Amazing Race–Valentine Edition

Some friends and I put together this crazy group date for our husbands for Valentine’s Day, one year, after they had sent us on a crazy video scavenger hunt the year before (so they could cook us dinner). I’m going to just give you the details of our date. I’m sure you can come up with clever ways to adapt it for your circumstances, if you and your Valentine like a little adventure with your romance!
I couldn’t find any of the clues and invitation that I had saved to show you(just this photo), but my friend Felicia did a fantastic job on them. This was the logo she came up with that was found through out, and every clue was packaged in a tear-open envelope, with this logo on the outside, just like in the TV show.
My lovely SIL (she was my Kim Possible, too) acted as host for the race. She met our husbands at the church at the pre-arranged time and read these instructions:
Welcome to the Amazing Race-Valentine Edition. You were each brought here by your lovely, adoring, beautiful, smart, sexy, and talented wives. Who knew you’d be up for a challenging Valentines Day adventure.I must now take any money and wallets that you have on you.
Here are your uniforms that you must wear for the entire race.

(The uniforms were t-shirts that we designed and made using iron-on paper that said “I love my wife!”)

Here are your funds for this leg of the race use them wisely.
(We each had a bag of change worth around $1, mostly in pennies, for our husbands)
Here is your video camera.Race Rules:
1. You must wear your uniform at all times
2. You must make a video of the events and each member of the team must be in the video
3. You must have completed all clues and the following tasks in order to win:

  • Acquire a bouquet of flowers for your wife, without spending any money
  • Purchase a gift for your wife, using only the funds provided.


Good luck Boys, here’s your first clue. You may begin the race at the sound of the whistle.

Clue #1

Make your way with great speed,
To the store you use when you need…
To send a package in brown,
From this south side of town.
Mary will tell you what you need to do,
In order to get your very next clue.

Our friends owned a UPS store franchise, so we had asked Mary to let the guys in (after hours), take their photos–passport style, and supervise their making Valentine’s cards for us, using their pictures. We had provided her with Scrapbook paper and supplies, as well as the next clue for when they had completed their task. This is what she gave them:

Your first task in this race,
is to take a picture of your face.
Then glue it on a card,
It really isn’t all that hard.
Make a Valentines card to your wife from you,
When you’ve all done this, then Mary will give you your next clue.

Clue #2

Beautiful people pass through these doors,
To seek an agent for acting and more,
One of you should already have the key,
Look for your clue where things are frosty…

One of our friends on the date, is a talent agent, so she planted the clues at her office, knowing her husband had the key. The clue was in the refrigerator.

Clue #3

The “father of our ward” may be younger than you,
But at his house you’ll find your next clue….

We sent them to the home of our bishop from church (he’s young…hence the clue). And he gave them the key to his mailbox and this clue.

Clue #4

This is the key to get your next clue,
The lock on the box may be stickier than glue.

*Return the key, before you are through!

Inside the mailbox they found:Clue #5

Out in the country a family you’ll find,
Who love to hunt animals of every kind.
And more animals still you’ll find at their place,
Ask the lady of the house for your next task in this race

We took advantage of some friends who have horses and other animals for this clue. We asked our friend to make them do something for them before giving them the clue. We were thinking some kind of manual labor, but her husband had just returned from a hunt, and they decided to make them eat javalina tongue, instead. (Barry brags that he was the first one to down it. Some of the guys struggled with this one). When they were finished she gave them:
Clue #6

[local high school] High is the very next place,
You would go to practice if you want to run a race.
Get your heart rate up and take in the view…
Get a good workout, while you find your next clue.
We had taped this clue on one of the top bleachers, I believe.

Clue #7

Have you got your bouquet, your card, and your gifts, yet?
If not, do it now, or you’ll be quite upset
When you reach the finish-line
And have to turn around.
The race isn’t finished until these things have been found.
The finish line, and your fabulous prize
Are waiting at a place familiar to your eyes.
Make your way through traffic,
Obey all the signs
And step on the mat of the home whose name rhymes with Valentines!

Conveniently, our friends have a name that rhymes with Valentines. We were at their house this whole time cooking dinner and setting things up. It actually took the guys quite a while to accomplish those tasks. We took pictures while we waited. How cute are we?
After a few failed attempts at getting real flowers, my crafty husband taught all of the guys how to make roses out of paper napkins, so they each showed up with a lovely bouquet of paper roses. (I should totally have him do a tutorial!)
Kristin met them at the door:
Congratulations! You have completed the amazing Valentines Day Race!
You are the first team to arrive.
(So what if they were just one big team!)
As winners of the amazing Valentines Race,
You each get the grand prize,
A dream date with your lovely, adoring, beautiful, smart, sexy, talented wives.
Congratulations!
We were wearing coordinating t-shirts that said: “I love my husband!”
and we presented them each with bouquets made out of big hunk candy bars (and whatever other candy is their favorite).
Then treated them to a yummy flaming filet mignon dinner (I might share that recipe sometime if Kim, that I stole it from, says it’s ok).
I love how I look so comfortable with a pan on fire in this picture (that’s not usually the case!).
And these beautiful chocolate heart-shaped desserts, my SIL, Kristin made. She had just finished culinary school! Wish I had a better picture!


