My 14 year old daughter is allowed to have 1 party per year. This year she chose a back to school party. She loves dragon's so we decided to incorporate that into the theme. We made  invitations that looked like fire and had a photo of a dragon asleep on some books at the top.  The title read It is Time You Were Dragon Your Tail Back to School.  Let's Have a Party to Celebrate.   All the kids were warned in the invite that they would get dirty and to bring a change of clothes.   We all met inside the house at first to have cokes and juices fruit and cookies and of course a castle cake with a dragon wrapped around it. ...I did not want them to get too hot since it was August. We had decorated the house in "fire colors...red yellow orange and black streamers and balloons with a red table cloth and bright yellow and black and orange plates cups and napkins. Then the fun began.  We had set up several blow up kiddie pools in the yard. Each one was filled with something different...koolaid and ice in one whipped cream in one Jello in one soapy water with marbles in one chocolate pudding in another one and grapes in another. They were spaced far apart and each one was numbered 1-8. ( we also incorporated things to run over/under or jump on from around the house. for example we made them go under a volleyball net jump on a trampoline and slide down a slide.  Each pool had 'prizes in them that had to be found before running to the next area. The goal was to see who could run the obstacle course in order and get a prize from each spot with the shortest time. We walked the course the first time explaining all the rules. The  rules were they had to dive into each pool to get the prize.  Their entire body had to be in the pool or they got a 5 second penalty and the course had to run in order.  When they got to the marble and soapy water (which is very slippery) they had to pick it up with their toes. The kids really loved it and we kept video camera and  camera going the whole time. We also wrote down their names and times as they ran the course. At the end we had a small prize for thie winner and each child got to keep what they 'found' in each of the pools.  Next I had made 12 huge cakes and colored them bright blue and purple and green and stacked them on a table outside. I had put them in the freezer so they would be cold but took them out in time for them to thaw.  All the children surronded the table and when we yelled on your mark get set go! it was free for all cake fight. We were sure to take photos after this as the kids were covered in pudding cake and whipped cream.  Then they had a silly string fight.  After this we had filled another small pool with water balloons but we had also filled the pool with ice water to keep the balloons from bursting.  They then had a water balloon fight. We got some awesome photos and it got some of the food off the kids. Next also we had a sprinkler going so that they could rinse off.   Then we had set up a Jaws slip and slide and took video and photos of each child as they came down the slip and slide.  They had a blast.  At the  end of the party I had put a trail of towels leading from the front door to the bathroom so each child could change clothes with minimum cleanup. We gave small bags of goodies and included a Dragon thank you card in the bags so we would not have to send them out later. I had gotten each child's mailing address before they went home.  A few days later they all received a copy of the video of the party and a photo CD.  The parents loved the video and CD and said they really appreciated getting to see how much fun the kids had. It was a lot of prep work but the kids loved it and said that my daughter had the coolest parties in our town.     "