Adventure Course Birthday Party

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Last week, Hattie turned four years old! She is such an incredible girl – kind, creative, adventurous, and full of energy. She loves horses, ballet, hiking, and all things Spirit Riding Free. We’ve been planning her Spirit birthday party all year and, because of Covid, decided to have an outdoor adventure inspired by the Frontier Fillies Jubilee episodes (kind of like the Girl Scouts, but more horsey). Once I started brainstorming with my husband, it came together pretty quickly. In fact, this course is something you could do outdoors anytime.

We narrowed it down to five stations, each with a bandana to collect in order to earn a badge for that challenge. I purchased some of the supplies on Amazon, but we already had a lot of these items. I’ll link everything below. My husband made this awesome map, which had all of the areas numbered so that she could easily see where to go. She also had a compass and a “Frontier Fillies” sash to pin all of her buttons that she earned onto.

Challenge 1

It started off with the river crossing challenge. We used the plastic logs and stumps that we already had and put them onto a blue tarp so that it looked like water. Then we added her Little Tykes slide to make a “waterfall” to slide down and had the bandana in the tree just past the slide.

[Sources: logs and stumps, slide]

Challenge 2

The next challenge was the “bear cave”. We made it using tunnels that she already had and covered it with all of the brown sheets and blankets we had in the house. The bandana was hidden in the middle of the cave. It was pretty dark inside, so we gave her a flashlight to use as she crawled through.

[Sources: tunnels]

Challenge 3

Archery! She told us later that this one was her favorite and I probably would have felt the same at her age. We ordered this cute little wooden bow and arrow set from Etsy seller “BusyPuzzle”. We opted to have her name engraved, but there are many options available. (This seller is located outside of the US, so shipping may be delayed a bit.) She’d never shot a bow and arrow before, so Ryan taught her how to do it. It was so much fun!

[Sources: bow and arrow set, target]

Challenge 4

In one of the Spirit Riding Free episodes, Pru and Lucky’s dads create a challenge course for the girls which includes fishing. So, we set up a little fishing area with a kiddie pool, some blue and green plastic balls, and a magnetic fishing set. This can be done as a race to see who gets the most fish first, by each kid choosing a color or just taking turns catching a specific number (or all). There are so many ways to play with this one!

[Sources: fishing game, colored balls, kiddie pool]

Challenge 5

Horseback riding! Hattie rode her trusty stick horse through the course set up with cones and collected the bandana at the end of the course. It was a great way to end the series of challenges and was inspired by the “O-Mok-See” challenge the PALs set up for Lucky’s birthday.

[Sources: stick horse, cones]

After completing the challenge course, we all headed over to the bonfire to make s’mores! Hattie and her cousins had so much fun going back and playing in each area of the course together. We decorated our back porch with a Spirit-themed table and had cupcakes with green frosting and sprinkles (“grass”) and toy horses on top. Our other snacks were carrots, apples, popcorn, and granola bites – all individually wrapped. We all coordinated gifts and got her all of the Spirit Playmobil Frontier Fillies camping sets, which are super adorable! There was a Spirit photo station with lots of fun props and a “help Lucky feed Spirit” game as well. She loved it!

I’m so glad we decided to have an outdoor adventure this year. It was the perfect way to celebrate our sweet girl!