Robert and I have decided to pare down the gift giving to one main present (or a couple of smaller presents) but I felt that just handing over one present was too anti-climatic, so I decided to make the 'giving' of the present a little more fun. For the twins, I set up a bunch of different codes to break for a scavenger hunt to find their gifts.
The first clue was simply a GPS address along with a extreme close-up picture of a BBQ grill. The close up just showed a tiny section of the grill. Once the twins figured out it was a GPS number, they had to ride their bikes to find it. (They used an app on Rob's phone.)
Taped to the bottom of the grill in a neighboring community park, was a small piece of paper with a group of numbers and letters. The kids had to figure out that this was a library code for a book. Once they figured it out they rode their bikes to the library and searched out the book.
Inside the book was a sheet of paper with numbers on it. They had to search out a page number, then a paragraph number, followed by the specified word in the sentence to figure out their next clue.
The librarian had the next clue for them, which was a silly riddle cut up into a puzzle.
The riddle described a tree that we would sit by to watch the kids practice soccer and also watch Robert attempted to fly his broken kite. So off they went...
The last clue was hidden pretty well up a tree. (That was fun to hide!)
Ethan helped me with this one. I gave him the riddle for the clue and he wrote symbols to create the cipher for the clue. Once they figured it out, we went off to the tables at the park.
Alaina got her self a couple of drawing books (and pencils.)
Austin got a couple of cereals because his real present was a lego subscription (pley.com) where he can rent out lego sets for three months.
The twins' party was also very fun and VERY easy. A local video store has a back room that you can rent out and watch any movie you want (we saw Around the World in 80 Days) All we did was invite the kids. They provided all you can eat popcorn and I brought in pizza, cupcakes and ice-cream sandwiches. The kids came. They watched. They opened presents. They left. And the store did the clean up. Nice.
