Saturday 14 April 2007

Birthday Party

Today was Bernie's 14th birthday so we had a few friends round for her party.

I had been observing that her friends parties were getting more and more extravagant: swimming, ice-skating, laser quest, go ape high ropes course (at £20 er kid...)

So we had a party at home. Ant and I devised an afternoon consisting of a number of outdoor competitive games, by which the kids, working in two teams, accumulated cash (Monopoly money) to buy kit to construct something.

The teams decided which activities they wanted to compete in so that tehy wouldn't feel forced to do things. In the event they chose to do all of them. These included designing a team logo and painting it on each others' faces, then having a treasure hunt, three legged race, and so on.

Then they had to build a roman style catapult, to hurl a water balloon further than the other team.



This was followed by a perty tea with cake.

All the kids took part with gusto: make-up disappeared beneath face-paint, and teenage dignity beneath gales of hilarity.

On leaving many said what a great party it was: sometimes allowing teenagers to be kids can really work (though you do have to be careful to get it right)

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