Friday, February 29, 2008

May the Force be with you


So it has been a busy three weeks...
The main event over the past three weeks has been Isaak's birthday.



Five years has sure gone by fast and the baby that you see in the photo has sure grown up.

Since we didn't have a party for him last year, we decided to have a birthday party for his friends last Saturday. We thought he would want a Cars themed party, or maybe a pirate themed party, but he decided that he wanted a Star Wars party.

Now, a Star Wars party could be a fine party, but what did he want to do? I think Isaak has seen all of about 45 minutes of all three movies combined, but has some Star Wars toys and has played Star Wars Lego on grandma Nelson's iMac. Simply stated, he doesn't have a lot of Star Wars knowledge to build a party upon.

So what do you do with a bunch of 5 year old kids to keep them entertained for two hours?





The answer: Light sabers. (or is it lightsabers?)






We decided to set up a "Jedi Training Camp" and let the young padawan party goers all learn to be a Jedi. One problem: How do you do this and how to make it seem more than just a 2 hour sword fight between all the boys.

Well, luckily Wendy has a couple of brothers that are borderline Star Wars geeks. One of them had a long brown Jedi cloak and some Star Wars toys.

Next, we bought some light sabers, 7 to be exact from Wal-Mart to give to each of the kids.


But it wasn't quite realistic. We thought of having them decorate some sort of head band, but ended up buying several yards of white fabric, cut some holes for heads, draped it over their heads and tied a brown sash of sorts around to make them look like Jedis in training.



I think it turned out pretty well.

Next, I watched the Jedi Training stuff that they do at Disneyland on Youtube and put together a little training on how to use the light sabers. That was their basic training.




So after each young Jedi learned how to handle his/her weapon, we went down to the Intermediate training room (basement) so they could learn some defensive moves. We had our tumbling mat out and let each do some somersaults and then they learned to roll away from danger, jump, activate their weapons and strike. Finally, they learned to jump over an opponents weapon, roll, jump to their feet and strike at the enemy. The kids loved this.





Finally, after some long training and a few games of musical chairs thrown in, they were ready for the final test, a fight against the Jedi Master







We sent the kids off after a couple hours of fun, pizza and cake with their own lightsaber and they could keep the outfit. I have had a couple of reports from parents that one kid wanted to sleep in his jedi outfit, one wore his all day and I have seen a couple of them running around the neighborhood wearing their costumes - So I guess they had fun and liked the party










7 comments:

Whatever Dee-Dee wants said...

Sounds fun! What would you have done if it was a pirate party?

Anonymous said...

The Force is strong in you I can tell! I did not think you had a funny look on your face Master Todd. You look like Jedi Master Yoda. Your knowledge of young Jedi training is amazing!

Todd said...

Thanks Master Yoda - teach me well, you did.

Mindy Williams said...

How hilarious. Only boys (and their daddies) could play Jedi for that many hours and be entertained. Good thing Wendy was there to throw in the food and a few regular games or else it would have just become a massive sword fight ending in injury for sure. By the way, how is Isaak's injury? I hear he and Anna have twin scars! Wish we could have been there!

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you finally posted on this event! It looks like veryone had a great time. Why is Isaak's costume the only one messed up in the picture?

Anonymous said...

After closer investigation of the picture of the Jedi Master, i have only one thing to say... What's a habit?

neffgang said...

Todd & Wendy,

We are still laughing about the details of the training! Great job, you guys.

By the way, the question isn't really why Wendy takes pictures of you making goofy faces, the question is more about why you post goofy pictures that she takes of you!