Henri's 6th Brithday Survival Boot Camp

no photo By Michelle M  in Birthday

Drinks

Party Recap

Preparation for this party started one month prior. I thought hard about a theme that would go well with the BBQ venue, and the survival theme w/ military undertones fit the bill. There's no army here in Hong Kong so to have a full-on army theme would not have resonated much with the kids.

We hand-delivered the invitations three weeks in advance. I designed them and printed them with a camouflage background pattern and used manila envelopes. I hand stencilled in red the names of the kids on the envelopes.

Each child received a camouflage bandana and got their face camouflaged upon arrival. Activities at the party were: Foot drill, rope course (lucky there was a playground right next to the BBQ area), rope knot tying and a food challenge.

I prepared cards with instructions for tying the three most essential knots for survival, complete with examples of when they are useful for. As it turned out, this activity was only popular with the older kids (9-11) but it gave some of the dads something to keep busy!

As we all know, surviving in the wild requires we make food out of bugs or other critters... so a food challenge involving earth worms was just the ticket. I found a recipe on Pinterest for making jello worms with crushed oreos for dirt! I have to say they looked pretty real and gross (I also had a recipe for stuffed cockroaches but we didn't have time for this challenge). ...Oh the faces, the gagging (*evil laugh*)... of course once the first few brave recruits had tried them, the secret was revealed and then we had to control the sound of clamouring mouths. So much fun! (on a side note, the girls were the braver ones who were very eager to try from the beginning!)

Then came the time for the cake. I made camouflage cupcakes and a cake. I decided to leave them without frosting as it looked much more rugged that way. I made cupcake toppers out of camo tape, made them as little flags and got my son to write a 6 or an H on each. They turned out cute!

The goodie bags were hand stencilled by me and we filled them with a packet of organic nuts and dried fruit trailmix, a toy compass, a toy LED torch, a carabiner and an army patch.

Other themed details: camo grape salad (mix of green, red and black grapes), guacamole dip and Jelly Belly mix in camo colours!

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