Monday, August 25, 2014

Kai's Amazing Race Birthday

For Kai's 8th birthday, he really wanted an Amazing Race themed one.  Fortunately the weather was decent so we could have it at a local park!  


Gary made the clue box using leftover wood at our house and duct tape!  We divided the kids into two teams of four.  It was easy for us to manage this on our own.  If we had more helpers, and more friends,  I think three or four teams would be more fun.







Kai does not love pickled asparagus.  Koen does.


This was a road block where they could choose to throw the frisbee in the bin or shoot the puck from center court into the net.  They were given the frisbees to take home and Kai wrote a little note in each one.  Koen needs to work on his form.


Okay, so we're not exactly sure how many freckles Kai has but I said 367 :)  It was interesting the ways that the kids worked.  One team had each member memorize two things, the other had each person try to memorize them all.


Checking in with Gary to see if they had the right answers.


The next challenge was to either search for a matching pair of hidden animals in the playground or to beat Gary in a game of `Guess Who'.  Both teams chose to `Search It'.  Searching for something was a good activity and if we did this again, we'd add more searching stations.


Everyone had a chance to read the clues.  This was a great age for this kind of party because they can all read it themselves.


They had to choose one `Ninja Warrior' from each team.  Kai and Ani were selected.



There was a football throwing challenge with led this team first to the mat!  The second team was just a minute behind.


Nya and her little cousins just played on the playground the whole time. Thanks, Maria!


We brought our barbeque and had hot dogs.


Kai opened his presents.  Yes, he loves collecting gum and pokemon cards.  He also got a Spirograph which is probably the first arts and crafts type thing that he loves, I think it's because it's a bit math-y.




Kai doesn't love cake and cupcakes so we just had ice cream sundaes instead.  Gary roasted some marshmallows so they could have `smore' sundaes if they wanted.  Part of me really wanted to make an Amazing Race themed dessert but it probably saved us a few hours by just doing this :)


If you are planning an Amazing Race party, I would recommend doing more than seven tasks.  Proabably closer to twelve would be good.  Also, I found free printables on pinterest and then just filled them out in photoshop and printed them as 5X7's at Costco.  Cheaper than running our colour printer!  Also, if we had more time we would've decorated more `Amazing Race-ish' with red and yellow balloons and had the `Amazing Race' logo on the envelopes.  I have to remember Kai doesn't care about those details so really it would just be for me :)  

Overall, Kai LOVED his party and I'm so glad!  Super easy, active, and affordable.

If you ever decide to have an Amazing Race party, you are welcome to use our mat and clue box!

Hope you have a wonderful week.

Love, Louise

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