see the stamps we would find (for now we are using store bought stamps, but many hidden letterboxes have hand carved stamps). We chose a pretty easy one for our first one (ie - once I drove us there & parked there were only a couple of clues to follow). The Tumbleweed found it quickly. After we had stamped everything and rehidden, we climbed back in the car and the Tumbleweed said, "let's do another, and another, and another" (this is a frequent quote of hers - once she likes something she just wants to keep doing it!).

So off we went in search of another one that was nearby. It was a little tougher, in that there was a little more of a hike (with a few muddy spots) and a few more clues to follow. But the kids followed the instructions and found the hiding spot (the Dandelion was mostly following his big sister, but he was interested). Midway through the stamping process he did start to wander a bit, so I need to work a little more on speeding up the stamping and/or keeping him busier.


All in all, it was a good afternoon. The kids are talking about going again (the Tumbleweed also really wants to hide some "for my friends to find"), and I have checked into more places to find letterboxes. I have found that they are all over the place, and often in the same parks that the Eagle's triathlons take place in. Perhaps we will be able to do some letterboxing when he is out racing.