Okay, I have entered uncharted waters with this whole 11 year old boy stuff.
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| ♪♫ Happy Birthday to you...You live in a zoo! ♫♪ |
My method for entertaining a bunch of boys is to fill them up with junk food and then release them into the wild. According to my boy-stuff mentor, Mark, this just causes Lord of the Flies syndrome and they actually need guidance. Okay, dude, you know about boys, you get 'em.
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| Bunny Ear Circle of Awesome Coolness |
So, Ian had a birthday gathering and invited four of his closest friends plus one for Shane. They did the normal stuff: eat, shoot each other with Nerf guns, eat more, open presents, eat... Mark decided that the boys needed to go out on our acreage and learn some tactical first-person shooting skills instead of just silly running and shooting. The first game he came up with was Find the Crystal. He took this Nerf alarm thingy and hid it in the woods. He split the boys into three teams, making sure no brothers were on the same team and kids that didn't know other kids very well were with Downens. Which ever team brought the crystal back to the house was the winner. We enjoyed seeing what kind of strategies they came up with. One boy decided his team would just wait and ambush whoever found the crystal and then bring it to the house.
The next game was Man Hunt. This game is similar to Hide n Seek, but only Mark hides and the boys try to find him and shoot him with Nerf guns. Mark started out 75 feet up a tree. He watched the boys circle around trying to find him...and got bored. He climbed down, called out, "I'm over here!" and started to run. He managed to change places a few times, hiding flat on the ground behind some ferns, among other good hiding spots. The other boys would walk right past him, but Ian was seriously hunting his dad. He knows the trails and was so close to Mark that he had to make a run for it! Unfortunately, Mark totally bit it and got caught...and gimped around for the rest of the day.
We partied for a good 11 hours total (right on the heels of an 8 hour Boy Scout activity the day before) and boy, were we tired! This morning was a rough start for my kids and I know at least one of Ian's friends slept through his alarm this morning. Ian says his favorite part of his party was the soda. I think he's joking...I think...but what do I know about 11 year old boys?
***This blog post has been approved of by Ian***
