Potter Party

We're on vacation and on the way to a Potter Party. There's a bookstore that has organized a Diagon Alley event in conjunction with other businesses. Menus have been adjusted at local restaurants. We are so excited! By this time tomorrow, we'll be reading the real deal book not the leaks or rumors.

vacation: the farm, and history

A few days ago, we were on the farm. Papa called into town to say, "Let's roast weenies and marshmallows." Turns out that Papa and Good Neighbor were burning a huge dead tree in the field. Papa had figured out that about dark the coals would be "perfect." And they were. We had such a great time out in the field with the smoldering stump. We used chocolate chip cookies as the outside part for s'mores. The Entertainer went with G'ma to the store. The Entertainer is the one who chose chewy chocolate chip cookies. They worked even better than we thought they would. MMMMM.

While we were out there, Papa was talking about the Butterfield Trail going through the property. On our part of the trail, we even have a culvert built to help the stagecoach across a ditch. SportsQueen got up early the next morning and Papa dumped her out on the trail. She ran about half a mile on the trail on the farm. That was pretty cool. G'ma took both girls to a nearby historical marker to take their picture.

The day after that we traveled north about 90 miles to see Mimi. Mimi's house is on the corner in a small town and the Butterfield trail runs right past her house. So as we talked she told us about another marker that was down a country road in the direction we needed to go to travel back to the farm but not on the road we usually take. So we followed Mimi's directions and took another picture. At that marker, there is also an old wagon. We weren't really planning that history lesson but had a great adventure with the whole thing.

The Movie

Last night, the SportsQueen and I went to see the Harry Potter movie at midnight. I purchased the tickets online sometime last week. When I ordered them, there was one screen in the complex showing the film. Last night, there were four screens. That is a lot of people out at midnight.

The SportsQueen had never seen any HP movies at the theater. She has been too young previously to go with me or even for me to take her later. Even though she has read all of the books, I am convinced that there is a huge difference between the vision created in your own head from reading versus the vision created by Hollywood projected on a very large screen. She was not happy with me for making her wait to see HP 4 on DVD. But I was not going to take her to the movie to see Cedric's death in extra-large without any control of the "play" button.

Anyway, now she is 13 and even though HP 5 is darker than the other books, there are no children who die. So we went to the midnight showing. She was so excited to be in the theater for a HP movie. She was even more excited that we were at the midnight show. Because we had ordered our tickets ahead, we were in the theater with other committed HP fans. It was so cool. During the advertising before the movie, the theater was so loud with talking that none of the commercials could be heard. During the movie, the theater was so quiet during dialogue that you could have heard a pin drop. I was an extreme outlier, on the older end, for the age range represented in our theater but NO cell phones made any noise at all. There were eruptions of laughter or other expressions of emotion but they were quickly silenced in order not to miss anything being said on the screen.

There was only one spot during the movie where my reaction was "it didn't happen that way." Overall the transition from book to movie was better than the Book 4 transition. One particular scene evoked the thought "The waters of baptism quench the fires of hell."

Can't wait to see it again. And book 7 is almost here!