Miscellaneous Madness: Rainbow Scavenger Hunt

Mom is on the hunt for easy activities that get us out and about for some fresh air. We've been spending way too much time indoors this winter. You might recall how well our neighborhood nature I-Spy game went last spring (not). Mom thought we'd take a slightly different tack and go out hunting for colors, figuring there would at least be plenty of rainbow-colored trash in the 'hood.

Her intent was to get our help in painting old egg carton cups with different colors to use in our rainbow scavenger hunt, but we were not interested in painting that day. So mom ended up doing it herself and she also made a "Green Family Golden Coin" that the winner would get, entitling them to first pick of a show during t.v. time (a highly-coveted choice in our house and, since we just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which we all thought was HYSterical, she knew we'd appreciate a prize akin to the golden ticket. btw, perhaps the best thing to come out of reading that book, according to mom, is her ability to explain what will happen to children for various misbehavior -- even Cami now routinely warns "you're being Veruca Salt. you are being bratty and want everything."). Scavenger hunt day arrived and brought more bad weather -- awesome!

"Agggghhhh," mom screamed, "I thought today was going to be the day we'd get outside!" She came up with new rules. She would stand in the kitchen with a glass of wine and we'd search throughout the house for small items matching each color, put them in our egg cartons, and report back. Mom cheered up considerably.

We did a few practice examples with some of my legos and then I was off -- intent on winning that golden coin. Cam needed a little more help, but not much (plus, we bent the rules a bit to allow her items that technically did not fit inside of the carton, but were the correct color). I did it so fast that mom came up with a "best out of three" requirement to win that flippin' coin. But I did it.