Hunger Games Party

Hunger Games is HUGE right now with all of Darin and Nathan's friends.  I can see the appeal to the tween-age set, the trilogy is a really interesting read.  Also, the movie came out sometime around March. Pretty much ever since the movie came out Darin and his friend Carson have been planning a Hunger Game Party.  Practically everyday of school for the past three months Darin's big news for the day has been about all the details Carson and him talked about at lunch.

Lucky for Nathan, he has the nicest big brother and he talked the other 7th graders at lunch into letting his brother play and one of his favorite friends.  Pretty soon it was all that Nathan came home from school talking about too as his friends and him debated which District they would be from.  Nathan even made up shields and swords out of cardboard one day.

You would think with three months of constant discussion that would mean the party was totally planned, but it wasn't.  Imagine my surprise when Darin showed me the invitation he made up and it said that it was at our house!  I don't mind him volunteering our house and am quite used to it, it's just that the whole time he had told me about how this was Carson's party and he was just helping out.  It was funny to see Carson's mom completely surprised about the whole entire party too.  I mentioned it to her when I was picking up Rose from school and she had no idea about any of it:-)

The boys learned a few lessons in party planning (which was kind of frustrating for me to watch and also be a part of).  For instance Darin put on the invitation to meet at our house, he planned on using a greenbelt area that was about 10 minutes away, but when people called he gave them directions to the greenbelt and told them to meet him there at the start time too.  It's hard to be in two places at once:-)  He also had to deal with having a party that was off-site but required equipment.

I think the mom's would rate the party experience at a 3, but the boy's would rate it as a 12!  They had a ton of fun!  Carson and Darin came up with a few training challenges.  Then they played a Hunger Game Airsoft War.  Ken went into the field with them and me and the girls sat outside the game field.

Actually, I was just lucky to attend as I set-up a time to hand off Primary stuff to the new president.  When I was setting the meeting I purposely set it for when I knew Ken and the boys would be busy so that I wouldn't take time away from when we could be all together as a family.  But then I regretted it because Darin had wanted me to help him out with the party, and I cried for like the 2000th time about missing something for my children because of my calling.  I ended up having the new president meet me at the greenbelt and the timing was perfect.  After the boys started their war I met with her and after I was finished meeting with her the boys were done with the Airsoft portion.

When the boys came out they were covered in burrs.  That didn't seem to dampen their enthusiasm for the game much as many of them rolled around and got down in it to hide.  It was so bad that their entire shoelaces were covered with the burrs and your couldn't see anything else.  We threw away Nathan's shirt and the shorts that Darin wore because we got so tired or picking them out.

After the Hunger Games they came out of the field and launched water balloons at each other.

They all survived!

And then they started playing again:-)

PS- I think it is pretty fitting that I am posting about Hunger Games from Cancun.  Ken and the boys read the Trilogy on our last trip to Cancun over Christmas 2010.  That was their Beach read for the two weeks.  I'm was shocked that Ken let them read it then since Darin was 11 and Nathan was 10 at the time.  I just read it over Spring Break 2012 and I don't know if I would have let them read it now at 13 and 11 1/2.  But I guess that is what a Father's Prerogative is for, right.