The thoroughly AMAZING race!

This weekend was our Amazing Race - which we dubbed, "The Thoroughly Amazing Race"! I have been wanting to do this for FOREVER! I talked to Cherice about it, and then we asked Jon and Donnarae if they would organize for us, and then we would organize one for their friends! Yesterday was our big race day. We teamed up in teams of 4 (basically 2 couples per team). We had 6 teams and 24 people! 12 people included us and friends we invited, and 12 people made up Kenny and Cherice and their friends(which pretty much all of them, I consider my friend too). Each team was given a color. We were teamed up with the Braithwaite's and were the blue team(we all decided to wear our BYU shirts, cause we already had them, and they were blue. Turned out backfiring a bit, cause we raced in downtown SLC on a home gameday for the U. We had lots of people cursing at us - literally.) Jon and Donnarae did an AMAZING job! I'm going to type out what we did, mainly for my journaling purposes, but I'm telling you, if you want to have the GREATEST days ever, you'll want to get some people together and plan one of these(I would LOVE to be invited, also!). Seriously, if there was anybody who played that didn't have a good time, it was their own faults!

We started off meeting at a park. There was MUCH trash talking going on! It was awesome. We were already having a blast, and it hadn't even started yet! When we told people the teams, and the colors, I put on the instructions that they could dress, or do whatever to unify their team. The outfits were great! Long socks, crazy sunglasses, spandex on a man, the works. It was awesome. Jon greeted us, and told us the rules, gave us clues and some money, and then said we would be starting the first task! He asked us if we had played sudoku. Very few people had played before. (which surprised me). He asked 2 of us to be writers, and the other 2 would help. Once we decided who the writers would be, he then told us that the writers would be blind-folded. Then the game was on! We ran up a huge hill. I was blindfolded, and Troy was guiding me. They had made HUGE sudoku puzzles on tarps. I got on my knees, and while Troy figured out the puzzle, he would put my hand somewhere and tell me to write. It was crazy. It was maddening not being able to see the puzzle - I did 4 of these particular puzzles on the airplane last week! We finally got it finished, and there were already 3 teams gone! AUGHH!!! We raced down the hill, and into the car.

The next clue told us that we would be going to the Alpine Slide. Steven read the clue, and we started heading up to Park City. Luckily, we asked Steven to re-read the clue, and realized we were to go to the Alpine Slide at SNOWBIRD not Park City! Good thing we read it when we did! We turned, and headed up to Snowbird - in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

We got up there, and saw all the teams that had been ahead of us. It was a great feeling to catch up and know you're not that far behind! We parked at the top of the Alpine Slide, had to run down for the tickets, then took the tram back up to the top. We went down, it was so fun - short, but fun. Then, we made Troy and Steven head up to get the car, while we went and got the next clue. We met them on the main road.

Our next clue took us to the downtown SLC Library Children's section which also told us that would be the last time we saw our cars during the race. It seemed we all got to the Library at once, TEARING through the library! It was so fun - racing to the stairs, while you see other teams all running at you also. I seriously, laughed the whole day. We got our clue, which made us find a book, and bring it back to a person. We did that, and the next clue sent us to the Devoreaux Mansion for our mandatory rest period aka lunch.

One team didn't follow the clue, and drove to lunch. They were penalized (after much debate - in the Amazing Race - unfair things happen, also, if you don't read the clue, or follow the clue, you should be penalized). My only sad part of the day was that anyone would be rude to my brother-in-law over a fun little race - when it was their fault that they didn't follow the clue. Whether it was spelled out well enough in their minds is besides the point, it was supposed to be for fun - definitely NOT a million dollars on the line, and Jon was not getting paid! He had spent tons of time, energy, and his whole Saturday on this. THANK YOU JON! Anyways, Jon didn't want to argue with the team anymore than he had, and gave them the clue without having to finish out their penalty.

Lunch was fun. We had to stay there for 20 minutes after we arrived there. After lunch, we headed to Liberty Park. It took forever to get there. We had to wait for Trax, and then it was quite the run/walk. We seriously, did so much running from the Library on! I was wearing jeans, and was sweating so bad! It felt like I was trying to run with an additional 30 lbs!

At Liberty Park, we had to do 2 tasks. Walk across a rope (more like a strap) that was tied between 2 trees, and then they gave us a photo of something in the park. We had to go find it, take a photo, and then go back to the guide to show them the pictures. We were all pretty much here at the same time. Except for the black team, who was about 15 minutes behind us at the pit stop, who took a taxi to Libery Park! Brilliant! They beat everyone to Liberty Park. There's definitely advantages to not being in a pack! Apparently they all rushed through the tight rope (not it's technical name, but I can't remember what it is). Jon and Donnarae told us later, that if they had made the other teams stick to the level of going over the rope as the black team, we would have been there for hours!

After those tasks were finished, we were to head to Gil Gal Gardens. Where is that you ask? Good question! Most people on the streets didn't know where that was! It's on 500 S. and 700 E for those of you who are interested in going! That was the final leg of the race. The black team won - by a bit! Then the red team and then US! THIRD! Wahoo! The prize was a garden gnome. (You know, the travelocity roaming gnome that frequents the Amazing Race?) It was such a fun day! Seriously, super fun! I would advise ANYONE to do this! Cherice and I are putting together Jon and Donnarae's Thoroughly Amazing Race in a few weeks. We will then be on the other side of it, to see how hard it is to put on. We want this to be an annual thing - with the gnome, literally roaming, year after year. I can't wait for Jon and Donnarae's! We have so many things up our sleeves! Here we are at the end!

I had my video camera on me for most of the race, but not my camera (point and shoot). I am waiting to get some before photos of the racers from Jon! At church today, everyone kept talking about how sore we were. It was great, and as an added bonus, burned calories! WAHOO!

WAY TO GO BLUE!