National Treasure 29: The Mystery Gifts

WARNING: This will be long (even for me), but you may find it interesting and have permission to skim as much or as little as you want. You may want to make your spouses read it so they know what kind of effort they should put in for YOUR next birthday.

On November 17th I received a letter in the mail from "Your Secret Admirer." I immediately recognized the return address and grinned at Paul since he had obviously sent it from work. I was pretty sure it was still a few days before my birthday, but I gave him a questioning look as I opened the envelope. Inside was a number puzzle (much like a word search) and a slip of paper with a poem which pretty much said that this is a code to where I will find another hint. To many of you this may seem very vague, but I immediately knew that Paul was up to something for my birthday. He likes to send me on treasure hunts around the house to find pieces of or clues to my present and he's usually more creative than my brain can handle, which means he eventually has to give me hints so that I can figure it all out.

I completed the puzzle in fairly good time as I wondered how difficult this was going to be. The puzzle resulted in a phone number. I recognized the number and knew I had called it a million times, but I was at a loss to who this number belonged to. After looking through a list, remembering whose phone number this was, and deciding I wasn't too chicken to call them blindly, I dialed the number. The daughter who answered the phone said her parents were not home. Since I was fairly clueless at this point I said, "Paul is up to something, I have no idea what it is, and all I DO know is that I am supposed to call you guys." She informed me that they had a letter for me, so I headed out the door to go pick it up remembering that the only other time Paul had sent me outside of our house was when the second half of the hunt was at my parents' house. It worried me a little that he had expanded his horizons to include other people. I ripped open the envelope the second I was back in the car, since there was no need to drive back home just to discover that this was a worn-out map to some place I had never been and could probably not find even if we had a GPS system and endless resources at our fingertips. What the envelope contained confused me more than a pirate map would have. This is what I found...

...and another number puzzle. I turned the picture around and around trying to decide what it could be. Although this picture initially reminded me of a carved wooden water buffalo we have (which Paul got while on his mission in the Philippines), I knew that this was NOT a picture of "the cow" since it was not carved with this kind of detail. I set the picture aside and worked on the puzzle, hoping I wasn't cheating by not figuring out the picture first. The result of the second puzzle was another phone number of someone I knew. I called this person (still not really knowing what was going on) and went to pick up my next envelope. I was not quite as surprised this time that it contained a picture that I could not recognize...

...and another puzzle. I stared at this new picture to figure out what it was and put the two of them together to see if they made any sense as a pair. I had no luck at all. After staring and rotating for a while, I carried on with the number puzzle, solved it and then went to bed (it was officially too late to be bugging people at this point). Wednesday was chaotic, so I was unable to pick up my next clue until I was on the way to a meeting at the church.

The picture inside actually made some sense this time. I was positive I had seen it somewhere before and thought it was a picture of Mary kissing baby Jesus, but all of the people I showed it to at our youth activity that night did not recognize it (and were probably wondering if I had lost my mind asking them about it). The puzzle in this envelope led to yet another friend's house and I was really starting to get the hang of telling people that Paul is crazy and that I'd like to come pick up whatever they have for me.

This envelope, however, contained something new! Along with a new number puzzle and a picture (that I could not figure out, although it looked a bit like a glowing eyeball) there was what appeared to be a page of a book with the edges burned. I tried to read the text and it reminded me of The Host by Stephenie Meyer, but I wasn't sure if this was just because that is what the picture also reminded me of. The two together got me thinking of this book, but I was certain that this could not be correct since the eyes on the cover of the library book I had read did NOT look like that picture. I followed the clue to the next person's house.

As I explained to them what was going on and how I had no clue what it all meant, I told them that each envelope contains a picture of something unknown (I held up the picture I had just received in their envelope and we all looked at it with clueless expressions thinking it looked like a rug or tapestry of some sort, although this one also looked vaguely familiar to me) and a number puzzle that gives me a new phone number to call. As I was showing them the puzzle, I looked at the bottom of the puzzle they had given me and the answer to this new puzzle was obviously not a phone number. They both laughed at me as I mentioned this with some worry in my voice. I thought I was figuring this all out, but I had to solve the puzzle to see what would come next.

Puzzle number 6 contained this number sequence: 11 20 2009 09 30. I looked at Paul and asked if something was happening at 9:30 on November 20th. After much questioning, he grinned and told me that all of the pictures did lead to something on the 20th at 9:30, that they were all in the same place, and that I had been there before. Well, I was glad I figured out this part of the answer at least. I stared at the pictures, mixed them up, turned them different directions and gave up. I mentioned to Paul that if I drove to every place I'd been in the valley to look for these things it really wouldn't take very long since I haven't been very many places. He encouraged me to not try so hard and informed me that it wasn't that difficult.

That night I had a lot of strange dreams. Most of them included searching through libraries and museums and churches for hidden and unknown artifacts that I knew would lead me to something important. I felt like I was in the middle of a National Treasure movie as I sprinted through another library or museum in search of a way to decipher the clues I had been given.

