Reindeer Rally ‘07

http://pictures.thelauves.com/reindeerrally0712.html

Webster's defines "commencement" as "a beginning". If that's the case, then December 15, 2007 was a day of significant commencements, both the kind accomplished by walking across a stage and the kind brought about by running through a mall.

We left the driveway at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday in order to make Cristina's 9:00 a.m. graduation. Cristina is the last of the three Lauve kids to graduate from Texas A&M, and to say we have the drill down at this point is an understatement. Texas A&M is a great school, but unfortunately its graduation ceremony leaves a little to be desired. That's a problem with big school graduations: they feature huge numbers of people walking across the stage, and in the case of A&M, the graduation is split into three different ceremonies, which means we usually don't get the benefit of high-profile speakers. But it was a good ceremony, and Cristina did a great job getting her last name pronounced correctly.

My aunt Diana told us that after Cristina's graduation we would go back toward Houston and participate in the first ever Reindeer Rally, which none of us could quite make heads or tails of. Expecting some sort of athletic competition, I was surprised when we pulled up to Katy Mills Mall, which, for me, is not a place I prefer to go any way other than kicking and screaming.

As it turns out, the Reindeer Rally (at least the 2007 incarnation of it) is a scavenger hunt. A very involved scavenger hunt that requires collecting items, gathering information, and taking pictures throughout the giant donut-shaped outlet mall. We were split into teams (my cousin Eric was with me, Alicia was with Brandi, Cristina was with my cousin Cecilia, my dad was with Diana, and my mom was with my uncle Kyle) and given a packet of tasks that included the following:

• Get a picture taken while talking with a kiosk vendor


• Transcribe John 1:14


• Get a picture taken in a jersey from an athletic store


• Grab a free food sample


• Place pennies in the wishing well


• Operate a remote-controlled vehicle


• Play Dance Dance Revolution


• Purchase a t-shirt for a child


• Purchase a teddy bear


• Purchase a children's educational book


• Get a picture taken while getting a massage


• Purchase 1/2 pound of candy


• Find the 10th track on Bing Crosby's Christmas album


• Make a souvenir penny


• Buy some bubble gum and blow a bubble


• Play the shooting gallery

What follows are the stories of two of the five Reindeer Rally teams. They wouldn't let Brandi and me be on the same team, but that didn't keep us from posting excellent results in the soon-to-be-perennial event.

Brandi and Alicia's Team
Even before I knew what Reindeer Rally was, I knew I was going to like it. I enjoy surprises, and figured that no matter what it was, it would give me some bonding time with my new family. When Diana called out the pairings, I had a feeling that Alicia and I would do well together. In fact, I thought we had a pretty good chance of winnning. With Daniel acting as though he was non-plussed with the atmosphere, and Eric and Cecilia both going through separate phases of being too cool for reindeer games, Alicia and I were the only pairing where both teammates were eager for the challenge.

Quickly we were off, taking our positions-Alicia deciding which store we were going to go to next and me reading off the instructions for each. Alicia did a superb job at creating the charted course of the mall so that we made sure and did each task in order as the stores were found. One of our biggest mistakes was really due to my poor reading of context clues. I read, "Go to the Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World, look for the shooting gallery and take one picture of your teammate shooting a round, and another of their score" and thought it was referring to golf so we spent some good quality time looking for a driving range in Outdoor World. Sorry Alicia! It also took us several minutes to figure out to take a picture of our score so probably not our shining moment in the contest. This was also around the time where I wondered allowed if Daniel was able to put his issues with shopping behind him and enjoy the fun of Reindeer Rally.

Probably one of our best feats was bribing a smart pre-teen and her little sister to let us break in line and play Dance Dance Revolution for long enough for us to take a picture. The oldest sibling informed us that in order for us to do so, we would need to pay not only her for the game but for her sister to play too! That's where we first spotted Cristina & Cecilia. Alicia and I started to run through the mall towards the end as we could feel Cristina and Cecilia close on our heels. Imagine my surprise and our slight disappointment when we were told by our benevolent judges (Grandmommie & Aunt Dortha) that Daniel and Eric were the first to finish!

Even with that sad mement of realizing we came in 2nd, the Reindeer Ralley was truly a success. Not only did we learn about each other and enjoy the hunt, we also got to contribute a donation to Salvation Army in the end. Each of collected a shirt, teddy bear and book for a different child in need. We also celebrated the winners in all of us since everyone, even the parents, did complete the scavenger hunt. We ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe and had the Sparkling Volcanoan Dessert! We had a really good day celebrating Cristina and her graduation and then each other in the spirit of giving! I'm very excited to see what next year's Reindeer Rally brings.

Daniel and Eric's Team
My less-than-rosy disposition on a mall-based scavenger hunt changed as soon as I heard the teams announced. When I thought we were going to be doing a lot of running around, I thought of this as a competition between Eric's team and my team. Now that the two top competitors (in the DL preseason power rankings) were on the same team, it was obvious what had to happen: we had to run away with this thing.

My initial thought on the contest was that it was going to be very close. I figured that the difference between first and second place would be less than a minute, which meant cutting out seconds wherever possible. The instructions gave us just one rule, that each team had to stay together, so everything else was open to interpretation. This led to our three-word mantra: "keep the change". We were supplied with envelopes filled with money for most of our stops, and we probably shaved off a couple minutes by being slightly careless with my aunt and uncle's money. The rest of it came from good old two-guys-trying-to-get-out-of-the-mall impatience. We abhorred waiting in line, and for the last half hour or so, we ran everywhere we went.

The highlight of our scavenger hunt had to be the massage. The instructions said that we had to get our picture taken while getting a massage, and the massage envelope included four quarters. Remarkably, ours was the only team that couldn't figure out that we were expected to pop four quarters into an electric massage chairs. So when we came across a massage station with real live masseuses ($15 minimum), I decided to try and negotiate a $1 massage. What we ended up agreeing to was $2 for a 15-second massage, which gave us a picture that I think was the best one from Reindeer Rally.

After frantically scrambling through the final few tasks and getting our pictures developed, we raced to the finish line and were surprised to find that we were first. When you think about it, it's kind of remarkable that the only all-male team ended up being the best at navigating the mall. For the sake of competition, I hope that next year's Reindeer Rally involves baking or painting fingernails or something like that; otherwise, it's bound to be much more lopsided than this year's.