From the Archives-- July 13, 2009 and August 2, 2009

On July 13, 2009 I posted this on a now hidden blog- I had forgotten about finding this note! Read on to find out what happened on that day and then continue reading for the update I posted about a month later...

Below is the original post from 2009
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Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.

~Boris Pasternak

While we were away for the 4th of July at Deep Creek, Maryland, it was rainy and dreary all weekend long. I was sick and so was Ty. It was pretty miserable. One bright spot was the moment I found (next to the campfire ring, half buried in the dirt) a little plastic baggie folded over, stapled, and attached to a string. The string was like the kind of string they put on balloons. I could see through the baggie that there was a piece of paper folded inside. The ink was showing through the damp paper and I could read the words, "Dear friend,"

My interest piqued, I took the bag inside and felt like I was on a secret decoding mission. It was so exciting that I found something that another human being had meant for someone else's eyes. It was like finding a mysterious message in a bottle.

When I started to unfold the letter, it quickly became apparent that the note was in bad shape. It was so wet that when I tried to peel it away from itself, it would just disintegrate. This job would take steady hands and patience.

Thank goodness I packed my trusty eyebrow tweezers! I grabbed my grooming supplies from the bathroom and started to unfold the note piece by piece. I was so scared I wouldn't be able to read it. I documented my progress with pictures.

It turns out that the paper was indeed attached to a balloon at one point. I would make a pretty good detective, huh? Apparently, a private school in Pennsylvania had a balloon ascension, where they attach notes to balloons and let them go, back in NOVEMBER! The note gave the name of the school, the student's name, the phone # to the school, and an address to contact the student. The 3rd grader who sent this note requested that whoever found the note to send it back to her with information on where and when the note was found. How dang cool is that? That note traveled to my FIL's log home in the woods of Maryland, somehow got detached from the balloon, got dragged next to the fire pit, and got buried there for 8 months before being discovered. I bet the little girl had given up hope on hearing from anyone!

I packaged the remaining pieces of the letter up and mailed it back to the address on the note. I tried calling the school to report that it had been found, but no one answered...it must be closed in the summer. I hope that little 3rd grader got a smile when she received my letter. It makes me smile just thinking about it. I hope she writes back to me, but I don't expect her to. We'll see.




 Below is the original post from August 2, 2009-
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Remember that post about me finding a buried note while on vacation for 4th of July? I sent the letter back to the the girl and it was returned to me by the post office. The girl no longer lived at the address on the note. But, thanks to my keen eyes ;0) I found the forwarding address at the bottom of the yellow sticker on the envelope, so I gave it one more shot. And it worked! Check out the note she wrote back to us:

Can you believe it?!? I was shocked to find out what I thought was a note that had survived 9 months in the elements actually had survived almost 3 YEARS! She let the balloon go in November of 2006! Oh my goodness! What a neat ending to a cool story. I plan on writing back to her and perhaps my family and hers can stay in contact.



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 I believe I remember writing back one more time to her, however I never received anything back so our communication stopped. I had completely forgotten about this and I am so thrilled I've kept a blog all these years to remind me with words and pictures of these awesome memories. Thanks for checking out this throwback post from 8 years ago!!