^{Isaiah 45: 3} I will give you hidden treasures,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.

This verse is the perfect backbone to my current obsession. My prayer is that the energy I’m pouring into these pet projects leaves the recipients feeling loved. The kind of love that points us to our Heavenly Father who calls us by name.

I’m all about treasure hunts these days. Ben’s family got together yesterday and since I’m up to my elbows in Em’s birthday celebration treasure hunt, it was easy to throw together a 10 stop hunt for the nieces and nephews.

One idea lead to another and soon we had 10 very carefully articulated letters from Chief Snow Cloud to his tribe. Apparently his son “Ice Storm” was going thru a very sloppy stage and much to his father’s dismay, he keeps leaving things everywhere.

That boy forgot a garden trial in a hollow stump and planted Osage orange fruit (that looked suspiciously like the green baseballs that Isaiah had helped me collect out of the soybean field next to the ball field last fall) in the middle of the winter in a sandy area (the forgotten sandbox). “What can we do with him?” Questions Chief

I had to chuckle a little when the Chief stated : “Snowman should hunt without snacks, we warrior men prefer pemmican, but hunting has been scarce recently. Share the extras with the papooses” Mozzarella Cheese sticks for the win.

The hunt went hither and yon around the property and included nursery rhymes like “the eensy weensy spider”; “well house” written in code; various poems and riddles: “when it’s cold outside, I can’t be beat. Light me up and then make a toasty treat.”

Dad has an outdoor fire pit and I was going to hide the next clue right in the middle of it… until I noticed they were moving firewood in prep for a fire. 😅 The hunt almost hit a dead end right there.

The children were tremendous sports and I showed up occasionally in the shadows as they rushed back and forth. But they solved the clues rapidly and without assistance from Chief Snow Cloud’s Scribe.

The grand finale treasure was 11 sets of Oriental Trading kits that I’d found at a consignment store for a grand total $.79. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to make a treasure hunt fun. 🙂

Unfortunately the dream catcher that I helped Julie make looked more like it caught nightmares.

But Jasmine’s buckskin purse turned out more like what I’d envisioned the end results to be.

Family is the actual treasure.

Chief Snow Cloud and Scribe, KR

Bonus Pics:

I over bought mozzarella sticks for another project and I had a blast using the ones that didn’t get turned into snowmen into these little guys.

I told Ben I was going to have “my ducks in a row” for family day and he mildly stated “you mean your penguins” 😂 we all marched in together.

My dad has been on a spree about wanting oysters on the half shell, so he arranged a party at the Bagger’s Shop.

Ben and Sherm were quite experienced with such a feast, and the rest of us caught on quickly. I hope I don’t have to wait another 36 years until I get in on this kind of fun.

This was more of a treasure wait than an treasure hunt-lol but we stood around and waited while the oysters cooked in their shell until they started to pop open. We scooped the treasure off onto saltine crackers. Then we searched around through a variety of seasonings to add: old bay, cocktail sauce, Parmesan cheese, butter, lemon juice, hot sauce…

A very different type of experience from crafting with the nieces, but definitely highly recommend.