For Corinne’s birthday last year, she asked for a Halloween cake theme. Her friends all said “Finally!” since her birthday is in October, and she has never had a Halloween or monster theme before. The closest she’s come has been Stranger Things a couple of years ago. So I set out to find a monster cake idea, and I’d say I pulled it off pretty well.

She’s old enough now that I don’t have to plan activities anymore. The theme is really just for the cake. But over the years, I’ve always planned games in our back yard. Corinne and her friends were young enough that I had to have a plan or there would just be chaos.

As Corinne got older, the cakes and activities became more complex and sophisticated. By the time she turned 12, she had fallen into my reality TV addiction (Confessions of a Realityp TV Junkie). That year, she decided she wanted to do a Survivor theme, complete with immunity challenges and tribal council. I bought bandanas for buffs. My brother made wooden puzzles for one of the challenges. I put a picture of Jeff Probst’s face on a popsicle stick to hold in front of my face. We even had hidden immunity notes in three of the bandanas.

And then it rained.

We had to move the party inside, which meant I had to rethink several of the challenges. We had probably a dozen adults in the kitchen and about 35 kids literally in lines in the living room…and no, my house was not made to hold that many people. That was the year I told my husband we were going to rent out the covered pavilion at the park going forward.

The following year, we decided it would be the last party with planned activities. She was turning 13, so it was a nice milestone. (She still has parties, but it’s really more about hanging out with her friends, eating pizza, and making Snapchat videos now.) So the big finale? Birthday #13 was The Amazing Race.

We wrote clues, we had people stationed around the park in secret locations, we split everyone into teams as they arrived. And the first team to get back to the pitstop (the pavilion) and complete the final challenge was the winning team. If you’ve seen The Amazing Race, you know the final challenge is typically one that forces contestants to remember something from every leg of the race. So our final challenge was putting in order all of Corinne’s birthday themes.

No easy task. I had to look up several of them. Dennis failed at it miserably. Even Corinne couldn’t finish. The team that won included someone who had known Corinne since preschool, so she had a decent shot, but it took them seven tries.

What made it so challenging was that Corinne’s likes and dislikes changed so dramatically every year, and they weren’t very chronological in regard to her maturity level. At one point, she went from VICTORiOUS, a show about high school kids at a performing arts school (and the only year we didn’t get a picture of the cake because the piano keys started to drip), to Angry Birds to…My Little Pony. (She even dressed up as Rainbow Dash for Halloween that year.)

I think 13 might have been my favorite party even though it was a ton of work. It was a nice ending to the parties I had to really plan for.

I finished a book recently that was released in June and definitely had an Amazing Race theme to it.

Oh, and if you’re at all curious about the birthday theme challenge: Elmo, Disney Princesses, Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob, Toy Story, VICTORiOUS, Angry Birds, My Little Pony, Minecraft, Minions, Pokémon, Survivor, The Amazing Race.

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Book Review

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for Love & Other Great Expectations by Becky Dean

384 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: June 14, 2022
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Delacorte Press.

Publisher’s Description

Britt Hanson has always preferred scoring goals on the soccer field to analyzing dusty old books. But when an injury ends her dream to play in college, she jumps at the chance to compete in a scavenger hunt in England that takes her to the locations of classic novels—the prize money would change her life!

Once in the UK she meets bookish and very British Luke Jackson. He can’t actually help her with any of the clues (against the rules), but something about Luke compels her to invite him to join her. She wouldn’t mind getting to know him—and listening to his accent.

To win, Britt must outsmart three competitors who aren’t afraid to play dirty while solving clues and traveling around the English countryside. Along the way, Britt learns that sometimes you have to follow the map and other times, you need to throw caution to the wind and see where the cobblestoned road leads you.

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Main Characters:

• Britt Hanson – 18 years old, had plans to play soccer on scholarship at UCLA until she is sidelined by an injury and medical condition that pulls her permanently from playing competitive sports
• Luke Jackson – 18 years old, just finished secondary school, loves literature, recently moved with his father from Oxford to London
• Alexis – works for Britt’s English teacher, assigned as Britt’s chaperone for the scavenger hunt, also happens to be Luke’s cousin

  

I loved this book! Every once in a while, I like to dive into a Young Adult novel. They’re usually good clean fun, and this one had so many elements that I could lose myself in.

Britt Hanson is one of four students hand-selected by her English teacher Ms. Carmichael to compete in a scavenger hunt in the UK. The prize is $100,000, and we find out over the course of the book why each student was selected. In Britt’s case, we know it’s because she’s going to lose her soccer scholarship to UCLA because of a medical condition. The youngest of three kids, her dad left, her siblings are already well on their way to successful careers, and Britt has no idea what she’ll do without soccer. She’s determined to win the competition.

The scavenger hunt feels a lot like The Amazing Race, and as a huge fan of reality TV (Confessions of a Reality TV Junkie), I loved this. The students receive clues that they have to decipher, and there’s a task they have to complete at each location to receive the next clue. The difference between this and The Amazing Race is that the first to finish doesn’t win.

Each of the eight tasks the students will be given corresponds with a piece of classic literature that they covered in class. As a huge fan of literature (former English and psych minor here), I loved this part too. Ms. Carmichael tells the students that the competition is inspired by The Canterbury Tales. They have nine days to decipher all eight clues, complete the tasks, and record their experiences in a journal as a series of tales. Those journals would be turned in at the end of the nine days, and she would choose the winner from there.

Britt meets Luke at her very first task when she blocks a soccer ball from hitting him in the face at an orphanage. Britt is drawn to him because he’s attractive (of course), but she stays drawn to him because she likes how he sounds when he’s reading to kids at the orphanage. They have a fun and comfortable banter. When he drops some books from a bag and she sees The Canterbury Tales, she sees it as a sign and invites him to join her for the afternoon. One afternoon turns into the entire week traveling around the UK.

The author tells a great story here. It’s a young adult romance, so predictable, but there’s really nothing not to like. Britt has a sassy personality. Luke seems to understand her. Alexis (affectionately known as Al) acts like she’s unhappy with her role, but you know that she is not-so-secretly enjoying getting to know Britt along the way. And Britt and Luke both do a bit of self-discovery.

I knew how the story would end, but I enjoyed the ride to get there. I’ll definitely be reading more by this author.

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