As a family, we bought one of those state quarter map thingies way back in 1999 when the quarters first started coming out. We stuck to it for a couple of years, and then we just kinda stopped. I am not sure why, but we did. When I was getting ready to go to college, I was going through my room and came across it. It had a sticky note on it that said "someday, I will finish." While I was in college I started checking my change and keeping out all the quarters that were state quarters and checking them against my quarters that were already in there. It seemed I had this uncanny ability to only find the quarters I already had! So is life I guess! I put the map up in my room as a constant reminder to keep working on it and finish it.
Isaac saw the map one day and asked me what it was. I told him it was a map for special quarters, and he was intrigued! He wanted to help me finish it, and he wanted it done now. He thought we should look in my piggy bank, and in grandma's piggy bank to see if we could fill our map all up. That is exactly what we did! We talked about what a quarter was and he helped my mom to look through the change in her piggy bank, while I looked through the change in mine. We made a pretty good dent in the amount of quarters that we needed.
I made a list for my sister of the quarters that we were still needing, and Isaac checked him and sissy's piggy banks at home. After a trip to my aunt's and a small raid of their change containers, we had all the quarters except 1: Utah. We even had a Washington D.C. quarter, a Puerto Rico Quarter, and a Guam quarter, none of which had a spot on the map, but Isaac and I just glued them on the bottom.
We looked and looked and looked for a Utah quarter. We could not find one anywhere and we searched literally for months. I even took to the route of looking up a Utah quarter on amazon, but decided that we would have to let life lead us to one. After a couple more months, I wrote the Utah Chamber of Commerce and explained that this was a little project I was doing with my nephew and we were using it to talk about money, and states, and just as a general thing to talk about. Plus, it gave him something to be working towards. We loved it, and Isaac had a phenomenal time doing it!
A couple of weeks later, I got a letter in the mail from the state of Utah! It had some cute brochures and booklets about the state that Isaac and I looked at, but Isaac was most excited about the shiny new quarter they had sent us with our packet of goodies. He knew this meant that our map was done. He wanted to put the last quarter in, so I took the opportunity to get some pictures of our adventure!
This is us with our letter. They addressed it to both Isaac and I, since it was a joint project, he thought that was pretty cool!
Isaac putting in the last state quarter!
Isaac loves to come in my room now and talk about that map and looking for the quarter and how mommy was the one that got it for us! (His mom works for the post office, and since it came in the mail, mom was the hero!) He likes to look at the different pictures, or point to the states and have me tell him what they are. It was a fun project, and I am glad my little buddy could join me on it!
Isaac and I with our completed map.
In looking for state quarters, we found a lot of state parks and monument quarters. Isaac and I have talked about getting the booklet and collecting the state park quarters together. So keep and ear open....I may be calling you to check your piggy banks for us!! :)
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