HP Again

Well this will probably be my last Harry Potter post, but I can't promise anything. Well on Wed. night I finally finished the 7th book. I'm not quite sure why it took me so long this time to read this book, but it did.

On Thursday after swimming lessons I went to the mall and barnes and noble and hot topic to get the newest edition of entertainment weekly [with multiple articles about hp] and then a t-shirt to wear to the premier. Enjoy the myspace mirror pic of my shirt and magazine.

Then I went to the theater to pick up our tickets to make sure we had them for the show and it wouldn't be super crazy during the night. I also asked the guy what time they'd start letting people into the theater and he told me 15 minutes before the show, but that the lobby would start getting crowded around 10.

Courtney and I decided to leave at 10:30 so we'd get there a little before 11. When we got there the line was very long and it was outside. This is what the line looked like when we got there.

All these crazy Harry Potter fans waited in line. The line moved pretty fast once they started letting people into the theater (they let us in earlier than 15 min. before it was probably around 11:30ish when they started leading people in).

Courtney really isn't that into HP, but she's a good friend so she went to it at midnight with me. As you can tell from this picture she was pretty excited.

I was super excited [if you couldn't already tell by the multiple blogs about Harry Potter and the shirt, etc.] so I made her take a picture showing my shirt as well as my excitement.

The movie was really good. So everyone should go see it even if you don't really like Harry Potter. It would probably be helpful to know the story of HP from the other movies to really understand it, but that's up to you. Anyway the movie was good-epilogue ok-they looked about the same age so that was kind of funny. Everyone in our theater laughed during the beginning of the epilogue. I was glad that I went to the last one at midnight-even if it did mean I only got 4 hours of sleep before teaching swimming lessons :)

Tonight at Midnight!

You can read all about my love for HP here. Tonight at 12:01 I will be watching the final movie with Courtney.

Here's a little video someone posted on facebook that's a look back and really good so you should all watch it-even if you aren't big HP fans.

Rabid Raccoons

Source: http://www.minnesotawildanimalmanagement.com/raccoon_removal.html

Ok these raccoons most likely weren't rabid, but they did just scare the crap out of Nikki L and I this evening. They were huge and overtaking our driveway and yard. We had just gotten done babysitting and were pulling into our driveway when we saw a raccoon run across the driveway by the garage. We were obviously creeped out and Nikki told me to get my keys ready to get into the house. As I was about to get out of the car I saw something move in the yard next to me. It was another raccoon, this one didn't seem to be really running and hiding. I told her to get back in the car and I turned the headlights on so we could kind of see it. We then sat in the car wondering what to do next. The raccoon then started walking closer to the house so we didn't want to get out. It finally went around the porch, but we weren't exactly sure where so we didn't want to get out of the car in case it came after us or something [the whole time we could still see the other one by the garage]. Then I decided I would just back up the car and park it right next to the porch so we could run out of the car and quickly open the door to go inside. We did this and after fumbling a bit I got the door open and we ran inside as the creepy raccoon watched us from the garage. We felt much better as we were safe in our home. About 5 minutes later I was in the kitchen looking out the window and saw one of them back in the driveway walking towards the porch. I watched from the window as it walked up on the porch and then I tapped on the window a few times. It looked up and saw me and then ran away back towards the garage. Hopefully they'll both gone for the night and won't be sneaking up on us anytime soon, but I'm guessing that they will make an appearance again.

4th of July Weekend

My official 4th weekend with the family started Saturday afternoon when my family came to pick me up. The boys then went to the science center for body worlds and the girls went shopping around east village. We mostly just looked around stores, but did buy a couple of things in raygun. When the boys were done at body worlds we started our drive to omaha.

We got to Omaha later on Saturday and sat at the campground for a bit before heading to Lincoln for fireworks. We ended up just sitting in the truck and watching them and they were super close and really good. We also got there like right before they started so we didn't have to wait to long to watch them. I tried to take a picture of the fireworks on my phone. The picture isn't the best quality, but you get the idea. It was a really good fireworks show. [I've come up with my own theory that when fireworks are legal in a state their professional shows are SOO much better than states where fireworks are illegal]

On Sunday my mom, Carina, and I went to a church that is nearby Creighton that Carina wanted to check out to see if she wants to go there in the fall. It was a good service and a nice church. Then we went shopping for a bit to find a dress for my mom for my cousin's wedding at the end of July. We found a dress and then met the family for transformers. The majority went to transformers but others did go to Cars 2 and Bridesmaids. Transformers was really good!

Then we got back to the campground, ate, and talked for most of the night.

Monday started out with me taking some random pictures of the family camping while waiting for people to get ready for crafting and swimming.

Then my cousins, aunt, Carina, and I all went to the craft place and painted some very beautiful ceramics. I painted an E, Carina painted Piglet, McKenzie painted a deer, and Haley painted a cat.
Hard at work....

The finished projects....

