Who needs an amusement park when you have a Wal Mart?

Tuesday morning we left Florida super early, drove to Charleston, picked up Chuck's parents and our luggage, and drove 10 more hours to Danville, Kentucky--a LONG day in the car! I pretty much was ready to be anywhere besides the car by the end of the day! We drove through some beautiful places though, the mountains in North Carolina especially were gorgeous. We arrived at Chuck's sister Carroll's house late last night and are here until Friday when we drive back to Charleston.

Bet you are curious about the title of this post...:o) Well here's the story. Chuck and I wanted to try doing something different for presents this year--we wanted to be more relational and focus on time with people instead of just giving people more stuff that they don't need. We didn't totally succeed with all our gifts (although we did try giving people date nights or things they can do with others) but we especially wanted to be intentinoal with his two nieces and nephew. I've only met them once and Chuck only sees them about once a year, so we really wanted to take them out, no other adults invited, to have a special date with them. Danville is a small town, so we didn't have a ton of options, but his sister pointed us towards a family fun center with laser tag, rollerskating etc. So that was going to be our plan, except it was raining buckets today with a TON of wind and when we called to confirm they were open we found out that apparently the family fun center sprung a leak and had to close. So at noon today (with plans to leave at 1) we were coming up with plan B. What we came up with was SO much better than the family fun center in our opinion!

We printed off a piece of paper for each kid to give to them at lunch telling them to be ready to go at 2 with tennis shoes, warm clothes, and to expect a little craziness! They immediately started speculating about our destination and quickly finished lunch to get ready to embark on our mystery outing. We piled into their family van and drove them to Wal Mart. When we got there we explained that part 1 of our outing was a Wal Mart scavenger hunt. We had come up with a list of 19 random things they needed to find, and armed ourselves each with a digital camera. We split up girls and boys, so Chuck and Jon went one way and Helen, Diana and I went another, to see what we could accomplish in 45 minutes. We had to take pictures of ourselves with each item or doing each activity and cross it off the list. They did great! We had 19 things on the list and each group only left about 4 undone. We all had a blast, it was great time for me to spend bonding with my future nieces and after the first item the girls totally got into it and planned our strategy. Here are some pictures and things we had to find....

In the car, guessing what our destination was...Our "on your marks, get set, go!" pictureThe boy's team. Task: to put a lampshade on your head.Find a tire and get in it...which I guess Jon kind of did hereOur team, find silly hats and wear them.Boy's team: wear a Christmas wreathFind the coolest toothbrush--This one SANG music while you brushed--Diana immediately declared it the coolest.Task: find a beach towel and pretend to get a tanTask: find a silly necklace. These were down to my knees....Task: find a VERY random item. Jon and Chuck found a turkey stitcher upper...which they deemed very random.This is my favorite. Our task was to find the dumbest movie. The girls don't know what Rambo is, but their uncle Chuck loves it, so I made them pick Rambo as the dumbest movie ever.Find the ugliest Christmas ornamentGo to the grocery section and find the grossest food. Both girls immediately said 'squash!'Build a snowman out of toilet paper packages--we were running out of time, you have to use your imagination!My Christmas wreath
Diana doing the tire-task for our groupFind the biggest shoes...
Then find the silliest shoes...Make friends with a Christmas shopper--we kind of cheated, the girls knew this woman alreadyMake friends with a Wal Mart employeeOther tasks assigned: find a silly coat, find a book your dad would like for Christmas, and find a Christmas present for mom.

After the Wal Mart hunt we took them to the grocery store and told them to each pick out a favorite candy. Our next destination was the movie theater to see The Tale of Despereaux, the new animated movie which was very good. We had some time to kill so we let them play in the arcade for about 20 minutes before the movie. I think this was by far the most fun Christmas present we've come up with! It was a great afternoon and the kids really enjoyed the time as well. They came home excited to fill mom and dad, grandma and grandpa in on their adventures. Here's to even more creative, relational gifts next year!