How to Celebrate a Birthday – World Race Style

      I really love birthdays.   I didn’t really know that about myself until last year when my friend was explaining to a stranger that I am always the first one to call him on his birthday… sometimes even before he had time to remember that it’s his birthday himself. I love birthdays because it’s chance to celebrate how amazing and wonderful the birthday person is. Now this is usually the very thing that turns people off from birthdays… all the attention… the ole “it’s just another day” excuse. “Unacceptable,” I say.

            This year we’ve had the privilege of planning 5 World Race birthdays for our teammates.   They were all kind enough to be born in different months so we have had a year of great celebrations! I had a great committee member, Colleen (except when she had to be selfish and have her own birthday!) and all of our teammates help out and then are top notch revelers when the big day arrives.

 Now a world race birthday falls into a whole different category than a normal birthday.   We are away from home so it is extra important to have a great day.   And then there’s the traveling lifestlye… on the World Race you rarely can pinpoint where you’ll be and what you’ll be doing on any given day. Will there be a grocery store? What about gifts? Given all your surroundings what kind of day would best suit the birthday person? This has been my favorite challenge of the year!  

So this blog is a little guide should you ever find yourself traveling the world with your family of 6 trying to do it up for a bday:

How to Celebrate a World Race Birthday:

1.  You must examine the calendar and make a guess at where you’ll be for the day… this should probably happen one to two months earlier (Jackie was predicting where we would be several months in advance… airport or Africa, airport or Africa?)

2.   About a month out the present gathering process should begin.   Last minute shoppers beware: there may or may not even be grocery stores available the week before the big day. Shop early.

            Present suggestions:

 * Food is always a good choice for the world racer far from home… we chose to give each of our teammates their favorite cereal (or the closest we could get).   Dannys birthday was April 9^th in Botswana and he just finished his Birthday Granola last week…  that’s right, it made the continent jump…

* Presents you would receive at home are often hard to come by:

Everyone’s favorite pirate… Lenses Magee

 

  Here you will find Colleen celebrating her pens and my little pony pencil case

3.  The element of surprise is key…

 

6.  Old school party games are always a great choice… we’ve seen pinatas, scavenger hunts, and (imported from Chicago 🙂 ) pin the tail on the donkey all succeed for Birthday Fun

This year we had a treat… it’s called the “Grammy Bomb.”   It is an ice cream cake crafted by Colleen’s world race famous Graminator. This is our first (rather sad) attempt for Kyle’s birthday: 

 

 

Jackie blowing out the candles on the “best cake we could find/create in Swaziland” Cake

 

  Lindsey blowing out the candles on her Mozambiquen homeade by South Africans cake:

 

By Dannys birthday our birthday crew had gotten so good that we made one heck of a Grammy Bomb and another cake showed up at the party… the double portion continues.

 

 

For Colleen we went through several options and landed on a Pizookie… combining several of her favorite things… large cookies, ice cream, peanut m&ms, and high school musical (??)

  The last thing you should know is that there is no need to spend money on plates or napkins… because 95% of World Race Birthday Cakes are eaten something like this…