Monday, December 28, 2015

Amazing Race in Seattle

Truth be told, my parents are hard to buy for.  I always struggle to know what to get them for Christmas.  When I learned that a little first grader at our school had been cast as Gretl in the 5th Avenue Theatre's production of "The Sound of Music", I knew I wanted to see it and decided that tickets to the show would be a great Christmas gift for Grandma and Grandpa, too.  

Then we decided to take it one step further and turn their gift into an Amazing Race.  Their race would end with theatre tickets that evening, but we wouldn't tell them that.  Not yet.  We wanted to make it a day in Seattle full of surprises.  The kids knew the final destination, but the clues along the way were equally as surprising for them.  We had so much fun!

The first clue that they opened on Christmas Eve simply told them to dress warmly, wear comfortable shoes and be ready to leave at 10:00 am.

Once in the car, they opened their next clue which directed them to the Space Needle.  They were told they needed to take a family selfie at the top to receive their next clue.





Our next stop was MOD Pizza for lunch.  Yummo!


Then they had to make their way to the gum wall and add a piece of chewed gum to the mess.




Their Road Block required them to go to Jon's 22nd floor office and count all of the boats in the Puget Sound to receive their next clue.


We stopped for a pic in front of the market on our way to Jon's office.


It took several tries to correctly count all of the boats in the water.  Ferries, barges, sailboats...all had to be included.


The Detour took us to Game Works where Grandma and Grandpa were required to score a certain number of points in either Basketball or SkeeBall.  



We played lots of other games, too.


Grandma and Grandpa even drove a Hummer:


Jon got on a Harley:


Then we made our way to the Gingerbread Village to see the Star Wars-themed gingerbread houses.



Next, we walked across the street to visit the Teddy Bear Suite at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel.


We sipped warm drinks, had a snack and rested our tired feet at Starbucks before making our way to the show.  All in all, 9 clue envelopes were opened.  At last we had arrived at our final destination.


The show was fantastic and the Amazing Race Christmas present ended up being an amazing day for all of us!

2 comments:

Granny said...

Such a great gift! We had sooooo much fun.

SuburbiaMom said...

What a great gift! You are so creative and fun, Tara!!!