When Jess returned home from dropping the girls off at school she found a mysterious, locked treasure chest on the table with a sealed envelope. Then she had to wait all day until I finished work to investigate. But in the meanwhile we went to lunch downtown at Maple Street Eatery.
At the appointed hour she opened the envelope and found a letter from a wandering soul asking for her help freeing a friend from a trap. She needed to find a lock and the key to unlock said lock. After telling the soul that she was ready to help the soul communicated to her the location of a map and riddle by flashing the lights in Morse code.
Finding the map she followed a series of riddles with each one leading to a “sigil” and the next riddle. With all the sigils she used information from the original letter to arrange the sigils on the map to point her at the location of the key. With the key was a “magic” flashlight which when shone on the map revealed the location of the lock.
Unlocking the lock released the trapped spirit friend who then flitted across the house leading her into the living room where it made the lamp change colors which matched the numbered and colored sigils to reveal the combination to the treasure chest.
I had a little fun with the home automation stuff this time. I designed and 3d-printed the key (with hidden magnet) and the lock (not a real lock, but it did have a magnetic contact sensor hidden inside) which I’m pretty pleased with.
She opened the chest and received her presents which included tickets to an American Authors concert next month (You can’t get fun tickets these days, so I made my own).
I took the girls shopping a few weeks ago. We went to the outlet mall and I asked them to think of things that Mom would like and gave them a budget to work in. Heather selected a box of fancy chocolates. Corinne selected a necklace and earrings from Claire’s (given that she was extremely excited about this selection and that she met the criteria I couldn’t in good conscience discourage her from the idea).
Then it was off to Melo’s for dinner (they have a potato-bacon pizza which Jess likes). And back home for caramel cheesecake.
