So, last week was a mess – a hot, weird, sweaty, fun, kind, powdered sugar coated mess! (Also known as GISHWHES!) The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen is not for the weak! I may not have the most energy in the world, but I do deal with a 10 month old Nugget on the daily so I have to have some motivation, right? Wrong! When you decide to cram as many scavenger hunt items in one day as possible while the heat index is 100+ everyday will knock you flat on your ass after a week! But the adventures, laughs, and pictures will keep you rolling and make it all worth it!
Our week began with an interesting trip to the grocery store…hair, make-up, and wardrobe courtesy of my 7 year-old niece, Lana! Needless to say, little girls are attracted to pink like magnets! The 4 inch hot pink stilettos in the back of my closet were no exception, and were greatly appreciated by the staff at our local Publix (probably because the matched so famously with my red dress)!
Next on our list was to dress up the yard, however, since landscaping is so expensive we had to use our own clothes! Who knew all those scarves and feather boas that I’ve randomly acquired would ever come in so handy?!
A couple items on our list were simply aimed at doing good for others! One day we simply had to make someone happy – so we decided to buy lunch for whoever walked in behind us at Subway. It makes you feel like a million bucks when people are so grateful for the smallest bit of kindness! Another task was a little more entertaining – we had to dress as dessert fairies to deliver ice cream to our local first-responders. Luckily my brother is a firefighter so it wasn’t the MOST embarrassing thing in the world to show up at the fire house dressed in glittered and (once again) feather boas!
One of my absolute favorite items on the list was to cover yourself (or your boss in this case) in powdered sugar and discuss a grievance with your employer. Well, as you know, I am a stay at home mom, my home is my place of employment, and my boss is 10 months old! My kid acted like it was an everyday occurrence when we dumped an entire bag of powdered sugar over his head. If you’ve ever met him you also know that is generally a very happy and content baby. It was quite difficult to make him look mad for this picture – until I told him he couldn’t eat the sugar!
While we got quite sweaty decorating the yard, the next few days would seriously test our tenacity for standing the heat! Sidenote: GISHWHES also includes a list of commandments (or unofficial rules), one states that you cannot drink water with ice in it for the duration of the week. That obviously lasted for all of 5 minutes!
In one such case we had to rewrite the Constitution in a more modern and understandable language (not too difficult), then we had to display it in sidewalk chalk art (on one of those 100 degree days – poor timing on our part!). Chalking is hard, like really hard! This one took over 2 hours to complete. Seriously hoping the calligraphy earned us some extra point for creativity!
Another one that I had fun with was to take GISHWHES somewhere famous that it has never been! Given the fact that many list items in previous years have taken place at many world famous destinations, and even in space, this task seemed fairly daunting to begin with. Then we realized that we live in a pretty incredible town (at least to those who can respect the dominance of SEC football programs) and we decided to take GISHWHES (and Misha Collins) to Bryant Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The home of the Alabama Crimson Tide and 16 National Championships! *Roll Tide*
Once again, we decided to complete a couple more tasks to benefit others! Over the next couple days we took cookies to my husband and his office staff at work – simple, but who doesn’t love cookies and surprises!! In another task we volunteered our time to help raise awareness for a semi new veterans’ organization called Operation ReConnect by placing some info flyers on cars. If you’ve never heard of it, check it out at http://www.operationreconnect.org – They are doing some big things for vets and their families!
Next, we needed Nugget’s help again. According to GISHWHES children are our future…of robot babies! Nugget was not as amused with this task as we were – HAHA! He’s been cutting some more teeth so he was more into eating the cardboard than taking pictures with it! I also found it humorous that we needed to cut the toilet paper rolls because they would not fit around his chunky rolls!
Our week came to a very tired end with some fun items!
Still battling the heat, we had to build a landmark or monument out of sticks and get a picture next to the actual monument. Shout out to Tuscaloosa again for it’s local awesomeness (and the simplicity of Denny Chimes’ construction)! We were hot and exhausted, a tall rectangular building was about all we were willing to tackle!
Since it’s so difficult to gather your family together for holidays, GISHWHES suggests you do them all at once! My family thoroughly enjoyed digging through all their holiday decorations in the middle of summer so that we could have an all-holiday party! This one turned out to be one of my favorites! More people should use Christmas lights and giant skeletons to decorate at the same time!
One task had us personify the name of a street sign. Given the fact that my neighborhood is full of weird mashups of random or made up words, we got a little creative with this one. I always thought that “Moonlight” sounded like a good hippie name, thus, our hippie Jessica!
I enjoyed the item that insisted we recreate an image of a dog getting sprayed in the face by a sprinkler (without animals)! We don’t have a sprinkler, but we do have a water hose, and I have a very trusting cousin! She volunteered like a champ…and I, of course, was willing to spray her in the face!
The final task we decided to accomplish this week was to sell bottled air! Yes, we chugged bottled water for 2 days to reuse the bottles. We also enlisted the help of our WONDERFUL graphic designer friend, Natalie to make us some labels. She is beyond talented and our labels had us in stitches at the fact that they were amazingly done for such and odd (and slightly pointless) use!
Other insightful tidbits we learned from GISHWHES: it’s fun to pour red wine on your best friend from 2 stories up; red wine is hard to get out of your ears; Nugget loves powdered sugar and hates cardboard costumes; strangers are very generous and (in most cases) willing to help you complete hilarious tasks; you have way more clothes in your closet than you think you do; doing good for others makes you feel good!
In the end, I would do it again in a heartbeat! Next year I’m playing to win and you should too! If you need anymore motivation, GISHWHES raised over $200,000 in just a week to help 4 refugee families in need! It’s not just fun, it’s beneficial. For more information you can visit their website at http://www.gishwhes.com and the benefiting charity at http://www.randomacts.org.
Nugget and I are now going to sleep for the next 4 days…
Cheers, mommas!
Kristen