The Gift At The End Of The String

One of our favorite Christmas traditions involves string. When the kids wake up Christmas morning, there is string or yarn going all through the house and sometimes even going outside. Attached to each of their Christmas stockings is a piece of string that leads to their main gift that year. They have to follow the string to find the gift. It's a fun part of our Christmas morning to follow each child in turn as they discover their gift.

This year the kids quickly realized that each of their strings were tied together and they all ended up following the same string. After following the string up and down the stairs and through most of the rooms in the house, they ended up outside, through the two vehicles in the garage, then outside again and into the van. The string ended up at a small wrapped box which they opened to find a puzzle. Not very exciting.

When they opened the box, it was obvious there was something written on the back. They spent the next 10 minutes or so putting the puzzle together to solve the mystery. Here's what they found:

Okay, I realize I could have done a much better job writing on the back. I was just putting things down as I thought of them and writing them in random locations, but I kept running into things I'd already written and making little mistakes. Oh well. The kids didn't care. They were just excited to learn that... we are going to Florida for spring break!! Yay!!

We wanted one last big family vacation before Sam leaves on his mission. Because he'll most likely be leaving early this summer, spring break sounded like as good a time as any. So we'll be hitting the parks at Universal Studios in Orlando and spending some good family time together during our 5-day adventure.

I can't wait!