Wednesday 29 July 2009

Ben's Party


Turning 7 was a big event for Ben who has been dreaming and planning his ideal birthday party for months! Whilst we had a family party on the actual day, we had to wait till after school went back to organize his school friends party. I should say with 4 children, we do not do these types of birthday parties each year, which probably explains why Ben was so super excited about his big day this year. Ben's party was at Laser-force, which is a bit of a Brisbane icon as it is the original Laser-force from which many others sprung up around the world. The only sad thing is that it was developed from a disused roller skating rink, so if you know that I used to be a skater you would understand why I am sad about rinks closing.

Funny story about the cake. the girls and I chose a 'Flying Saucer Cake', which was always going to frustrate me as I had no chance of making it look as good as the photograph. The base started off quite well - I opted for a ready made sponge and covered it in blue fondant icing with stars to look like space. Next I had to carve a flying saucer out of sponge and elevate it using cake risers. This is where the problems begun because not only could we not make silver icing for the flying saucer but I learned that you cannot use cake risers on sponge as they tend to sink into the sponge especially during car travel. To cut a long story short, by the time we reached Laser-force the flying saucer had crash landed into the base! Whilst we did our best to prop it back into position, when we lit the candles on the base, one had angled itself under the upper layer and started to cause a fire at the perimeter of the craft - It was pretty funny really. Luckily the cake did not burn down and it stayed up long enough for happy birthday to be sung and the cake cut.


All the children had a great time, including the girls. I've never allowed toy guns at home, so the whole idea of Laser-force was a bit foreign to me. Afterwards the children played some of the arcade games including pin ball and air hockey - so much fun. I was so glad Ben had had his dream party as we could see from the look of his face that he was so so happy!