Harry Potter Land

Hi everybody. Abby here.

Something amazing happened to me last week.

I went here.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

It was just basically my life goal to visit there. And now I have.

Best part? It was for school. My school does a thing called Winterim every year in January. It lasts three weeks. The teachers prepare special classes (there are about twenty different options) for us to choose from. There were options like snowboarding, doing Humanitarian work in Ecuador, learning about Shakespeare, cooking, fitness, all kinds of stuff. But obviously the most superior option was visiting Harry Potter Land. (The teacher in charge said it was to learn about marketing and things like that, but really it was just a great excuse to go to Florida.)

We (three adults and nine kids) arrived in Florida on Wednesday, hung around in Downtown Disney on Thursday, and then visited the park on Friday and Saturday. Harry Potter Land is part of Universal Studios so we also got to ride on the other cool rides Universal has to offer--Spiderman, Jurassic Park, etc. Oh, and let's not forget the Dr. Seuss area. That was fun.

Here are some photographs for your viewing pleasure.

Drinking Butterbeer in the Hog's Head

I bought Hermione Granger's wand at Ollivander's Wand Shop

Honeydukes

I loved all the rides too. It wasn't super crowded so the lines weren't outrageously long.

Speaking of lines, here's a funny story. On the last night we ate a "feast" in the Three Broomsticks and we were all kind of emotional because we didn't want to leave, haha. One of my friends was totally crying, and we were walking up to get in line to ride Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey for like the third time. So my friend is crying, and we're all kinda freaking out, and one of the workers let us go in one of the faster lines--it must have been the Fastpass line or something. Moral of the story though: If you're super excited about Harry Potter, you might not have to wait in line as long. Who cares if people think you're nuts?

It was a magical trip, to say the least. I had tons of fun.

Happy New Year!

Our family has decided to join the blogging world and try to let you know what we're up to about once a week. We hope you enjoy it.

The task of reporting on our holidays falls to me... we had a wonderful holiday season. Everyone stayed out of the hospital, so that was handy. We had our traditional sleigh ride on Christmas Eve, except that there was absolutely no snow in Midway, so it was a wagon ride instead. That did not dull our enthusiasm for carolling, however, and we sang Jingle Bells and Sleigh Ride with gusto. Christmas Day was a delight. We love it when Christmas falls on a Sunday, and we had a fun and very pleasant day.

We had a fun New Year's Eve. We usually have a party here at home, but this year we did something a bit different... we found out that there were some groups that we like doing concerts at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, so we went up there and spent the whole evening right up to midnight there. (The weather was beautiful, so that made it easier.) There were concerts at a few different locations on Temple Square and probably in some other places in downtown SLC, but hung out in the Tabernacle most of the time. We saw some friends from the Nauvoo Pageant singing broadway tunes, a new band called Truman that I think most of you would like, and then the headliner for the evening was the Nashville Tribute Band. We have loved all three of their CDS and enjoyed seeing them live. All of us had a lot of fun, but McKay couldn't contain himself. That is a kid who knows how to enjoy life! He was so excited. He loves that music so much and doesn't care if anyone knows it!! It was a blast! And we couldn't wipe the smile off of Alex's face, either.

There was something a little surreal about bringing in the New Year at Temple Square with a rockin' country band from Nashville, but we wouldn't have missed it. The band ended about three minutes to 12:00, so we rushed outside and sang ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay and danced around (even Abby!). We tried to see the fireworks that they set off downtown, but we had a bad vantage point. Maybe we'll try that again another year.

On the following Monday our friends Scott and Meridith and Abby's friend McKenna came over and we played games and had snacks, so we cracked our crackers (you familiar with England will know what we're talking about) and had our sparkling cider and celebrated the New Year again. We are so grateful that we have this awesome family and such wonderful friends.







Our other fantastic news is that we have purchased a ramp for the boys to ride around in. Well, the ramp has a car surrounding it, but the important thing is the ramp! It is so much easier for us to take the boys that we are practically giddy! And grateful!