The following morning I pulled out the pictures at breakfast and was determined to at least figure out what one of them was. Paul had been surprised that I had not immediately recognized the last picture in the bunch, so this was the picture I focused on. As I was analyzing the letters I realized that the texture could be an old book binding and I suddenly realized what it was. I jumped from my chair and sprinted to the bookshelf in the front room. There, sitting on the middle shelf was the stack of books I was looking for. I knew this picture was vaguely familiar!!

Now that I was standing in front of my bookshelf, I started putting pictures up everywhere. Right there in front of me were some glazed vases my brother made in high school that looked just like the second picture.There was a picture of Mary holding baby Jesus on the cover of a book we have displayed on the next shelf up.The top of this bookshelf has two figures of a boy and a girl praying (which were carved from wood in the Philippines, just like "the cow").Wow! I felt a little stupid that I couldn't figure out things I had placed for display in my own home, but I was also giddy with excitement that I HAD figured them out...all but one. I looked through some of the books on the bookshelf that I had not read, but could not find anything that matched up with the last picture. I was starting to lean even more toward The Host, but was still fighting against that idea, since I was sure it wasn't right (plus I hadn't mentioned to Paul that I wanted that book for my birthday). I now knew where I had to be the following day at 9:30, so I felt a little better.

My birthday came and I was out running errands at 9:30, wondering how important the exact time was. I got home and checked out the bookshelf. I found a present there waiting to be opened. It was the book The Host, just like I was sure it couldn't possibly be. The last mystery picture was from the binding of my new copy of the book and inside was an envelope with my name on it. I was very happy that I had figured out all of my clues and excited to start reading my new book, but I opened the envelope first. Inside this envelope was a sudoku puzzle with a huge title above it declaring "PHASE 2." I was shocked. I thought the book was my birthday present. I had no idea there was more!!

I worked on the sudoku on the drive to my parents' house in Utah and didn't get very far. I guess Paul thought I needed hard ones to make it any sort of challenge, so phase 2 consisted of a LOT of very difficult sudoku puzzles. The big relief here was that I knew what the pictures were when I opened the envelopes. The first puzzle led to my brother, Scott (the answer to the puzzle was 1985--the year he was born--and his zip code) and included a picture of a fork with food on it. The following puzzle led to my mother-in-law by year and zip code (whose house we were headed to the following day) and had a picture of a movie theater. Austin came next (by birth time, weight, and height--very clever) and I went to him to ask if he had something for me. He was playing a xylophone and I could see the envelope sitting on the table right next to him. He paused his music just long enough to tap the envelope with his mallet and then continued on in his playing like no one had interrupted (that was pretty cute). His picture was a movie reel. Sid took his envelope and hid it under a huge pile of Lego's, then dug it out when I asked for it (it contained something that was ripped in half, but that included a date and time on it), and William was not feeling so good, so Paul handed his to me after I asked if William had it (his had a picture of part of the New Moon cover). Savannah brought her envelope to me before I had completely finished the puzzle, but I was pretty sure the next one was going to be from her (I am still capable of discovering answers by the process of elimination). Savannah's envelope had a picture of our keys, so I looked where Paul always hangs the keys at his mom's house and there was another envelope for me. This one contained the final clue to "Phase 2:" dinner and a movie on Tuesday night as well as a number crossword for the first clue of "Phase 3."

I was really starting to wonder how many phases there would be, but I was relieved that these puzzles were actually solvable (is that a word?!?). The first puzzle led me back to my parents' house again by birth year and zip code, although I still wasn't sure if I needed to get my next clue from Mom or Dad since they were born the same year. The envelope from my mom contained this picture (which I couldn't figure out)...

...and another puzzle. I assumed phase 3 put me back into confusing pictures, but at least it included solvable puzzles. I solved the puzzle and called up my good friend, Bonnie to figure out when I could pick up my next clue. She decided to drop it off for me (thanks, Bon!) and I found another strange picture...

...and the puzzle led me to my sister (who was also in town for Thanksgiving--Paul really worked hard to figure out all of the logistics on this!). The picture in her envelope was easy enough to figure out.

It was obviously from Twilight, but I had no idea how that related to the first two pictures in the group. An envelope from my brother-in-law (we were headed to their house for our Thanksgiving festivities) contained a page of music that had the edges burned away.

This directed my thoughts to a different path and I decided that the first picture could be piano keys and the second could be a metronome, but I had no idea how Twilight fit in to that picture. I opened my next envelope, instantly recognized the following picture from my sister-in law...

...and headed straight to my mom's dough box, where I discovered a wrapped present. I asked if I could open the present before I did the puzzle and Paul was shocked that I knew what that picture was so quickly. My final gift was the piano music from the Twilight movie, an envelope with goofy pictures of my family members, and a nice "love you" note.

The entire adventure included 18 number puzzles and lasted from Tuesday until Friday the following week. I couldn't believe how much work Paul put in to mailing things to so many different people as well as making it all work out that I would collect my next clues from the people we were around on each leg of our trip. Thanks, Paul for the great birthday fun! I don't think I will forget this one any time soon (if ever)!!