Pirate treasure

This happened a couple weeks ago, but I forgot to mention it. We took the kids back to Treasure Adventure exhibit... must have been two weeks ago last Friday. We were supposed to go the following Sunday for our friend Addie's birthday party, but the overall exhibit had such disastrously low attendance, that the organizers shut it down a few days early. Learning this, we headed down on the exhibits final day, so that AJ could have one last chance to look around and dig for treasure.

I give the organizers credit. They lost a lot of money on this venture and spent several weeks dressed in elaborate pirate costumes (often in 80-degree temperatures.) And it was all for naught.

So what did they do on their final day? What any broke pirate would do, I suppose. They loaded a make-shift cannon with candy and blasted it into the air.


What an unexpected surprise! Suddenly, my children who were too cool or picky to grab the candy tossed to them in a parade were running around in search of soot-covered candy wrappers that had just dropped back to earth.

It was simply one of the moments when you have to scratch your head and ask, "Did I really just see that?"

Aside from the candy cannon adventure, the kids checked out what inside the main exhibit space.

Sydney liked the play cannon. I hope there's a simple way to open the back of it and empty out all the "cannon balls" she'd loaded, because she dropped a lot into it.

AJ, meanwhile, was invited by the main organizer, whose name I now forget, to turn some of the keys to open all the interlocking mechanisms on this authentic chest.

Inside the chest was a real sword, and AJ got to touch the handle. He was enthralled. I'd say it was his favorite part of the day. Until they fired off the candy cannon. Because what could possibly compete with that?