Quest for Hope 2008

I promised my friends that I wouldn’t post about last’s night adventure in scavenger hunting until all the effects of said event had left my system. Seeing as how my feet hurt, my bum hurts, my left arm is a little sore for some reason it could be a while before I’m actually allowed to post anything.

A huge thank you to each and everyone involved in making the night so much fun, for allowing the families to participate because I know we all needed the chance to cut loose and be crazy for a night. It was nonstop insanity.

Before I post ANY pictures of the night, please remember that my lovely team members and I had a blast looking for those dresses….almost as much fun as we had in them. I had bought my top-ish type garment with the expectation of wearing it over jeans. That idea was quickly nixed by taunts of “You’re a chicken! Bwock Bwock Bwock!” Apparently the team that is humiliated together stays together. Renee was the only one that walked away from the night with any sense that she might be able to re-wear the outfit she hunted in…the rest of us are planning to burn our outfits!

In preparation to wear a garment that was fAAAAAr too drafty for my comfort level, I had to go on the hunt for shorts to wear under it. I got a pair of jogging shorts that worked perfectly and were so needed in the event that required we bounce and struggle our way through one of those huge inflatable obstacle courses. Nathaniel’s response to the utterly un-momliness of my “dress” was “That looks nice! You look pretty…all you need are some pants.” Pretty much my thoughts on it.

But I did it, I shamed myself for the team and we had a ball! We went as the Cheetah Girls and we got some great “please tell me you’re dressed like that for a really good cause/look how nice they are to let those ladies out of the special home” kinds of look! I do have to tell you that if I had never made it out to the scavenger hunt and done no more than leave the house and then walk back in, it would have been worth it all…the look on my neightbor’s faces when I walked out to the van was PRICELESS! The radio volume went down and their chatter went completely silent…I am the soccer mom across the street and I just came out in leather boots and cheetah ears! Gives them something good to talk about.

It’s fun to stay at the….

We had to do so many really wacky things over the course of the night! Just to name a few:

-Talk strangers into swapping shirts
-Singing the “I wish I was a Oscar Meyer Weiner” song to a table to people just there to eat dinner
-I had to eat a ball of wasabi, Renee had to down a bowl of Dip n Dots in 15 seconds and I to eat 5 suicide wings from Hooters…my lips are still numb from that one!
-We had to convince a woman to lie on the ground and let a guy hold her hair in a caveman pose
-We begged a group of kids in prom dresses to “Vogue” Madonna-style for us

-We had to make an animal out of a toilet seat cover…which aren’t the easiest things to find in the bars of Tampa

-Natalie bedazzled a strange, bald man’s head with pretty yellow stickers

-We intruded on a birthday party to take pictures with the birthday girl

Because I don’ believe in protecting the innocent and, frankly, there wasn’t a lot of innocence last night…from the left is Holly, Natalie, Renee and me!

-We drank a lot of drinks identifiable only by color and I had to drink a lot of beer because no one else on my team wanted to (just to really impress those of you who will get this: I drank a boot of beer in 38 seconds!)
-Holly had to make sweet, sweet love to a statue…you know I would love to post THAT picture, but I just can’t…oh I want to so much…but I can’t
-Renee gave up an undergarment to Coyote Ugly’s collection
-Somewhere in the world there is a picture of Holly and me in the classic “Star Wars” movie poster pose, Luke and Leia style….Holly got to be Luke
-We found some awesome 6 foot Amazon woman to give Holly a piggy back ride, I’m not even going to go into the tale of the guy we mistakenly had give me one…stop laughing, Natalie!

Taking pictures of it all….and really…that’s just the tip of the crazy iceberg.

There was somewhere around 30 teams, 6 or 7 teams made up of families from the Center and it was fantastic to see people supporting such an amazing cause. I cannot begin to tell you how much fun we had. I have not laughed so much in I don’t know how long. So many friends from the CCC were right there with us, just reveling in the silliness of it all and always remembering the tremendous reason behind it all…the Children’s Cancer Center and the joy and love it brings into our lives.

Thank you so much to my wonderful teammates…Natalie Willis, Renee Jones and Holly Wirth, extraordinary women I’m blessed to know and to have as friends.

f.r.o.G…fully relying on God
–Anissa