Then we heading to the busy pool for some hot summer swimming. It was fun-we went down the slides a few time, got attacked in the wave pool, and then also layed out for a bit during pool checks...

After we were tired of swimming we went back to the campground and showered and changed into our matching flag t's. I decided to buy these Saturday morning at Old Navy since it had been so long since the family had them. They only had women and childen's sizes left so the boys didn't get them. Isaac instead was in charge of taking a photo of the 3 of us, which turned out to be a little difficult.

Then we made him take some nice ones of Carina and me....

Then we ate, loaded up our stuff and headed home. They dropped me off in West Des Moines to meet the Nikki's for my last 4th of July firework show. Here's a couple of pics of the fireworks.

It was great to see the family and get to hang out with them even if it wasn't for very long. I hope that all of your 4th of July's were good. Now a little extra credit for you all. Please leave a comment if you know what this lovely tattoo that I made Carina is of....

Harry Potter

So Friday I bought my tickets to the last Harry Potter movie which will be showing at 12:01 am on July 15th. It's very strange that this is the last movie in the series and kind of sad.

I know it sounds dumb if you're not a HP fan [like Traci], but I've grown up with these characters. I started reading Harry Potter in 4th grade [when the 3rd book came out I believe]. I was turning 11 around the same time Harry did in the 1st book and found out he was a wizard. I patiently waited for books 4-7 to come out. Book 4 came out the same day I went to the Mall of America with Emma and her mom and there were tons of Harry Potter activities to do in the mall. When I got home my book was waiting for me as it had just come in the mail [same with books 5 and 6]. When the 7th book came out I made my friend Jamie go with me to a Harry Potter party so we could be some of the 1st in Hampton to get them. We were pretty much the oldest ones there, but it was fine Harry was turning 18 and we were about to. I got home and started reading right away. I fell asleep eventually then got up and read it during work at the wellness center and had the book finished by 2ish the day it came out. It was so strange to actually finish the series and to know that Harry Potter was done. The one good thing was that I still had the movies to look forward to.

Then the movies came out and I went to all of the first ones with my friend Emma. Even after I moved to Hampton we would still go together and watch them. Harry Potter was the first movie that I went to for a midnight showing. My friend Anna went with my to the midnight showing of the 6th one [the first one I went to without Emma] and we waited outside the Iowa Falls theater for forever and then inside the theater I drank some kid dressed up as Harry Potter's drink thinking it was my own. The most recent premier I went with a bunch of my DG sisters and dressed up in my Harry Potter snuggie. It was wonderful.

After the 15th I will have officially seen all the HP movies and read all the books. Yes, I will still be able to read the books and watch all the movies, but it won't be exactly the same. There won't be a piece anymore missing from the story. There won't be that next Harry Potter book/movie that I count the days down until I get to see it. It will all be so very strange. I will go to the movie with Courtney [most likely not dressed up because she's not as into Harry as I am] and then I will go home sleep for a bit and wake up and teach swimming lessons at 8:30 am. I'm sure I'll be a great teacher that day, but it'll all be worth it because I got to see the last Harry Potter movie at midnight and what more could I ask for?

 

[p.s. I know that I'm a bit of an HP freak, but I don't really care and I realize it's very odd to dedicate a whole blog post to HP, but again I'm fine with it]

Yankee Doodle Pops

Nikki L and I went to the Yankee Doodle Pops concert in Des Moines this evening. It was a very warm day today in good 'ole Des Moines and when we got there most of the shade spots to sit were already claimed so we decided just to sit in the sun with a view of the stage. [I also got a hair cut today if you can tell in this picture]

We chatted and watched the children around us while watching the first jazz band that played. Here are views of the stage and capital during the day.

The Des Moines Symphony then came on the stage and played tons of patriotic songs. We continued our people watching and enjoying the crowds patriotic themed attire.  I also enjoyed a little ice cream from one of the stands. I've eaten ice-cream almost everyday this week [when I go grocery shopping I'm going to need to buy actually buy some so I don't eat it at an ice cream store each day]. Here are a couple of shots of the stage and a poor one of the capital at night.

 At the end of the concert they play 1812 overture and real cannons went off. Then towards the end they started the fireworks display. As the fireworks continued going off they played more patriotic music.

I really enjoyed the concert and the fireworks display. There were so many people there. Most of the capital grounds were just covered in people. If I'm in Des Moines next summer I'll for sure want to make sure that I can go to it. I probably didn't need to go quite so early, but it was still good to see all of both bands. We came home and then watched some Say Yes to the Dress. Now I'll probably watch an episode or 2 of Army Wives before going to bed.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to yoga with Nikki [it'll be my first ever yoga experience so that should be interesting] then sometime in the afternoon my family's going to come pick me up. We're not sure entirely of our plans yet but we'll eventually be headed towards Omaha and at least for one night staying in a campground nearby with my mom's side of the family. I'm sure I'll have wonderful pictures and stories of my 4th of July weekend!