Barca, Barca, Barca!

Parties to celebrate the special men in our lives can be such a challenge. My husband usually wants a low key birthday, but this year he made an exception. After a bit of thought, he decided that racing go carts would be an awesome way to spend some quality dude time. Knowing that he loves the Barcelona soccer team, I knew that it would be a very Barca party!

As the guests arrived, we had them check in at the Go Kart track and suit up. We listened to a safety video and then they were given these:

As a rule, the go kart track gives plain black head socks to wear underneath the helmet. Just to make it a bit more fun and personal, I went a couple days prior to the party and picked up our guests plain black head socks. Then, I fired up my handy dandy sewing machine and appliqued each of their names on them.  The guys really dug it and it turned out to be a perfect party favor!

It really was a fast and furious ride on the go karts! We did practice laps and then did a qualifying lap which gave us our poll position and then we had the final race. Everyone had a grand ole time and we finished off with a metal ceremony for the top 3 finishers. After all of that fun and burning rubber it was totally time for some nosh. We had all of Patrick's favorite foods- pizza, wings, Caesar salad, and garlic cheese bread, and of course beer. 

I wanted the dessert table to be a reflection of Patrick's favorite loves so I decorated it with his triathlon metals, favorite candy (I used his bike helmets as bowls), pictures of him, and thank you cards from the various patients he has helped over the years (he is a nurse). It was great to see his eyes light up as others would ask him about his various metals and competitions. We are just so proud of him! He recently traveled to Barcelona to see his favorite team compete (yes, he loves this team THAT much!) so I knew the cake had to honor some of the experiences he had there. I emailed a couple of pictures to this awesome bakery called the cake gallery  for his cake (we did a chocolate cake with fudge filling and white icing per Patrick's request). Not only did they do a fantastic job of depicting Patrick with his favorite player - Lionel Messi of course!, but they were even able to do a 3-D soccer ball that totally looked like the one he brought back for our sons. That cake was a total crowd pleaser.. sooo yummy! We also had another table with all of Patrick's college photos and honors throughout the years. Amazing to see a visual depiction of his journey throughout the years.

The guests also left with little mason jars of cake with the Barcelona crest on the top. Except for one of the guests who was a Real Madrid fan, so I made sure his favor had his favorite team on it instead!

As you can see we had a great time practicing our Ninja moves for the camera. All in all it was great fun and I know one special guy had a good time too :)