Simple Treasures

When we arrived at my friend's lake home on Tuesday afternoon, we quickly got our grand tour and put our bags in the bedrooms. Soon, we had decided to walk to the local grocery store and purchase a couple of small items for the evening's meal. As we walked along and talked, my friend and I joyed in our reconnection. It was a beautiful day and the kids were happy to skip along the path and note all the beautiful wildflowers that bloomed nearby.

As we rounded the corner, we came upon a little boy's paradise: train tracks. Now, we have train tracks near our home, but these were train tracks with piles of stakes and logs down the track. In addition, there was a hustle and bustle surrounding this track and this excited everyone. Jack who is 2.5 and at the perfect age to simply sit and watch the men doing their "man" jobs was positively jumping with excitement. My friend asked if we'd like to put pennies on the tracks and see what might happen.

So, the kids each picked out a penny and placed it on the tracks with excitement.

The following day in the afternoon, I took the kids on a walk into town. As we approached the train tracks, the kids scanned the tracks for their pennies. They all had ideas about what would have happened with the pennies, but had not as of yet seen anything. I quickly pointed them in the right direction and they found their prize. The flattened pieces of metal were beautiful. They each picked up their treasure and jumped for joy, examining each one. Some were completely smashed so that no one could see any markings. Some had a faint marking from the tails end of the penny, but for the most part all four were simply a flattened piece of metal.

As we walked back to the home, they exclaimed: "We will trick daddy! He will never figure out what these are!!!!"