Another weekend, another birthday party. This time it was for Tom and Harry - 24 x 10yr old boys at a beach for 3 hours. The day before the temperature had been 40+ but the day of the party it was more like 20C with a cold wind. The upside of the bad weather was that the beach was deserted so we didn't have to worry about our unruly mob disturbing members of the public. We made them run round to a nearby beaching stopping at boot camp type stations on the way, once at the beach we had been planning on playing touch rugby but the tide was high so there wasn't enough beach. We made them play some nipper type games wading in and out of the water and then they ran back to Forty Baskets beach which is where we started. 30 minutes down and only another 2.5 hours to go with no clear plan of what else we were going to do.............! Luckily Jo is a teacher so she was good at coming up with ideas. We had a kayak with no paddles so we split the boys into 2 and timed how long it took all of them to paddle the kayak to the end of the enclosure and back again ensuring each boy was sitting in the canoe - we had some of our helpers go and tip them up occasionally for fun. I had bought everyone water pistols so we hid those and the boys had to run around and find them. We did races round the edge of the enclosure with penalties if anyone pushed anyone else off as they passed them. It was basically a question of keeping them as busy as possible so that they couldn't get up to too much mischief!
Party group
Heading off to find the hidden water pistols
Trying out the water pistols
The kayak challenge
Jo made the cake which was a red Bennett surfboard which both Tom and Harry used last year. I feel sorry for my kids because although I love baking I really can't stand decorating and using icing so the only "novelty" cakes they've ever had have been made by other mums with the exception of a red ladybird for Tess' 2nd birthday and a Thomas the Tank Engine for Tom's 1st birthday but my creativity ended there!
The cake
Birthday boys
On Sunday Tom and Harry had the Freshwater Board Carnival which basically involves hanging around on Freshwater beach for 4 hours so that they boys can compete in 2 races that last about 5 minutes. I can't see the attraction myself but the boys always have fun and both of them got through to the finals which I guess makes it worth while.
Tom and Harry
Tom sprinting to the finish line
On Wednesday the crazy Polish pool man came and installed a new swimming pool. By Friday it had filled up with water and the solar panels had been installed. When the temperatures hit 40 on Friday afternoon I was thinking we'd made the right decision to replace the pool even if it's with another rubbish above-ground one. 8 people and a fierce game of water polo later and the swim cost per person is looking fairly reasonable.
Now to sort out the surrounding deck........
No comments:
Post a Comment