The best treasure you can find

Today I was at the beach with some friends. The temperature was perfect. The sky blue. The waves crashing and the tide just coming in. It was in fact a perfect day.

Perez, my 7 year old friend and I went for a walk along the beach. We like to do this. We look for cool stuff and we tell stories. We step on kelp bubbles (or pods) and make them pop. We climb on rocks and read other people's messages written in the sand. I love it!

Today we were climbing on some rocks when I noticed some kids playing in a tide pool. So I said, "Perez look! Let's go see what they've found." There were about 6 or 7 kids in the water, several parents lining the water telling the kids to look under this rock or giving them hints on how to catch a crab without actually once touching a crab themselves.

Soon I noticed the crowed of kids gathered playing together. They all worked together. They all shared a similar goal. They were all making strategies and coming up with grand ideas of what they could do with all the crabs they catch. At one point I looked up and there were about 10 kids and not one was of the same nationality. They didn't even speak the same languages.

I loved watching them. I loved seeing them laugh and play. They didn't care that they were all different. In fact, i think wondered if they noticed. They simply were of the human race and they loved every moment of it.

I sat next to a woman and she and I started talking. The kids modeled we followed suit.

At the end of our time. I asked Perez, "so what was the best treasure you found today." "The crabs!" he answered. I asked again, "what else did you find that was even better than a crab?" "New Friends!" he answered. "Yes, Perez, that is the best treasure of today! What a good hunt! What a great find!" We walked a way and Perez wrote something in the sand. i looked down and he was writing a message to his new friends. It read, Love Perez to Aaron.

He said to me, "Cari can I go tell his mom something." "Of course you can Perez." With that he ran back to Aaron's mom. He ran back to me and we started walking back to meet up with his mom.

As we walked back we saw Aaron and his mom walking over to the place in the sand where Perez had written him a message. Aaron's mom read it to him and he yelled to Perez, "thank you my new friend Perez!"

Oh the lessons we can learn from children!

I hope that on your daily treasure hunt that you will know that the one of the best treasures you can find is a really good friend! And I hope that you feel free to tell them that they are special to you and that you can be unashamedly bold in doing so.