Thursday, April 7, 2016

St. Patrick's and the Pirate Treasure
























We always celebrate St. Patrick's Day. It started way back when I was first married. My husband likes his Irish roots so we always had a party. We would have a fun feast, friends, and board games. It was really great. When we started to have more kids, and our friends started having more kids it got hard to continue to celebrate that way if the holiday fell on a weeknight. We stated to just keep it simple and have a family feast and a scavenger hunt. We also like to listen to Irish music, read Irish folktales, and just focus on Ireland for a little while. The fun thing is that I have Irish roots too. So I guess it makes sense that we get into it a little bit.

This year my husband decided that he wanted to do a buried pirate treasure scavenger hunt for the kids. I thought it sounded silly but supported him because whenever he gets excited about something he is more willing to help me pull it all off. I left most of the pirate activity to him. He prepped the chest, then made the map and buried it. All I had to do was buy the chocolate. I just used the same scavenger hunt cards that I made when we first moved here, but now that the kids are a little older we can hide the clues more. After dinner I read to them the story of St. Patrick while hubby got everything ready. As it turns out St. Patrick was kidnapped by Pirates and that is how he got to Ireland. He was sold there as a slave. I thought it was funny as I should have remembered that part of the story and it turns out that the pirate treasure was relevant after all!. Then we started the activity. The kids loved it. They had some troubles digging the right spot and my littlest even tried to dig it out with her bare hands. It was so much fun to see their faces and listen to the exclamations when they found the chest and saw what was inside. Happy, happy day of green.

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