"Diamonds are a girls best friend"....or are they?

This past Thursday as I was “surfing” Facebook, I stumbled across an “ad” from a friend of mine for something called the NC Diamond Ring Race 2009.

Sounded interesting enough, so I did the web thing, followed the link to the site and began to read:
“A $20,000 Lazare Diamond ring has been hidden somewhere in downtown Asheville and it’s up to you to find (and keep!) it! The 1st Annual North Carolina Diamond Ring Race is a city-wide treasure hunt brought to you by Wick and Greene Jewelers! In this high-tech treasure hunt, all of the clues and riddles will be delivered via text message right to your cell phone! Any cell phone, any model, on any carrier can play! And playing is totally FREE! However, spots are limited and you must win a spot to participate.”

OK, so, with my competitive spirit in mind and my intrigue for ALWAYS wanting to be a participant on “The Amazing Race” or “Survivor”, I decided to ‘go for it’ and enter Wes and I to “win a spot” to compete...

Well, kind of to my amazement, I received an email the next night saying that we were IN! I had to proceed to “register” our names and phones to get additional information and instructions for the race on Sunday. It was when I hit SEND that I began to get a bit nervous...I mean I was really intrigued, a bit scared, but kind of excited....all wrapped up in one.

“I mean, come on now....What are the odds of us winning a $20,000 diamond? Seriously...hmm, maybe....but really, we could do it....I mean, what if we won? We could pay off some serious debt, that’s for sure....We DID have a 1:250 odd of winning....not bad...” Needless to say, my head was SWIRLLING with possibilities.

The “little voice” inside my head was rooting for me; giving me optimism to believe we could really win...at least something....I had much faith in our ability to compete....

Typically I am usually the “glass is half full” one in the relationship and Wes is “the glass is half empty”....Let’s just say he brings me down to reality a lot....and I tend to need it...alot....
So, in pure ‘Wes fashion’, when I told him that “we were in”, he immediately went quiet....I wasn’t really sure at first if he was all that “thrilled” I got us into this...I have a tendency to ‘get us into things’ sometimes....so it wouldn’t be the first....But I knew I was “ok” when he got up, went downstairs, got the printer and hooked it up to the laptop and began getting on websites of Asheville and printing off maps. :-) My husband, the prepared one....I am still not sure if he was having a “glass half full” moment, or just trying to make sure if we were going to do this thing, we weren’t going to look like unprepared fools.... either way, I saw a glimmer of excitement from him at that moment.

Well, Sat came and the odds of us really following through on doing this began to stack against us pretty quickly:
#1 we were told to get to Wick and Greene to register between 12-1 on Sunday...

And this was my Sunday on the worship team... church doesn’t usually get out until 12:30ish...if we are lucky....I mean, we WOULD BE just around the corner....but by the time we would park and register the race would have started...so we would be late...to a race...not so great....especially when you are competitive and would normally get there at 11:45...to be first to register...just in case...I would rather not go than be late to anything.

And #2 we were told to bring bikes if we had them. (it was the only form of transportation we were allowed to use)

Well, we had bikes...but our bike rack was in GA...which meant we would have to go and borrow one from a friend at some point on Sat....which our Sat was tied up trying to get the roof off of my brothers house....in the rain....not the thing either of us really wanted to do at the end of THAT day.... But we did...all wet and cold and tired....we got the bike rack....and continued to just go through with it...

I woke up on Sunday morning after dreaming all night about winning the diamond ring, tired and sore from the day before, and a bit on edge. Just nervous about what to expect. Wondering what we were doing racing in this thing....ready to cop out. And I knew that Wes was hurting from the roof experience, and tired, and really just wanting to watch football on his Sunday afternoon....and was not all that excited...

But neither one of us was about to throw in the flag and admit defeat....So we each prepared for the race in silence that morning....following through with it...packing our clothes, our hydration backpacks, our helmets....

It was towards the end of the church service that I began getting antsy....really antsy...I wasn’t sure if it was nerves or the feeling of being “rushed”...church ended at about 12:40...we literally FLEW out the doors....got in the jeep....went and found parking....changed in the car in the parking deck....grabbed our bikes....and raced to the registration....both of us a bit...mmm...silently agitated.

