Amazingly Good Times

Hello all! So, I have to share my adventures from this weekend. It was a fabulous weekend! Friday night I headed up to the mountains again. It is so nice to get away and enjoy good company and see the beautiful scenery! There was an early group and a late group. It was great, when the late group arrived, we found camp already set up and dinner cooking. I think I ate better camping then I do normally... sad!

Master Chef Cami preparing the tin foil dinners

While waiting for dinner to warm up, what better way to spend your time then to have a bubble gum eating contest? I did not participate... nasty! There was a two way tie- somehow they were able to cram 20 in their mouth. Nothing better then sitting around the camp fire being entertained by someone who plays and sings!

We had a massive bonfire going- it was awesome! It felt so good, but you couldn't stand too close to it!

Oh, the crazy things people do... John wanted to jump the fire, so he did! I captured it on video.

The next morning we broke camp and then went hiking. Mark has these awesome shoes... well, they are more like rubber socks, but they were cool looking!

We made it to the Arapahoe lake!

How could anyone not love the mountains... I mean really, look at this amazing scene!

I think frolicking has become the theme for the summer!

Caught mid herkie (is that how you spell that?)

Mark, Anjuli, John, Cami, Julie

So, it was another awesome camping/hiking trip. Love the mountains. We got home around 4:00pm which gave me enough time to put my stuff away, shower, and get ready to head to my next adventure.

A gal in my ward is quite creative and wanted to do something big for the summer. So, she put on 'The Amazing Race- Denver Edition' for a few friends. It was awesome! I've never seen the show, so I was not familiar with what it is all about. Basically, it is a scavenger hunt around Denver. We arrived at the Museum of Nature and Science and there learned who was on our team and received our fancy shirts. Yep, we even got shirts- this was serious business!

I was on Team 'No Trace' with Andi, Kristin, and Candace

Team 'Pace Setters' - Audra, Kristin, Deanna, Anjuli

For our first clue we were given a token with a card that said, "Proceed to the location inside City Park where you can use this token. You will be met there with the other equipment needed to complete this task. Each member of your team must participate in the task."

It turned out the token went to a bucket of balls for the driving range! After hitting the basket worth we were handed our second clue with a book. The clue said, "Tear out each page that has a large letter written on it. As you tear out the letters in order, you will form a sentence directing you to the next location." The letters formed a sentence like, "Buy new, not used at the Pavilion"... which directed us to Barnes and Noble Bookstore at the Pavilion.

We did a lot of running.... seriously sprinting through Denver! The other team even mentioned they overheard people say, "I think those girls are on the Amazing Race!" Too funny!

After we got the info we needed from a book found at Barnes and Noble we were then off to our next stop. The clue read, "Oh help me this day never comes, but, in theory, on January 10, 2013 this building will become much more important to me than the Yale & Monaco building." Let's just say that the date mentioned is someones 31st birthday and the next clue was found at the building that they would go to if they get kicked out of the singles ward!

We were then directed to a "I have a dream" statue back in City Park. There we were met by the course marshal who gave us a bag of colored beads and asked us to tell her how many of each color there were in the bag. There were a lot of beads! By this time it was dusk, so here we were holding up our cell phones and used them as a flashlight to count beads! Good times.

Clue #5 took us to a construction area on Colfax where there was a blue tunnel. The next clue was hidden in that sidewalk tunnel.

Clue #6 was another, how well do you know Dianna clue and it said, this is my favorite place... which lead us to the capital building. There we were met by a couple other Course Marshall's who gave us a 10 question quiz on Colorado. It was hard! For the first couple rounds we were told the number of questions that were wrong and given a clean quiz to start over. It took us about 5 attempts to get all the questions right!

Final Clue, #7, stated, "Alpha and Omega, isn't it funny that we often end where we begin. Proceed to the place where the water shoots."

So, we ended back near the Nature and Science Museum near a children's play area with water shoots. There we were greeted by the Course Marshall and the finish mat! Team No Trace won, but I have a feeling we got lucky! The 'Pace Setters' were ahead of us the entire night, until they failed to get the info they needed from the book at Barnes and Noble and that set them back a good 20 minutes. It was close, but we pulled it off!

Apparently in the show the winning team is to jump on the finish mat?? So we did!

The winners!

All Participants

Team No Trace with the orchestrator of the event. Great job Diana!

It was a fun evening. We laughed a lot, ran a lot, and ummm... broke the law quite a bit. Yes, there was some speeding, jay-walking, illegal parking, driving down one ways, and turning left on a right turn only! That was my favorite, we turned left when you were supposed to only turn right, and it just so happened to be right in front of a police station! Oh, it gets better, we really did need to go right after all, so we ended up flipping a U-turn and headed right past the police station again! Too funny! I wish I would have gotten a picture with all of us trapped on the guard rail in the median of a busy street - we all sucked in when a truck come whizzing by! Oh, the crazy things you do when you are trying to win! There were no injury's, no tickets, and "No Trace" of any wrong doing!

After the event and picture taking we all went to Pete's Kitchen for some food and more socializing. The event was very well thought out- Diana did a great job! It was a really fun evening. I consider myself very lucky to be amongst such amazing people!