This was quite a poem - and once we all started reading it, Maddie noticed that some of the letters looked different. So she and Jake went through and found all the funny letters and realized they were being sent to Target. The poem basically said that they were being sent on a scavenger hunt to this person's favorite places - and the end would "mark the spot" where they would need to be to meet said person.
So, off to Target we went and I managed to steer them to Guest Services (I may have received a hint as to where to look...). Sure enough, there was a message waiting for our detectives there.
This message was a little harder to decipher for our heroes. M&J were told to go to a city that started with "E.P" to the mall there and one of their mom's favorite stores. Maddie and Jake really had a hard time coming up with this city - the mall reference didn't help. So Mike helped by saying, "is there a city that starts with Eee...dennnn......" Maddie blurted out "Eden Prairie!" and off we went. On the way they were trying to think of what store I could possibly love there. Jake suggested Target, Maddie suggested JCPenny's. Then she had an "aha!" moment and yelled, "Archivers!" Once there the nice ladies asked their names and found two bags for them...orange for Jake and blue for Maddie - this person knew their favorite colors! Inside these bags were a small scrapbook for them to document this summer adventure and some candy! Then they were told to finish this sentence... "over the river and through the woods......." The end of that was where they were instructed to go next.
At grandma and grandpa smith's house we had to move fast (their house is for sale and they had a showing in under an hour). The Archiver's bags also contained a swimsuit for each of them (Maddie thought this swimsuit actually contained a swimsuit that was "exactly like" one she already had. It actually was one she already had.) Anyway - on grandma's door was another envelope that told them to dive for the next clue. In their pool were puzzle pieces sunk to the bottom that they had to dive in and retrieve then put together. Austin was over and helped them put the puzzle together.
When the puzzle was put together it was a map from grandma and grandpa's house to where this person was....the hospital! They had figured by now it was Tracy, but this confirmed it. Mike tried to throw them off by saying maybe it was Rob...but they both agreed that Archiver's and Target were not places Rob loved, but Tracy did.
So the mystery has officially been solved. I would post pictures of us at the hospital, but since Tracy hasn't posted pictures yet of little Riley I don't think I should. We'll save those for later.
But, I must give a hat's off to my sister. This was a really fun scavenger hunt - and she put it all together in the last week of her pregnancy. She contacted the stores and my parents dropped off the packages/notes at Target and Archiver's on Saturday night and Sunday morning. The whole summer has been fun with these surprise visits from this mystery note-leaver. Maddie and Jake had a blast and even managed to learn some things along the way.
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