MARYSVILLE – Move over Pokemon Go! Many others are having some old-fashioned fun this summer playing Marysville-Tulalip Rocks.

Why go looking for a virtual Pikachu when you can hunt for something as solid as a rock?

Like many things these days, Marysville-Tulalip Rocks started with a Facebook site. Lindsay Amarah Kelly started it July 24 after seeing that people were doing it in other communities, such as Port Angeles, Oak Harbor, Bothell and Vancouver.

The premise is simple.

“The idea is to decorate rocks and hide them in various locations to make someone’s day,” Kelly writes on the website. If you want, you can post on the site clues to where people can find them. When you find one, you can keep it, leave it or hide it somewhere else.

Within a few weeks, 150 people are members of the page, and many are participating. Some are talking online about getting together to do it. The site asks participants to respect private property and businesses. On the back write Marysville so people know where it came from.

Jackie Morse Kraemer got involved a few weeks ago, after her son, Brody, 4, had eye surgery.

“I wanted to distract him from the pain,” she said.

It worked. They spent hours gathering rocks and painting them. They made some happy faces and lady bugs, adding glitter to make them sparkle. They hid some at Jennings Park, but Brody “obsessed” about hiding some at Children’s Hospital in Seattle.

“It was really cute. He’s really thoughtful,” his proud mom said.

They actually found a rock at the hospital on one trip. It said, “You are brave. You are strong.”

They decided to leave it for someone else to find.

“Somebody else needed it more than we did,” she said.

Kraemer said she’s really glad she found the group.

“I’d never heard of it before,” she said. “It’s a really cool little group, especially for kids.”

Kraemer also likes that it’s an inexpensive family hobby.

“It’s like a scavenger hunt for people who don’t have much money,” she added.

Sandy Pitchforth’s family has found just one rock, at Twin Lakes Park, but they’ve had as much fun or more hiding them. They have put hints on the website of pictures where the rocks could be found. For example, they have a photo of a Shell station, but you can’t tell which one. There are also pictures of an air compressor, fountain, waterfall, Jennings Park and the library. Pitchforth’s mom is home most of the time so they even put one near her so see could watch people looking for it.

“It’s something fun to do with family,” she said.

Pitchforth said it gives them something to do besides play Pokemon.

“Kids are just not active nowadays,” she said.

Pitchforth said her kids are ages 4-13, but they have all liked painting the rocks.

“We’re a Seahawks family, but we also got some ideas from Pinterest,” she said.

Rocks are being painted like trolls and fish. Other places they have been hidden and found include: the Spray Park, Ebey Waterfront, Fred Meyers and Totem Middle School.

Some of the most artistic rocks have been painted by Gail Simpier. She just joined the group, but has been painting rocks for two months. She previously did crochet and knitted “to make ends meet,” but her doctors “sort of grounded me” because of some problems with her hands.

“But I had to do something,” she said.

Simpier had painted on canvas, but had been “staring at one rock hard for years.” She painted it, and then another. People started to want them so she would give them away.

“They have homes of their own,” Simpier said.

She’s now painting smaller rocks out on her deck that take less time. When her 8-year-old granddaughter comes over from Eastern Washington they will hide them.

“When my granddaughter is here we do all kinds of stuff to keep busy,” Simpier said.