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| One of Lexi's photos, very nice! |
We were invited to take part in a Photo Scavenger Hunt the first week of March and I got very excited about it. I love anything that involves a creative hunt and I love taking pictures, so I couldn't wait to get our list and start thinking about how we were going to get pictures of all the objects. The rules were pretty simple, establish a team, get creative pictures of team members with the determined objects, have fun. (Okay, they were more defined than that, but you get the idea.) The list came out at 9am on Saturday March 3 and we were off to the races. We technically had a whole week to get our pictures taken and submitted, but we hoped to finish as quickly as possible since we only have Lexi half of every week.
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| Bottlebrush tree in bloom |
First, we tried to link each object to a song title or lyrics to act out. That proved harder than we thought. We abandoned that idea for sheer creativity and fun with our pictures. As we looked over the list, Shane told me, I've got that one, when we read "Flower." I had a manicure appointment around lunch time with Lexi, so I figured he'd show up with flowers and do something cute. Wrong. He picked us up from the appointment and, no flowers. We drove for a little while, but no flowers. He told me to just trust him, he had it covered, but we needed to hurry because the photo was time sensitive. Time sensitive flowers? What? Okaaayy......
We pulled into Hidden Lake Gardens (sort of a cross between botanic gardens and nature preserve) and I immediately felt bad for him. I thought, "Aww, poor guy thought there would daffodils or something in bloom out here and it's weeks too early." I said something to him about it and he just told me he had it covered. I muttered and spent my journey to the back of HLG doubting the existence of flowers in March. We arrived, paid our fee and walked into the conservatory. OOOhhh.... I forgot about that place. As we headed from the office to the conservatory it began snowing HUGE fluffy snowflakes and I told Shane that it was so serene a scene, it was almost magical.
He walked me through two domes that were, wait for it, flowerLESS. Then we entered the Temperate Dome. Flowers, flowers everywhere. Bulbs in bloom, a bottle brush tree blooming, begonias and such everywhere. Yeah. Plenty of flowers to get our picture with. Since all team members had to participate and take turns taking pictures, he got Lexi practicing with the camera, then set her up to get our picture under the flowering tree. I stood there, so proud of him for thinking of this place, looking at Lexi who seemed super excited to be taking our picture, rather than being IN it (she is quite the camera ham). Shane turned to her and told her "Now, this is it, take the picture now." I looked at him to figure out what he meant and there he was on one knee, presenting me with a beautiful antique blue diamond in a setting he selected for it.
Our fun little family scavenger hunt had turned into his proposal!!! He had discussed his plans with her in the morning and she knew what was coming all along. That sweet little five year old sat with me, alone, while we got manicures and never said a word. She took a photograph of the magical moment flawlessly and beamed with pride and excitement the whole time. That day could not have been more special and meaningful. This was our first picture in the series of 15 we had to hunt and, although the entire experience was fun, nothing could top that one!Flower - "Will you marry me?"
Motorcycle - "Hey, that's mine!" This was a posed pout... :-) Without immediate access to a real motorcycle, we thought we could make use of her Handy Manny motorcycle. She LOVED pretending to pout. She is an expert in this particular field of expression. ;-)
Firetruck - "Playtime" at a big box store - adults need playtime too!
Shopping Cart - "Road Kill" (or Aisle Kill, as it were) - we went out to the garden center, set up quickly and hurried for the right shot so security wouldn't be called on the crazy people running one another over.
Stop Sign - We called this one "Stop in the name of Love" - notice the heart which is a valentine Lexi made at school and sent through the mail to her Daddy
Someone in Uniform - We went the silly route with most of our pictures, but not this one. We take these guys very seriously. We stopped by the police station and the man at the desk refused to help us. We happened upon this officer sitting near a local park and he was much more obliging. Nice fella!
Coffee - We brainstormed about what to do with this one. We had pretty well decided on staging a scene with Lexi holding an empty coffee cup and going wild as though she had drank a grande-quad-sugar-loaded- something-or-other. When we arrived and ordered our coffee, Shane decided upon this mammoth coffee cup for his at-work addiction to coffee. It seemed like a fun shot to get us all "drinking" from the cup. The fun ended for Lexi when she absent mindedly took a huge swig of boiling hot sugar-loaded-something-or-other through the straw. Not only was it a million degrees, it tasted AWFUL according to her sensitive tastes. Poor thing was terrified to even touch the straw to her lips for the picture. You can see a bit of that on her face even still in this eleventy-billionth retake of the picture. Poor sweet little monkey. She really hates coffee.
Water - Shane concocted this scene with squeals of creative delight. Never fear, no monkeys were scarred in the taking of this photo. He was well covered wearing a bathing suit behind the shower curtain. We had a careful chat with Lexi also about how this was a joke for a photo and that we would never pull the curtain back while someone was actually in the shower... just for good measure.
Statue - We could simply not think of a fun statue to take a picture with, so we decided to create our own with supplies from home. Here is our very own Statue of Liberty holding a modern day "torch" and "tablet." If you look closely, you can see a picture of the ACTUAL Statue of Liberty on the iPad for good measure. Two team members had to be in the picture, so you can see Shane peaking out from behind our flag throw.
Magazine - "My stars, what scandal!" We laughed and had so much fun taking several shots to choose from for this one! His face is just priceless!
Hat - See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil - in hats! I couldn't seem to remember which one I was... so for several takes of this, we had two see no evil participants. Silly me!
Dog - Everyone always teases us about living "on the farm" (which we do not, but most of our friends are city folks), so we thought it appropriate to do Bingo. There was a farmer (or two) who had a dog and BINGO was [her] name-o. We had Lexi write the sign for fun and she even had a bit of straw hanging out of her mouth. SO MUCH FUN!
Fence - We had fun with this one. Shane's face is the BEST. Click on the picture to blow it up and get a good look at him. So cute. Sure do love that guy!
Playground equipment - Lots of fun takes on playground equipment, but this was our official submission. I think the butts have it!
Incidentally, there is a geocache hidden beneath this phone. It is one I could not photograph when we logged it due to muggle activity. (If you have no idea what I just said, see my first few posts on geocaching here, here and here.)
We had an absolute blast on this scavenger hunt. Families in several states participated. I encourage anyone who has the opportunity to get involved in one to do so. It was special for so many reasons and the memories we created will be held close in our hearts always. A special thank you to Jennie Hauck for organizing it (from Florida) as well!
By the way, just in case you are wondering, or I was unclear, here was my answer:
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