Celebrating kids’ birthdays tends to evoke a range of emotions for me. On one hand, it serves as undeniable evidence that my little ones are growing up. On the other hand, as they get older, birthday parties can also mean more stress and expenses depending on how you like to throw parties.
In our town, popular birthday venues such as trampoline zones, ninja spaces, and rock climbing gyms come with a hefty price tag and book up quickly. Personally, I prefer steering away from indoor rented spaces. Instead, my husband Jason and I enjoy investing time in creative endeavors to ensure a fun experience for both children and parents. And since we are race directors and adventure racers ourselves, it is not off brand at all to put on something like it for our kids! Having attended too many parties where parents linger on the sidelines amid leftover juice boxes and half-eaten snacks while their kids run wild on a sugar high, we decided to chart our own course. Fortunately, our kids, for now, lean towards outdoor celebrations, favoring the expanse of space.
For our son Max’s 7th birthday, we organized an outdoor adventure challenge on the coldest day of the year, blanketed in snow. Surprisingly, the event garnered praise from both kids and parents, with some even expressing interest in replicating the concept. Though we would love to organize birthday parties for friends’ kids, we just don’t have that kind of time yet. I have however compiled some tips for others interested in creating their own adventure challenge birthdays. And if you are interested in coming to an actual Family/Kids Adventure Race, we have started to put them on at BendRacing! Check them out on our site. We are putting on TWO this year, one in April and and one in October.
Tips and Advice on throwing your own Adventure Party
You don’t have to go far to make it awesome
For the past couple of birthdays and “Easter scavenger hunt” races we have done them in our little neighborhood because we know it like the back of our hand.. and so do our kids. This makes clues easier to figure out for the kids and it also helps that our neighbors love to help out. We have a “Hot Cocoa and mulled wine (for the parents)” check point at a neighbors deck at almost every race we do and it is always a hit with all of the ages. We also do a few challenges and checkpoints in the nearby forest that we roam through a lot and it is so fun to watch the kids lead the way and know exactly where they are going.
If you are throwing it for a grown up, you can use your neighborhood or even a downtown area. If there are bikes involved you could go a little further, but making it an easy to navigate area is usually easier for you to create it and for the people you are throwing it for. For my birthday party, Jason did it in downtown Bend and we only covered about 5 miles in the end, but it was doable and fun for everyone.
Create a Theme or a Story Line:
While you can just make up random clues or checkpoints on a map, we find for a birthday celebration it is more fun to make it about the person or about their favorite thing. For Max’s birthday this year we made 7 checkpoints and how him and his friends found the next CP was to first listen to Jason tell a story about Max and what he did or what he liked for that year. So for example in order to find CP 1, they first heard a story about how when Max was one, he loved to go ride his strider bike to the fairy house. And on the map the CP was at the fairy house! For my birthday, Jason knew I loved being outside, movement and IPA’s so he made a fun birthday race where we raced other teams to different breweries and did fun challenges there or before we got there.
Have the party favors be part of the challenges/ check points and make them useful if you can!
Instead of giving out party favors at the end of the party, give them out through out the race/challenge! Since it was cold and we knew these kids would be working hard walking and running through the snow, we gave out chocolate treats after some challenges and the stuff that we did hand out were very small, fun and useful like Nite Ize “light sabors” (or use adults call them reusable glowsticks) as well as Sunday Afternoon hats for the parents. I really like giving parents gifts too because at our parties (and everyday) they work hard!
Make it all about teamwork:
Max our oldest is big into teams and the idea of “racing” stresses him out. So for his birthday we made a big deal out of the fact that everyone was on the same team. At every challenge we focused on collaboration and even on our way to the check points we encouraged everyone to help tow, take weight or simply walk next to each other rather than running up ahead and getting there the fastest. At Max’s 5th birthday, it was more of a race where we made teams but we still made it so that everyone cheered for one another and helped each other out. In the words of our youngest, Revel “Everyone Wins Mama, Right!?” “Right”. Even in races, encouraging camaraderie ensures a positive experience for all.
Don’t over complicate it, if you are having fun creating it, they will have fun doing it!
In my opinion, birthdays are supposed to be fun for everyone. So if you, the creator are not having fun doing it, stop and ask yourself how that can change. For me, often times that is to make it more simple. For example, I know my family and what they love so if I just focus on those things, I can let go of all the other fluff and hoopla. Because really, when it comes down to it, that fluff is usually what I care about. For example, for Max’s birthday, he didn’t care about where the finish is or how it looks, he just wanted there to be something sweet, something warm and to be sung happy birthday to. He didn’t care about the presentation of it in the least.
