The Amazing Race Huntsville!

For Dad's 55th birthday Mom and I wanted to throw him a surprise birthday party. We decided to theme it on one of our favorite family shows "The Amazing Race". For 4-5 months we worked on this party, talking to businesses and people, making clues, envelopes, folders, t-shirts, name tags, clue boxes, bags and much much more. There is a huge amount of organizing that goes into making a Race! Well today was the day, we managed to keep the whole thing a secret (Dad knew about the BBQ part of the party but was completely surprised by the race part) and we pulled it off beautifully. Today I got a few last minute things done and tried not to turn into a nervous wreck. Finally the time to get started came around and I left the house around a quarter to 2. I picked up our 4 camera people (one to follow each team) and the balloon artist who was running one of the tasks. Then we started setting up the race markers, the clue boxes and other race paraphernalia. We managed to finish with less than 10 min to spare. Once we finished setup, we met the contestants (party goers) outside of the Monaco Movie theater to wait for dad. We handed out assignments to the camera people and prepared for Dad's arrival. Jon and Dad showed up right on time at 3:30 and I think Dad was surprised to find us all waited for him with our banner. After hugs and greetings we read out the rules and then handed them their first clue and they were off. Since I have 124 pictures to post from the race, I am going to divide it all up and do a post for each section of the race. For this post, I give you the beginning...