Rose asked us to design a puzzle hunt for her birthday. She wanted it be hard. I think we made it a wee bit too hard. There were 19 puzzles in it and it took the kids 2.5 hours to do. The kids who came to the party are all very bright, but they aren't all the same age or have the same agility with puzzles, so I was happiest when they accepted hints or guidance. If you are facebook friends, with me or John, he's posted the entire puzzle hunt there.

It went well. Given that Rose freaked out over one puzzle she couldn't solve and others could, I wouldn't say it went perfectly, but over dinner tonight, she had nothing but good to say about the day, so definitely well.

I liked the first part the best. We gave the kids 6 puzzles to work on as a group. There was a word search, a couple of logic puzzles, a puzzle that looked like a word search but was not, a message in a different language (they had to recognize the language and use a key to translate it), and several algebra problems. There were some wonderful moments where they joined forces to solve the problem and other wonderful moments where a subset let John guide them through how to get to the solution.

The next part of the puzzle sent them on a treasure hunt through the neighborhood where they had to use the answers from part A to guide them. They also had to trace their route on a map. The last part had them using the answers from part B to do a book code and patterns like that. Harry Potter figured prominently in the final answer.

It was a lot of work to put together and kind of stressful. John and I had trouble syncing our visions. In the end, he designed most of it, and I found several puzzles at what I hoped were the right level of difficulty. We did have fun checking each other's parts and walking the routes together. I am very proud of the puzzle hunt and want you all to try it.