Amazing Race Valentine's Edition Preparations

I'm trying to figure out how to put this post together. I think I am going to do all the preparations here and what the guys did and then the next post will be what us girls did while we were waiting and after they got to the final destination. I got this idea from Me And My Insanity. I just LOVED the idea and told my friends about it and they were on board immediately. We started to plan this in January and did the actual date on Feb 27th. There was too much going on for all of us the 13th and 20th so that's when we did it. I definitely got a lot of Valentines stuff for cheaper since V-day was already over.

Here are a few of the preparations we did before the actual day. My sister came over one Saturday and we painted some signs. It was hard because we had to make sure that my husband didn't see them.
My daughter getting in on the picture.
I decided that we just HAD to have heart shaped ice cubes. I made up some Crystal Light Fruit Punch and used up the whole thing making these awesome ice cubes.
Susanne came over and helped out with the shirts. It went by really fast. We did 8 shirts of each color.

First of all, I did all the graphics for the race. I had fun and planning everything was crazy but in the end it was a lot of fun and it all turned out awesome.

This is the "flag" that was at each place. They were put on the doors so that the guys could see that they were at the right place.

Before I move on I want to tell you all the places I had planned for the guys to go and do.
1. A scrapbook store - Make a Valentine's card
2. The dollar store - Find their wives "heart's desire."
3. A chocolate shop - Make a couple pieces of chocolate.
4. Our community club house - The final destination - Where dinner would be.
5. A person that we know that had a huge fruit orchard. - Their physical task - Picking a bucket of fruit.
6. Our church's stage - To make a music video.

Is that what we did? Nope. We only were able to do one of those things. That was the Dollar Store. We had to improvise and use our houses for the other things. So here is what they actually did.

1. The Dollar Store - Get their wives "Heart's Desire." (We would tell them as we dropped them off at the starting place what our heart's desire was and they would have to remember that when they got there.)
2. Player #1's barn - Make a music video using a song from the list we gave. The list? "I'm Too Sexy," "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and "Can't Touch This."
3. Player #2's house - Make a Valentine's card with the scrapbooking supplies given.
4. Back to the house they started at - Dip items in chocolate. They had to pick the three items (out of 8 given) that their wife would choose to dip in chocolate.
5. Road Block - Clean up the mess they made dipping chocolate.
6. My house - The finish line and dinner.
7. One of the tasks during the whole race was to get flowers for us too. For Free!

Some friends of ours were gracious enough to be the hostess and videographer of the race. She gave her little introduction and read off the rules. We had there a basket and their "uniform" which was a shirt that I designed and did an iron on that said I love my wife.

Then she sent them on their way after she got a picture of them. I don't know if you can see buy my hubby said that they held the baskets up with their pinkie finger sticking out. My handsome man is the one on the far left.
Here are the rules that she read to them.

So, here are the clues that we came up:

Clue #1 -
During this race some flowers you must find.
Make sure they're FREE. Use your mind.
Creativity is the best way to go.
Now hop to it. Ready...Set...GO!!!

This was given before they left the house.


Clue #2 -
Money doesn't grow on trees.
But you can get these almost free.
Her "heart's desire," did you hear?
Find an item over here.

This took them to the Dollar store where they had to find the item that their wife told them they wanted. I was a stinker and didn't come out and say the actual item that I wanted so my husband had a harder time trying to figure out what it was. The other guys did very well.

Clue #3
Choose a song that calls to you.
Dress up, so it's fun to do.
Point the camera at the stage.
Dance and sing. It's all the rage.

This took them to the barn where they chose a song and actually did a little dance routine. I was pretty happy to see the thought that went into it. (We watched the video later.) We had some nice props for them to wear too.

Clue#4
Make a love card. Please don't scrimp.
Or she'll think that you're a shrimp.
Make it nice so she'll be proud.
Or it will be read aloud.

They got to the house and went to work right away. I have to tell you that these guys have some MAD scrapbooking skills. I will put a picture of what they did in the next post. I was pretty pleased at what I saw.

Clue#5
Your wife likes to dip chocolate. What would they be?
From all of these choices, pick only three.

This is where they had to pick the three items out of the eight to dip.

Clue#6
Just one more thing you have to do.
Clean the mess that somehow grew.
After that you're almost done.
One more clue...Let's have some fun.

This was the "Roadblock" part of the race. We just made them clean up so that Karen wouldn't have to later. There wasn't much to do so they were done real fast.

Clue#7
Now that you finished running this race.
Go find some dinner at this place.
Your sweetheart is waiting with food in hand.
And she'll give a kiss to her favorite man.

They just had to gather all the stuff they accumulated and walk over to my house where we had the place decorated and ready. Actually, they were done with the last task faster than we thought and we made them wait at the door for a minute while we lit the candles and put the ice cubes in the glasses.

To be continued (with a ton of pictures).......


Here are some other people who did this race as well_
Catching Up With the Conners
Ridgecrest Review