All Things Gingerbread

Today was event day! The 5th Annual Kick Off the Holidays - Gingerbread House event in Parker, CO. As per my usual M.O. I was up early, it was still dark. I got up and dressed and somewhat organized my day. Then I went down to the breakfast room next to the hotel lobby and Thomas and I had some breakfast. After eating I returned to the room and got my things and headed out for a day of letterboxing. Thomas wasn't coming to the event with me, he was spending the day with a friend from high school.

The event didn't officially start until 10:00am at event headquarters (aka The Woodshed's House) but I had the clues for the boxes and there were some hidden outside the house and I decided I would go and start with those. So I got my letterboxing things and the clues and started searching the yard for stamps. I would find two or three stamps and take them back to a spot I used to sit and stamp and then return them to their hiding spots. While I was out there Agent 86 walked up, coming back from taking his dog for a walk. We talked for a minute or two and then he went inside and I continued my search for stamps. ArnoldZiffel came out and joined me for a while and then went inside for some breakfast. Not long later I found my last box and had now completed the Santa's Busy Elves series of 15 boxes and found In Between Box Nov 2016: Snoopy as Pilgrim Hunter. I then went inside (even though it was only around 8:30am) and checked in. I got my name tag, gift bag, registered for the door prize and had a pancake & coffee. After that I got a few of the event stamps - Gingerbread Forest (the actual event stamp); White Camellia, 1938; and Christmas Cryptex #2. I also did a couple of exchanges and got some personal travelers before deciding to head out for more boxes. The last thing we did before heading out for some letterboxing was to watch a demonstration on  image transfer using wintergreen oil. For this type of transfer, you need an image made from toner; wintergreen, tea tree, or lavender essential oil (100% pure) and a clean (washed with soap and warm water) piece of rubber. There a few steps and some waiting but this method really worked well and I will definitely try using it on my next carve.

Sometime around 9:30am I left headquarters with ArnoldZiffel, Lampwick, and HowD Girls and we headed for the Parker Library. At this location, we were searching for a series of 15 boxes called Gingerbread House Decorations. These were different candies and treats that are used to decorate a gingerbread house. We had a page where we could stamp the image on a grid and we had a page with the outline of a house that we could use the images to decorate it. At the end of the day, we were to turn in our decorated house and they would be judged and prizes would be given out. So we would find two or three stamps and then stamp them onto our sheets and then move on to other stamps. By the time we found all the stamps we had completed decorating our gingerbread houses and were ready to move on to the next location.

We all left the library and headed out to the Cherry Creek Trail. On this trail, we were looking for two series of stamps for the event and an older series that was in the vicinity. We started with Trail of the Gingerbread People (a series of 18 stamps). We would read the clue, find the stamp, stamp in (almost like an assembly line), rehide the stamp and then move on to the next stamp. While we were at stamp #2 another boxer showed up at stamp #1.

Since she was by herself we invited her to join us, so our group of four increased to five with the addition of Angel from Angel & Demon. After we found the 11th stamp in this series we took a break from gingerbread people and found the older series - Make Yourself Smart. We found three of the four boxes in this series and one of the boxes eluded us, so we moved on. We finished the Gingerbread People series and then went right on to the Trail/Story of the Gingerbread Man (this series had 12 stamps). This series took us off the main trail and onto side trail and we found all of these stamps without interruption. While looking for this series we passed another group of boxers that were already done and we asked them about the box we couldn't find. They had three adults and two children in their group and we had five adults in ours. It turned out that eight adults couldn't find the box and an eight-year-old kid could - not our finest moment. So when we finished the last series we returned to the area of the box we missed and with a hint we found the box. Now that we had found 34 stamps and completed all the series we headed back to headquarters. The remaining boxes we needed to find were all at that location.

Once we arrived back at headquarters there was one box on the outside of the house I needed so I worked on that first. I found the first box in the Gingerbread Forest series then I went inside and looked for the final three boxes for that series. I found all of those along with a bonus box for the series. Next, I moved on to the final series - Trail of the Gingerbread Houses (a series of 15 stamps).

These didn't have clues, you had to search around the main rooms of the house to find them (10 were upstairs and 5 were downstairs). These stamps were hidden in boxes that looked like gingerbread houses, a tin gingerbread man, and other 'gingerbready' type containers. It took a little time and a lot of searching to find them all but I finally finished the series. Now that I had all of the boxes for the event I still needed a few other things. There was one more event stamp that I got, a couple more exchanges, a word of mouth box and a few personal travelers. During this time I turned in my decorated gingerbread house, had some snacks and visited with other boxers. Then we all gathered for an event photo, then the drawing for the door prize, then the gingerbread house decoration awards, and finally the gift exchange. I actually won 3rd place for my gingerbread house. Once all of that was done a group of us went to El Trio for dinner.

After a long and fun day of letterboxing, I returned to the hotel around 8:30am tired and with inky fingers. Now that I had a shower and logged in things I am ready for some sleep. Tomorrow the plan is to letterbox in the area but at a much slower pace.