An Epic Treasure Hunt

When I was almost home from Tallahassee Thursday evening, Olivia called me to tell me she had a treasure hunt waiting for me. If there's any upside to being away from your family half the week, it's that you get the royal treatment when you get home.

My hunt started with the first clue you see above: relax. When I gave Livvie a confused look, she said, "Where do go you to relax?"  Oh, the bathtub!  On the side of the tub, I found "a puffy long lost friend," and again I was confused and said, "Zoey?" "No!" Livvie said, "a LONG LOST puffy friend!"  Oh, Savannah!  So I went to Savannah's picture and found "Let us come in! Ruff!" and started to head downstairs when Livvie stopped me and again said, "No! Where do Izzy and Molly WANT to come in!"  Oh, the french doors right by the kitchen table!  That brought me to "Feed us! MEOW!" which led me to Pete and Zoey's bowls. There I found "School Stuff." This, of course, completely stumped me because, like most kids, their school stuff is littered all over the house. When they saw the look on my face, they corrected with "Where do you WANT us to put our school stuff?" That, I knew. :-)

The next clue said "Ruff! Ruff!  Night night and bye bye." This I knew meant the dogs' beds downstairs.  That note pointed to "Tick, Tock" and the clock on the wall back upstairs, which led me to "Comfy Mattress," and knowing how much Olivia likes our new mattress, there I went.  Buried under the covers I found a most excellent travel cup called a Yeti. Seriously, this thing is amazing. To test it, Benny filled it up with ice after I finished my hunt, which was about 7pm, put the lid on and left it on the kitchen counter.  When I went to bed about 10pm, I checked it, and not a drop of water came out of the sipper when I turned it over.  When I checked it again this morning, 12 hours later, I got maybe half an ounce of water.  The ice was still holding fast.  At 7pm tonight, 24 hours later, the ice had still barely melted! (And, no, Yeti is not paying me for this endorsement; I'm just sharing with you just how awesome my treasure is.)

This was the first of two treasure hunts and I'll spare you the details of the second one, but just trust that I truly got my exercise in this three-story house. Staying in an apartment in Tallahassee by myself when I'm used to sharing a home with a husband, two kids, two dogs, two cats and two hermit crabs sure gets lonely, but it makes coming home every week all the more special.