Each year my siblings and spouses planned a reunion for our family over the July 4 time period. That week was the only time available for our work schedules. My father had gotten to the point where he was unable to travel so we came to his location, which was in the Midwest USA. Although there is nothing wrong and a lot good about living in the Midwest, it’s not exactly a tourist destination. There is not a whole lot we could do year after year. The one thing we could count on in my family was our love of having fun and playing some kind of creative or tricky or strategy games.

One year my sister had a brainstorm and presented a game to us that we are still talking about today. We had a blast! It was a Photo Scavenger Hunt. We all had cell phones that took pictures. That’s all we needed. Each couple was considered to be a team. Each team received a list of about 25 words or phrases. It was our job to take a photo that matched each item on the list and show them, clicking through our cell phones, to the judge. And we had to be finished within 24 hours. The winner would get a coveted prize and would have bragging rights until next year’s game.

Here’s an idea of what was on the list:

1. Purple van (see photo above and explanation below)

2. Bald man

3. Something green made in China

4. White flowers

5. Black truck

6. Juicy hamburger

7. Beetle bug

You can see how crazy this list was.

We divided up into teams. Since we were all adults with spouses, each couple became their own team. Each team was given a list of things to find within an eight hour window. We were given our lists at breakfast time with the directive of weaving in our photos throughout the day. When we found an item on the list, we were expected to take a picture of it using our cell phones, camera or video camera to prove that we indeed did find the item listed. The quality of the photo was not important but the content was. The team with the most items photographed is the winning team. And we all wanted to win!

Here are some of the items we were asked to find. Keep in mind that we all had a different interpretation of the items on the list but that was what made it so fun.

1. Yellow paper

What? What on earth can yellow paper be? We looked all over for yellow paper and finally spotted someone sitting outside at a table with some kind of invitation in her hand. We approached her, told her of our mission and she let us photograph her scrap of paper that had yellow color in it. Hooray!

2. A bald man

All the teams pounced (not literally) on this bald man at the same time. He was very generous with his attitude about letting us photograph his beautiful and shiny bald head. We did tell him what we were doing and he thought it was a great idea. He came up to us the next day and wanted to know what else was on our list and how we were doing. What a great sport he was which made our game even more fun!

3. Girl with Pink in Her Hair

What are the chances of walking around a modest resort property and finding a girl with pink in her hair? We found her! The picture that follows is of a little girl with a lot of pink on including a pink band in her hair. My husband and I spotted her first. We politely asked her father if he would mind if we took her photo because we were playing a very important scavenger hunt game. We showed him our list and he laughed. Obviously he gave us permission to take his daughter’s picture. Later, we saw another team approach the same family to take the little girl’s picture. By then, the little girl and her brother were really laughing (at us).

We kept approaching each item on the list more creatively. We simply could not locate a purple van. Vans must not be painted purple but we really needed one to win the contest. My husband decided to photograph a white van, use some photo editing tools that were convenient and the picture at the top of this post is what he submitted.

No, the judge did not approve our interpretation of a purple van but we won points for creativity!

There were several items on the list that went unattended. No one spotted a red rubber band or a Cardinal cap or a mothball. Where on earth would we spot a mothball while on vacation? Those were too difficult! We had so much fun teasing each other and shooting photos of pretty weird things. We have decided to make this a family fun reunion every year. We have worked it into our reunion planning. Next year I want to make up the scavenger hunt list!