From tea parties to pirates treasure...

We had a great time at the beach this year. The girls are at a perfect age for exploring, making sand castles, swimming and of course, hunting for treasure. Yes, I did manage to pull off a slightly unrealistic treasure hunt, but the girls loved it. I don't have pictures to do it justice and I wish I had taken a picture of the treasure box with the goodies in it, but of course I forgot. (Time for a disclaimer - we haven't read or talked much about pirates but they went to a pirate/princess birthday party this summer and had a treasure hunt there and have talked about it ever since. Hence the idea for a treasure hunt at the beach.) So I got the book How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long upon Jenna's terrific suggestion (thanks so much!!!). This set the stage for treasure hunting at the beach. Then while they were playing with their daddy I explained to the lifeguards what I was doing (so as not to appear as if I was doing anything illegal) and buried the treasure close to their station. Then I drew the unsightly maps (no artistic skills used whatsoever) and buried them in the sand by our tent. The girls "just happened" upon the maps while digging in the sand and we were off.

They have pretty good map skills for being 4 and 5 and did their best to follow my terrible drawings! After much difficulty locating the X and a lot of laughing from the lifeguards watching the whole thing unfold, they finally found the X made of sticks (Gracie kept telling me pirates use a red X - what did I know?) and began digging.

(Second disclaimer - before we left I took a shoe box that opened like a chest to try to look like a treasure chest and spray painted it black, but we had a monsoon that afternoon while it was outside drying and it was ruined. So as a last minute effort my mom brought me her Adidas shoe box to use and I did not have time to paint it.) Soon after they started digging they hit something hard and Gracie exclaims "It's a shoebox!" "Do pirates bury treasure in shoe boxes?"

As they pulled it out and opened it, exclaims could be heard across the beach as they discovered rainbow candy necklaces, gold covered chocolate coins as well as real $1 gold coins, a pirate fun pad, crayons, bubbles and glow in the dark necklaces! Simple, but it made their day. They were even able to take their real gold coins to buy a souvenir! All in all it was a fun experience for them and one I would love to do for them again!