St. Patrick's Day 2021

Last St. Patrick's Day was the start of COVID-19.  Schools and businesses had shut down; people began living in quarantine and ordering supplies/groceries online; we were social distancing from families and neighbors.  We had no idea how long it would last, and here we are, one year later, and things are finally beginning to turn around.  Even though the numbers of infections are still running higher than we would like, there have been steps taken to begin getting "back to normal."

Jimmy worked hard the day before decorating a 'leprechaun trap,' made with a deep box, gold wrapping paper and lots of St. Patrick's Day stickers.

There was a long ramp for a leprechaun to walk up -- attempting to steal the fake gold coin at the end of the plank.  Once he tried to take the coin, he was going to flip down into the deep box and be trapped.

  

But, he was a clever one!  He just happened to have a trowel hook with him and used it to climb up and over the box so that he could escape to safety.  

 

Not to fear ... he DID leave a nice letter behind for the kids and directions for a really fun scavenger hunt!

Samantha read the note aloud to the kids and they began with the first clue that was stuck to the plank where Lucky Leprechaun made his wild escape.

This was tricky and it took them a few tries to figure out that the next clue was in Jimmy's toy box in his room.  (Jimmy was completely miffed to think that the leprechaun was 'in his room' while he was sleeping!).

The kids took turns reading the clues out loud once they found them and then took off together to find the next one.

Eventually, with all of the clues gathered, they were led to the hall closet where their very own treasure could be found.

Gold chocolate coins, sour rainbow candy and skittles:

At that point, Jimmy wasn't too upset that he wasn't able to catch a leprechaun!

Afterwards, everyone headed to the dining room for a special breakfast consisting of shamrock cinnamon rolls and a fruit rainbow.

There may have been a few starbursts thrown in there for an afterschool reward later in the day!