Escape Party

The day after Chase's official birthday I had a super fun party planned for him.  We sent out invites a week before to his friends.  We were going to Breakthrough Reno (an escape room).  The idea is to escape the room you are locked in within 60 minutes by finding clues.  I chose a fun game for them, The Mask.  The story line was they were FBI agents on the case of a serial killer.  

When they arrived at our house they were given a FBI shirt I had made for each of them, and had to go through some training before earning their official badges.

I had set up a few different training stations for them.  The first station I had set up was a fingerprinting station.  They had to practice fingerprinting so they would be able to process a suspect.

They practiced fingerprinting each other.

Next was a mission to test their agility skills.  I had set up a long hallway with lasers.  The goal was to maneuver through the hallway without tripping one of the beams.  Not sure any of them made it through without a little body lasering.

The next task they had was evidence collection.  

I told them before we moved into this new house a serial killer used to live here.  He had cut off body parts and disposed of them throughout the house.  It was their job to collect the evidence and piece it together.

They searched all over the house for evidence.

Once all the evidence had been collected from a room, it was cleared and taped off.

They each collected 12 pieces of evidence (gummy candy body parts).

Their final training was apprehending a suspect.  We used Nerf guns to practice shooting at suspects when they refused to freeze.

After training it was time to take a break for pizza in the academy cafeteria.

They all passed their FBI training and earned their official badges.  Then we headed off to Reno to the escape room.

Once we arrived they were escorted into a back briefing room to learn about their mission and watch a short movie clip about the "mask".  They were all a little terrified.

Then they were locked up in the killers "apartment" and had 60 minutes to find the clues to escape before he returned home.  The video controllers let Matt, Sadi, and I into their surveillance room to watch part of it.  It was pretty funny watching them decipher clues together.  They did make it out...given a little extra time for the special birthday boy :)  Once they escaped, we had a little party in the back room complete with a donut tower I had ordered.  This was a BIG hit!

They had a blast, and talked non-stop the rest of the night about how cool it was.

After they devoured almost the entire tower we headed back home to open cards/gifts from friends.  

When their parents picked them up they were sent home with an explosive party favor.  I made bombs out of balloons and pipe cleaners.  They had to diffuse the bomb to retrieve the chocolate candy bars hidden inside.

Chase's friend Nathan spent the night and they stayed up playing his new video games.   This party definitely ranks up there as one of our best!