An Okie Christmas

Our Christmastime weather was not much to write about this year. No snow and really not even cold for more than a day at a time leading up to the big day! Christmas itself did not disappoint, though. It did cool down and we even saw some tiny little dustlike snowflakes as we were out and about doing our yearly scavenger hunt! (I say "yearly". This is the second year we have held the tradition, but it's a definite keeper.)

Trevor and Gavin were almost as excited as Joey for Christmas to arrive. Joey spent hours pouring over the internet looking for the right (used) Wii combo for our boys. He made sure we ended up with a system that included tons of games and a complete band setup for the Rockband and Guitar Hero games we love. In all he found a like-new Wii with 13 games, 3 Guitars, a mic, drums and 4 controllers. Of course he tested it all out before buying and again when he got home, just for good measure. ;)

We planned to make it the last gift they would receive, after the scavenger hunt. We worked for most of the evening Christmas Eve making up the clues and hiding them at the sites. We wanted the hunt to be challenging, so we made the clues and the hiding places harder to guess. We had to hide the clues around the house last year because we were literally snowed in! This year, we drove all over within a 4 mile radius of the house hiding clues in places we frequent. One was at the boys' school, one at the Chik fil A by our house, one at Platos closet(that was a tough clue!)and so on.

There were 10 clues in all. We had the boys unscrambling words and playing hangman and solving word riddles to find the next location. Then the boys had to find the clue at the location. We had so much fun! We will have to make it harder next year because it took the boys less time to figure out and follow the clues than it took Joey and I to place them all the night before!

When we finally got back to the house(the safest hiding place we could think of) the boys were so excited to break it out and start playing. We played well into the night and continued playing the rest of the boys' time out of school:)

Joey and I are already plotting for next year's scavenger hunt. Bigger better and maybe a few twists!...