Treasure Hunting and Day One

My kids are off track right now (yes again). I really wanted to do something fun with them. Recently Jaxon read book number one of "The 39 Clues". It is a fun treasure hunt type book kind of like the movie "National Treasure" but with kids. The kids in the book travel around and solve problems to earn the next clue. We are doing our own version called "The 39 Points". Each day my kids get a question to solve. Then we go somewhere to find the answer or do something to complete that task. Then we get a point. We are trying to earn 39 of them. We had to change it from what they do in the book for a few reasons. #1 I do not have a big puzzle to solve that will save the world. I just go online, find out something about the place we are going, and ask the kids a question about that. #2 I have to be flexible with nap schedules and other things in my REAL life that I may have to do. #3 I will only go places that are free. (or really really cheap).

Day #1

Church History Museum

I have never taken my kids here. In fact I have not gone there for years- even decades. I don't know why- it was really fun. We walked in the museum and Jaxon asked someone where to go to find the answer to his question. (who was Joseph Smith's wife and what organization was she the president of?) We went in the elevator and when the doors opened- voila! A picture of Emma Smith right ahead of us. Then we spent almost the rest of the time in the Children's Section of the museum. It was a pretty fun time. Here are some pictures.

The kids got to create stained glass window like they had on the Nauvoo Temple. Chase loved this but he could not really do it.

This was Alex's favorite thing. There were little cars under the glass and you held some magnets to move the cars. Chase just wanted to grab the cars. He was pretty frustrated when he couldn't.

They had things to make rubbings of the CTR symbol in different languages.

They had this depiction of Nephi's dream. The kids had fun holding on to the rod of iron and the taking the fruit off of the tree. Jaxon and Tanner know this story pretty well so it meant something to them.

Coloring stained glass windows. Chase loves markers. He loves to get marker all over everything.

They had blocks to build your own temple.

Chase was the only one who wanted to play with the dolls. He didn't really play with them but he wanted to pull them all down on the floor with him.

Then we went and explored the rest of the museum for about 10 minutes. 10 minutes is not enough time to see anything in that museum. It looks awesome. But one of the reasons I only want to go to free things is that we have to go at my kids speed. If they are done- then we leave and go home. I don't want to try to see the whole museum but have crying tantrum-y kids and grouchy moms.

We went outside and saw this fun cabin. It is in between the Church History Museum and the Family History Center. We had snacks and the kids ran around and got some energy out.

This is a great picture. Alex was happy- he just didn't look at the same time as the rest of the kids. 3 smilers out of four is good. The other fun thing we did was take trax (the train) from where we parked to the museum. That was another adventure the kids loved.

Jaxon said that he hoped that all the points we get will be that fun. We will see.....