Boy vs Wild - A Survival Party

Dash and his pals are all mad about Bear Grylls, TV's "Man vs Wild". Haven't seen it? Ahhh, you should. It's great entertainment, and boys especially love it. Surviving in the wild, challenging yourself, eating bugs and snakes... what's not to love?

So with Dash turning Nine and the prospect of nine boys let loose in the garden, it was always going to be wild. Here's our Boy vs Wild Survival Party.

Decorating for this party was lots of fun - and cheap'n'easy too...

Planning an outdoor party at this volatile time of year is always a risk, and all week the weather reports looked iffy. But would Bear Grylls stay inside if it was a bit windy and rainy? Of course not! 

So with no Plan B, we turned the garden into Boy Heaven. I collected tin cans, foliage, ropes and old tyres.

Created labels for water bottles and Survival Juice {HomeBrand lemonade with the labels peeled off}...

We designed a series of team challenges, based on three teams of three.

Teams were chosen by picking a coloured "buff" from a satchel...

One of the guests arrived late, so Miss Fab stood in for the Brown Team and proved her worth. So awesome was she at the challenges that when the late arrival eventually turned up and joined in, Miss Fab's sporty teammates asked me, "Can we have Abby back on our team???" Yeah, my girl is pretty great alright. She can hold her own with a bunch of boys.

The first challenge was an Obstacle Course, in teams, timed. Two rounds. Hilarious.

Mr G created the obstacle course and did a fab job, using rope, old tyres, ladders, wooden horses and plenty of imagination.

{The Brown Team whipped the other teams' butts, thanks to the speedy Miss Fab.}

Then it was time to make slingshots. Sticks + bike inner tubes + string. Sounds simple right?

Eventually most of the teams had made something vaguely resembling a slingshot. Now it was time to put them to use...

...with mixed results... At first we blamed faulty design and manufacturing for the lack of success...

...but when Grandad managed to make the slingshots work, we had to acknowledge it was just lack of skill that was to blame for all those wide shots.

Righto, moving on. Time for another challenge, boys? A Word hunt.

Hunt all over the garden for colour coded letters. Six in total. When you have found all six, race back to base and assemble your word. {Clue: It will be a country or place that Bear Grylls has been.}

This time the Black Team were triumphant. The poor Brown Team were lost without Miss Fab and couldn't even find all their letters. Never mind.

Of course it wouldn't be a Bear Grylls party without eating disgusting stuff, right? Right.

This was the part the boys were all waiting for. Which is kind of ironic when you think about it. How often do they sit at the table refusing to eat the broccoli because it's "disgusting" but call it a Disgusting Food Challenge and tell them Bear Grylls eats it? They'll even eat snails.

"Sit at the table, one from each team," we told them. Here comes round one... and out we came carrying a tray with three plates of Snails...

I wish I could show you the clip of their little faces chewing and eating what they thought were snails. Of course they weren't really snails. I got giant {empty} escargot shells from Nosh and poked a couple of slimy looking anchovies in. They looked very snail-like. Oh their faces. the gagging. The heaving. But they chewed up those "snails" for the sake of the team.

 Then it was the mussels. In the shells of course, but steamed. I wouldn't make them eat raw ones - truly, I'm not that mean.

This guy was a legend. Chewed that mussel right up, even while he gagged. Right about now the brown team were really wishing they had Miss Fab. She loves mussels.

And here's Dash with his cockle. Ugh. Like slimey snot aren't they? I couldn't eat it. But my fussy eater Dash slurped it back for the team in record time. Unbelievable.

{This was so much fun. Mostly cos I didn't have to eat any of it. And yes, I did tell the boys that they hadn't actually eaten snails - eventually.}

Food time was a little bit different. We made damper, sausages, steamed mussels with lemon and coriander and Snake. Strips of meat (beef and pork) which was woven onto a bamboo skewer and chargrilled over the fire. Delicious, I tell you.

Would you believe that we ran out of time for dessert?

We'd been partying for four hours and in the end we had to just do Birthday Cake, skipping the Bowl of {jelly} Worms I had laboured over...

Never mind. It didn't turn out quite how it was meant to. But the cake was good...

Since the parents were starting to arrive, we cut the cake, offered around Snake Skewers and Mussels {surprisingly unpopular with the boys...?} and poured a glass of wine.

Then we sent them home with one of these cute goody bags.

It was overheard, by me and others, that one boy remarked to his buddies, "This was the best birthday party I've been to. Ever. The decorations, everything."

Now that's what makes it all worth it.

Creating an Adventure Party

• Boy vs Wild Party How To's and Printables Click Here
• Boy vs. Wild FREE Printable Invitations Click Here

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