We signed up for the Amazing Race party at last years auction and it definitely lived up to all the hype. All of us on the green team were newbies so we really had no idea what to expect.
And our game faces are ON!
We each received this puzzle in our mailboxes earlier in the week:
We all met up at the first location and greeted the competition.
The YELLOW team - FIRESTORM
The BLUE team
The PURPLE team
Not really sure - the ORANGE team?
The BLACK team - Wrecked but not Dead
The WHITE team
The RED team - the Predators. Last years champions!
And the Mean GREEN Hurricane's
And all of the refs!
After everyone arrived - we went over the rules.
And then the fun began!
First task: There were six water bottles lined up along the driveway. Each team member was to stand behind one. The first team member had to tie pantyhose with a tennis ball around their waist and knock the water bottle over without using your hands at all. Once you knock it, you pass it to the next team member. Once all six of us knock our bottle over, one member then needs to grab our team color balloon from one of the refs. Two team members have to pop the balloon without hands or feet - to release the first clue! Whew!
She's technically not suppose to be using her hands...but this was the only picture I took...
First Clue:
Our driver was waiting in the street so we packed in the car and were off....to Greenville Avenue.
Jeff sprinted to the rooftop while we laid on the cement spelling SJE
Mission #1: complete
Next clue -
We headed to Lindsley Park in Hollywood Heights
We spotted a ref right away and headed received our task - blindfold a team member and direct them to a lollipop hanging from a tree. We assigned Chad - once he got the lollipop, he opened it and had to chew them gum and blow a bubble which we were suppose to pop with a water gun. Once this was completed we had to find a balloon and pop it for the next clue. Things got a little hairy here....a lot of the balloons were already popped...and the ref just ended up handing everyone their clues. It was a bit of a shitshow.
Next clue:
LimeBike had dropped a ton of bikes - and they were actually there to help us. There was a code in our buckets with a free ride, but I don't think the codes weren't working...so there was mass confusion. And a little frustration as we all attempted to unlock our bikes. I think Kevin accidentally ended up purchasing $40 in Lime Bike credit trying to get the dang thing working! Lime Bike peeps ended up unlocking some bikes for the stragglers...and everyone was finally on their way....to The Lot!
Clara looks slightly terrified...she was the first one off from our team!
When we got to The Lot we were given a little challenge:
Chad earned us the 5 minute credit! woot woot!
Our driver was waiting for us at The Lot and we hightailed with to San Benito...
Each team had to dig to find the six color coded barbie doll body parts & a dress before the ref would give us the next clue!
Mrs. Rust & her hubby were waiting for us at The Goat - she is a second grade teacher at SJE and she had a Texas History question for each of us to answer CORRECTLY before she was able to give us our next clue. Let's just say I need to brush up my on Texas history....
I don't seem to have the clue that lead us to our next location - but we were headed to Klyde Warren Park in search of some Bucaneers (aka J Long Middler schoolers!)
We watched once and then had to hop in and do the dance.
Yes, there is video.
And, yes, I am sharing it.
Once we danced in front of everyone at the park - they gave us our next clue!
We headed right to the Perot museum to play a little Leap frog...
We took video of this and sent to our referee - and she then sent our next clue.
The clue we should have gotten was THIS one:
BUT we actually were sent THIS one:
We debated a little one this - what was the closest patio w/ margaritas and tacos to the Perot museum? The whole bridge thing didn't make sense...but we jumped out and ran over to Meso Maya patio.
No one was there.
We kept searching - the guys even ran inside to check things out. We were stumped.
Clara found Mrs. Cantu's phone number and we called her to see if we could get any additional clues. Mrs. Cantu would only speak to us in Spanish and she kept saying over and over that there is a word in the clue that gives it away. We were so CONFUSED! We started asking about specific areas of town - when we asked if she was somewhere close to home and she didn't say no, we knew to think of a place there. And then it hit me - Mockingbird Station.
And that is when we checked the phone again and saw that our ref had immediately sent the correct clue right after the wrong one. Oops. Soooo....that darn missing clue changed things. We knew it meant Glencoe park so we decided to stop there and circle the park on our way to Mockingbird Station.
We couldn't find the "odd" car and there definitely wasn't a plunger sticking out anywhere...since we already had the next clue and din't need to send a picture to get it, we just said oh well and moved on.
Apparently this task was really difficult and it took everyone a long time. The plunger was on the inside of a car & there was a window shade. So you had to be creepy and peer in all the different cars! lol. So basically everyone got held up here...which helped us since we had been hanging out in uptown looking for Mrs. Cantu.
We found Mrs. Cantu at the new Mexican restaurant in Mockingbird station. She is the kinder dual language teacher - so she gave us our next clue in Spanish. After a little deciphering we figured out that our next mission was to head to Fiesta and buy a pickle.
Apparently there was a specific pickle that we needed - and they wouldn't send the last clue until the correct one was found...our guys sent a lot of options!
And the final clue!
Our driver was legit and was able to get us to the final destination before any other team (even though another team had secured their grocery item and left Fiesta a few minutes before us!)
We ran in....headed to the pool where one member had to jump in and grab a bag from the pool. 
Inside the bag was a part of a puzzle. We had to run to the garage and find the puzzle that matched ours and finish it for the win.
So even though we were the first team to start on the puzzle, the RED team snuck in and finsihed their puzzle crazy fast - the took FIRST place.
Guys - this party was SO much fun. It was intense, and competitive and crazy. AND also incredibly hilarious! After the race we chilled out with beers and tacos! We were all pretty exhausted but it was so fun to hear everyones take on the night.
