It's a Scavenger Explorer,Treasure Party.

Sean was 9 this year and he is the party monster. Loves the whole party planning, creative games, and the more the merrier. Unfortunately since his birthday falls in winter, we must have a backup plan if the weather is too cold to party outside. First, keep control of how many are invited. Second, control how long the party will last. It's a good thing we do, cause this year the weather was terrible.

He wanted a scavenger hunt, spy type, explorer theme. We went with it and my Aunt Pat made this pinata.

We called him Pedro. So from there we got these pith hats at Michaels,

I hid them downstairs once the kids arrived and I knew how many there were, I wrote a number on the inside of each hat that when they added them together it would equal 415. This would be for a riddle later.

On the kitchen table was the first riddle. Go to the room under the house and look under the book about a mouse. They flew down the stairs. Earlier I had taken the book , "If a Mouse Ate a Cookie" and put it in the basement on our coffee table that lifts open. Inside were the the hats. They quickly figured that first clue out and were sporting their hats.

Inside one of the hats was a clue to go to another part of the basement where they had to figure out a secret code. Each child got a strip of paper with a series of colored dots and dashes that represented a letter and they were instructed to look at a chart and figure out what their code stood for. I used rocks and minerals, like sapphire, topaz, and diamond. Once they figured out their code they brought it to my assistant Miss Mary Beth who gave them each a lanyard with two different shapes and colors on it. Then we directed them to the mine which was our turtle sandbox filled with sand, and these self stick jewels from the scrapbooking aisle.

They had to pan for their matching jewels on their lanyards. To have control we allowed two at a time, the other boys played darts and fuzz ball to keep them busy. Once everyone found the jewels,

we did more riddles, including adding the numbers on their hats which led them to our mailbox (415) that had a riddle sending them back to the kitchen. We sang happy birthday and ate a cookie cake we decorated as a compass. We then opened the presents and finally, the last riddle lead them back to the basement and the destruction of the pinata.

Pedro held out for a long time and there was plenty of candy for everyone.

We all had a fantastic time.

suzanne