Explorers: unite!!

During Liam's nap last Sunday, Jake played very nicely by himself with his legos for about an hour (we've really been trying to work on this whole, "you don't need to be constantly entertained by a human or electronics" thing with him recently....it's been getting better, that will be a whole other post at some point)  I had wrapped up the few things I had been working on (like un-burying myself out of a mountain of laundry) and Brian was outside setting up the pool and slip and slides for later that day; I asked Jake if he wanted to do something for a bit before Liam woke up and without hesitation he said, "Yes.  I would like to go on a scavenger hunt.  Do you have a notebook I can use to write down my observations?"  Well, then.  How could I say no to that?  We gathered up the essentials (notebook, pen, magnifying glass, binoculars) and headed outside, scavenger hunt items in my head.

I told him the following items were part of the scavenger hunt: an acorn, a bug, a flower,a piece of a fern, a twig and a rock.  After he found each one, he would stop and sit in the grass to write down his observations.  Here is page 1 of his "scientific notebook", as he called it:

 

After he located all of the items, we took them into the "secret hideout" (aka-the clubhouse area of the swingset) and took a look at our findings.

 It was here that I discovered upon inspection of my legs that something had decided to enjoy me as a late afternoon snack.  I had EIGHT bites on my 2 legs, and not just little bites...I'm talking welts the size of a coaster that were already hugely swollen and standing off of my legs.  I called Brian over to look at them, and he kind of shuddered and said "I've never seen anything like that!" and immediately checked Jake.  Jake didn't have a single bite.  not one!!  And for the record, our yard is surrounded by woods on two sides and while we were near the woods, we were not IN the woods.  In fact, I was probably not closer than 5 feet away from the woods.  How did I get attacked so viciously??

This just further cements my case that I am simply not made to be outdoors for prolonged periods of time.

But, despite that little incident (which are still there by the way, 3 days later...and still itching like crazy!) we had a great time on our little hunt.