Message in a bottle (kind of)

LEAP DAY!!!!!!

I've never really caught the excitement of a Leap Day before.  For whatever reason, it was just this weird phenomena that was lost on me and, honestly, I only ever gave it a passing nod when it rolled around.

Enter my two boys.
Their young perspectives changed everything.
every.
thing.

So, when this year's extra day appeared, we just had to do something to commemorate its novelty.
Enter Pinterest.
Although it can be a major time sucker, Pinterest can also be the source for some wonderful inspiration.
And that's where I saw the idea of a time capsule to be created on and opened on Leap Day.  Perfect!  Time capsules have always fascinated me but they always seemed to get created and then forgotten.  But the very elusive nature of Leap Days/Years would make remembering this one easy.  Plus, the shorter wait time between the construction and the re-opening of said capsule would make it more worth the effort.

I created a simple sheet of questions for the boys to answer.  Height, weight, shoe/clothes size, and a list of favorites.

 We then drew outlines of their hands so that we could compare them to their size four years from now.  I also clipped a bit of their hair to see if the color would change any.  If we had done this last Leap Year, we would have noticed a huge difference as both of my boys used to have blond hair.

I then had them dictate letters to themselves.  It was interesting to see what they were curious to know about their 13 and 11 year old selves (yes, that's right, I will have a 13 year old in four short years!)
August was really curious as to whether there were flying cars yet or if he had his own computer type device.  At the rate we're progressing, one of those is probably a given and the other one not too crazy of an idea.

 Then, I wrote a letter to each of them.  I tried to capture the essence of their personalities at their particular age right now...like mentioning to Aidan that he climbed into my bed to cuddle every morning... you know, the stuff that might change drastically by the time he is 13.  I also told them what I loved about them at this age, what I thought their strengths were, and a prediction or two of what they might be interested in at the time they would read the letter.  This will be interesting....

We also included a grocery receipt and a couple of pictures.  Then, we sealed it up and labeled it with explicit instructions.

It will be fun to see how much of who these boys are today still remains in four years time.  It's funny, we spent some time this morning watching old videos of the boys from when they were very young. I found it remarkable how, despite the passing of four or even five years, you could still see, so very clearly, the personalities that we know and love today.  How fun it will be to compare, again.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.  ~Henry David Thoreau