We had a little too much planned for one evening, since we all had babysitters to get home, but there were so many fun ideas in a group this size. The rest of the festivities included, couples’ pictures, group lip syncs (girls and then guys) in goofy costumes, and a slide show of all of the couples present and the evolution of their relationships.
I hope this gives you a few ideas (you don’t have to use them all) for a creative date night. It was a fun evening, full of romance and tons of creative insanity!
Thanks to the Ballantyne’s for the photos, and all of the ladies I worked and played with that night for your creative contributions!

handmade projects

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Comments

  1. Oh, please come set a fire in one of my skillets! 🙂

    Love this whole post. Fab flowers, terrific T’s, delicious desserts! What’s not to love about love?

  2. Valentines Day is very special day for lovers… Flower and chocolates are most popular gift on that occasion!!

  3. That was a great idea, maybe one year I will have to try it. Thank you for sharing. I love it.

  4. I miss doing fun events like this with you! Thanks for posting! Fun memories:)

  5. Crayon Addicts says

    Seriously Kendra! Way too much creativity coming from one girl! I love all of your ideas. You make my life so much more fun, thanks for sharing the creativity!

  6. That is awesome. I’ll have to do that next year. Thank you so much for all your wonderful, fun ideas. I can’t come up with them on my own so thanks for your help.

  7. I love it!!! I wish we could do something like that!! Hmmm, I must make a list of willing and not so willing participants.

  8. Wendy @ The Shabby Nest says

    Goodness lady…when you do a party…you really do a party! I love all these ideas. FABULOUS!

  9. Can I just say that I LOVE This idea! What a fun night! I’m going to have to do this for my hubby! Thank you for sharing! 😀

  10. I so love this idea. We get together with a group of friends each season and watch Amazing Race so this would be a fun Valentines date for the group. I’m going to have to see if I can pull this off amidst the craziness of my life at the moment.

    Thanks for sharing this great idea.

  11. Amy @ Living Locurto says

    You gals went all out. My husband is NOT romantic in anyway, so that would be a waste of energy for me! ha. But I love that you and your girlfriend’s husbands are! How fun!! I can live through you guys:-)

  12. What a fabulous idea–I can’t imagine how much fun this would be! My husband and I are always strategizing about what we would do to win if we were on the REAL amazing race, and this would be an awesome alternative! thanks for the fab idea!

  13. Heidi @ Blue Eyed Blessings says

    This is amazing!! I’m so impressed that you pulled this off and that everyone was so on board!

  14. This is about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen! I love the shirts!
    ~Robin Rane
    All Things Home

  15. How fun is that!!! I will definitely have to get my girl-friends together and do this! Thanks for sharing!

  16. What a CLEVER idea…I would love to share this idea with my readers when it gets closer to Vday 2010…. I love finding brilliant ideas like this in my blog hopping. 🙂 Thanks!

  17. What an awesome idea!! My hubby loves amazing race and wants to sign us up. I'm totally putting this together for him!

  18. Sally Sagers says

    I saw this on the Love, actually blog.
    We are totally doing it this year!!!

  19. Scrappy Gifts says

    I saw this on the Love, Actually blog.
    I hope I can find people to do this with!

  20. Wow, this is awesome!! I hope i can get together some of my friends to do this!!

  21. My four girlfriends and I have scheduled the weekend after Valentine's Day to do this for/to our husbands. We cannot wait! We also added a twist at the end. Each of the wives will decorate their own table for two for their husbands. We are so excited! Thanks for a great idea!

  22. Lowry Family says

    We are totally doing this too. I already have 4 people on board. We are thinking that we would love to have about 5-8 couples do it.
    I can't wait to do this.
    Since we have so many crazy schedules we are going to be doing it a couple weeks later but it will still be a blast.

    Thanks for sharing. We love you for it.

    Tierra
    pebblesandpoppys.blogspot.com

  23. We just did our own version of your great idea last night! HUGE hit! Thanks for the idea. It was great fun! Check it out at Ridgecrestreview.blogspot.com

  24. We did a geocache version of this on Saturday! We had a blast! Thanks for the awesome idea! I'll blog about it later – once I edit the video footage!

  25. We also did a small scale version of your race. Thank you for the great idea!

  26. I wanted you to see that we did this idea recently. We had to wait until the weekend after Valentines because of schedules. Check us out at catchingupwiththeconners.blogspot.com

    We enjoyed ourselves soooo much! Thanks for the idea!

  27. We just finished ours too! Here is my first post about it.
    The other one will come later.

    http://pebblesandpoppys.blogspot.com/2010/03/amazing-race-valentines-edition.html

    Tierra
    pebblesandpoppys.blogspot.com

  28. This was absolutely brilliant! I am currently planning something along these lines for my girlfriend so thanks for the inspiration!

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