To our amazement, we weren’t late at all...in fact, on our way racing out of church I got our first text message to register us by texting....so I did that on the way over....All we had left to do was sign some liability forms and get our T-Shirts.
We were just in time. *whew*

About 5 min after we were finished pulling our race t-shirts over our heads, they gathered us together and explained the rules:
Basically we got a series of questions via text message. Mostly trivia Questions about downtown Asheville. You could answer the question if you knew it, but most of the time to get the next question right you actually had to be at the location of the question you just answered.

So at 1:20ish, the game began....and we got the first of over 80 text messages we were about to receive over the course of the next few hours...Yeah, you just read that right....Wes and I answered about 80 questions....correctly...at least, that is how many texts I had to clean out of my inbox that day...

It was pure madness. I am still shocked that no one got killed, ourselves included. There were bikers and runners all over the streets...running out into traffic....They gave us questions in different sequences so we eventually were all spread out....but those first few moments were CHAOS! I saw one lady in such a hurry that she failed to see a restaurant sign on the sidewalk with the lunch specials for the day on it, and smacked right into it on her bike...it was pretty funny actually.

Let me just take a moment to tell you that I am PROUD to say that WES and I kicked some serious derrière that day....
My husband was having a “glass half full” day....
I saw a competitive side of him I have not seen really... He is usually pretty passive....
We were all OVER Asheville on our bikes...he biked my legs off...
And we were having a BLAST!
Seriously, it was some of the most fun I have had in a long time. We turned into big kids....Focused big kids...on a mission to win.

I learned so much..... All KINDS of trivia about Asheville....all kinds of things about myself....all kinds of things about Wes.... It was fun to see that in competitive pressure situations like that, we work really well together. He is one smart cookie!
Needless to say, I was proud of our little team. Very proud to be Mrs. Waldorf. And very proud of how we were competing.

I heard some “other teams” not having as much...fun.... let’s just say they had some, “heated words” with each other and disagreements about answers to questions. It got really interesting. And you know, to be honest, I am SHOCKED that we weren’t one of those bickering couples....I might mention here that not only were we pressed for time in getting to the race, but we hadn’t eaten anything....so we were hungry too....it was only by the grace of God that I wasn’t biting his head off. My “inner Witch” has a tendency to come out when hunger sets in....and surprisingly she kept quiet.....In fact, I didn’t really notice the hunger...just the shakiness....Yep; I was running on pure adrenaline and God’s grace.

We got our final text at 4:00pm saying “GAME OVER, please proceed to the Haywood Park Hotel for an after party with food and drinks and prizes and to see who won the diamond...” We then got a text letting us know how many points we had racked up. Wes and I scored 310 points. As we neared the hotel, we were hearing “talk” around us of people getting in the 150-280 range....So the optimist that I am was a bit nervous and excited about the possibility of being among the top scorers....

We walked in all hot and sweaty and hungry to this beautifully decorated banquet hall filled with an amazing spread of hourdouvers and drinks....and BOY were we HUNGRY! We helped ourselves right away. It was so much fun. There was a DJ and lights and food...everything was totally Free....it was fun!

Well, I won’t prolong this already long story any longer....no we didn’t win the diamond....or any other prize for that matter. I think, in the end, it was all a bit “rigged”. The couple that won “happened” to have this great story, and he had promised that “if” he won the diamond that he would get down on one knee and propose to his girlfriend of 4 years....blah blah blah....and he did...and it was a sweet moment...(*ok, I admit it...I cried...it was sweet*)

But, never once did they state how many points the winning team had. And that just didn’t ‘set well’ with my competitive spirit. (*I will be emailing to see if I can find out what their final score was*)

Even though we didn’t win a physical prize.... I have to say, walking out of there after it was all over, I realized that I did win. *Yeah, here comes the “sap”*
That time spent with Wes...those moments...this experience we had was worth far more than diamonds. We laughed....we played hard....we competed well....and we spent precious moments together on a beautiful sunny afternoon that would have been otherwise lost to football or laundry or something else at home that would "distract" us from just enjoying one another and playing.

It pushed the both of us to get outside our routine. Our box. And do something new and unknown. And we need to do it more....even in the busyness of life....no, ESPECIALLY in the busyness of life. We need to stop and play. We work really hard...a lot....It was a good reminder to me that we haven’t “played” enough lately...And we need to make more of a conscious effort to do so.
It was an afternoon well spent.....It was worth it....priceless....and beautiful.
Watch out AMAZING RACE, here we come!