Chalk Obstacle Course

On Saturday I showed the kids some videos of chalk obstacle courses and then told them they should go outside to make their own, so they scrambled to get dressed (because of course they were all still lounging around in their pyjamas) and headed outside. They left Alexander behind, for some reason. He came to find me, carrying his pants, and crying because he couldn't figure out how to get them on right. I was in the middle of something (just remembered: I was furiously trying to finish all the sewing I meant to finish by Easter) so I asked Andrew to help him finish getting dressed and instructed him to then send Alexander out with the kids. 

So Andrew helped Alexander get dressed...but then couldn't find the kids. 

They weren't on the driveway. They weren't in the cul-de-sac. They weren't anywhere as far as the eye could see.

"We might have a slight problem," Andrew told me. "I...don't know where the kids are. They're just gone. Alexander and I walked all the way up to [street name redacted] but they aren't there."

"The probability of them all having been abducted is extremely low, right?" I asked (because my brain enjoys going to the worst-case scenario first). 

"The probability of one of them being abducted is remote," Andrew said.

"Yeah, totally," I agreed.

We decided they'd probably gone out to the main road because (even though it's a quarter-mile away from our house) it has a sidewalk. Andrew hopped in the car and did a little drive-by, locating them a good half-mile from our home, happily drawing on the sidewalk. Silly kids. 

They have walked that far before but they've never just disappeared like that; we've always known they were going to go. It was pretty funny. And also very quiet. 

Later we took a family walk to check out their obstacle course.

Here they are at the beginning:

Here's Alexander by a cute little dinosaur saying, "Wash your hands!" (drawn by Benjamin).

Here's Zoë's dinosaur:

And a cute Easter bunny by Miriam:



Here's Andrew and Alexander at the finish line (for one part of the obstacle course; the kids had drawn obstacle courses pretty much the whole way home):

Here are the kids hopping and jumping along their path (some from Saturday evening, some from Sunday morning):










Here is my favourite square they marked; it says, "Sorry, we got tired."

And no wonder! They'd drawn on about a half-mile of sidewalk (good thing they got more chalk in their Easter baskets)!!