Bilbo's Birthday

So I'm not a Lord of The Rings Fan.  But Ray is.  He loves the books and reads them over and over.  So he decided to expose our kids to Bilbo's Birthday, also known as Hobbit Day, this year.  Ray isn't typically one to plan and celebrate things, so this was a big deal!  The kids have been looking forward to it for months.  And I have to say that it's been a little odd when we're at Costco and they are going on and on about Bilbo's birthday to strangers and then looking at me for an explanation... Let's just say that I don't even try to explain!  But anyway... the kids LOVED it.  They loved looking forward to it and then everything we did to celebrate.  Here's what we did...

Ray read them part of the Fellowship of the Ring where they were planning Bilbo's party and then he sent them invitations....

Before dinner, Ray did a scavenger hunt all over our neighborhood (our HOA owns several acres of community land which has a creek, barn, fields, and woods) and the kids loved running from clue to clue and then trying to figure out the riddles (Bilbo likes riddles which is what inspired this).  At the end of the hunt there were presents for the kids because on hobbit birthdays, the one who has the birthday gives gifts to the guests...

Then we came back home to eat dinner and I made "hobbit soup"

Then we went back outside under our "party tree" - the party tree had lanterns in it from the book but we just put lights in our party tree.  Then we made a fire there and had smores.  While sitting around the fire and ray did more reading about Bilbo's birthday...

To finish out our night, we walked the trail in our neighborhood in the dark (we gave the kids flashlights) and they loved it.  We did this because Bilbo left at night...

This was a lot of fun!  And all of this is because Ray just wants the kids to love these books one day.   We will see if they do!