The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

I recently spent two days in the world of Harry Potter with my friend, Megan. Universal Studios Orlando has two parks (much like Disneyland and California Adventure in Anaheim). We spent one day at Universal, then two days at Islands of Adventure, where The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was one of the themed areas of the park.

If you know anything of Joanne Rowling, you know that she is a stickler for details beyond any stickler I know, and this theme park definitely had her stamp on it. She left nothing to the imagination - Hogsmeade, Hogwarts, Honeydukes, Ollivanders, and the rest were right there in front of my face.

I remember hearing the movie cast members interviewed about the park, and that they said the park was far better than any of the movie sets they had worked on for years. All as authentic as possible.

There was no Pepsi, just Butterbeer, Hogshead beer, and pumpkin juice - all produced just for the theme park. There weren't roller-coasters, but instead a ride on a Hippogriff and two dueling dragons. The Three Broomsticks served the traditional English food that the house elves cooked for Hogwarts students.

And the Forbidden Journey ride ... was not just a ride. Harry Potter fan or not, anyone who experiences that part of the park will appreciate the effort and detail that went into it. The waiting line was all preparation for the story of the ride, including appearances by the movie characters, the Four Founders discussing muggles from their picture frames, and a walk through the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, among other things. The ride itself is apparently one of a kind, using technology never used in theme parks before. If you ever wanted to know what it was like to fly, you'll know after riding that ride.

Can you tell I thought my trip to Orlando was worth it? :) Apparently everyone else thinks so too, because visitors to Universal are apparently above and beyond what was ever expected. That was obvious in the crowds later in the day.

Here are just some of the pictures I took.

The entrance to Hogsmeade. Definitely worth it to get there during early park admission.

This is late in the afternoon - notice the difference in the crowd?

Store front of Zonko's Joke Shop

Honeydukes candy store

There were long lines for Butterbeer. It was a cream-soda-like drink with a butterscotch foam on top. Yum.

Entrance to the Three Broomsticks

A few random store-fronts. This one not actually a store, just part of the scene.

Owl Post

Ollivanders wand store

We waited in line for about an hour to go into Ollivanders and see a "wand chosing" presentation. It was much like the scene from the first movie when Harry gets his wand.

Village

Gladrags store-front.

Scrivenshafts store-front

Entrance to the Hogshead pub. They served a red ale - Hogshead brew - that was brewed just for the park.

Hogwarts Express

One of the store-front windows with Quiddich supplies

Some of Gilderoy Lockharts books

Sign for Dervish and Bangs, the one store. There was a line to get in.

And Hogwarts. Impressive.

Hogwarts is where the Forbidden Journey ride was. You walked through the castle to get there.

Part of the line was in the Herbology greenhouses.

The other entrance to Hogsmeade - this led to Jurasic Park section of Islands of Adventure.

Hogwarts by night

Ailey's Lost Tooth

The tooth that has been loose for a couple weeks now finally came out today. It's been hanging by a thread for a while, so I even emailed Ailey's teacher to let her know to keep an eye out for it as we didn't want to lose the first one!

When Ailey got off the bus after school today she couldn't even wait until we got home out of the rain to pull out her backpack and show me that the teacher had taped her tooth to a piece of paper and put it in her backpack. Ailey had pulled the tooth out on the bus ride to school and carried it the whole way to her classroom to make sure she didn't lose it. Nice job, Ailey!

Now tonight we await a visit from the Tooth Fairy.

An Afternoon at The Farm

Last year all five of us went on Ailey's preschool field trip to The Farm, for a hay ride, hay maze, and pumpkin picking. Last week only I went with on Ailey's Kindergarten field trip to the same Farm, so all five of us went today so that Marin and Silje could pick out their pumpkins too.

This being our first trip to a pumpkin farm on a weekend ... whew, it was crowded. But The Farm handled it well, and we all had some fun in the hay maze, watching the duck race, checking out the farm animals, and wandering the field looking for the perfect pumpkins. And we only got rained on the last half-hour or so, so consider the visit a success!

The girls sat on Farmer Bob's first tractor.
We found some big pumpkins just the right size to take a rest on.

Cheesey and cheeky.

Running to find those perfect pumpkins.

Andy and the girls (yes, that's a grouchy Marin).

We're looking forward to several Halloween activities in the next week, and hope you are enjoying the first of the holidays. Happy Halloween!

Sleepy Silje

It seems Silje hasn't quite got the hang of sleeping in a big girl bed. This is where I find her at some point almost every night. One night she was all the way behind the chair. At least she sleeps through it!

My Big Girls

As of last night, Marin and Silje are now in **sigh** Big Girl Beds. I sigh not out of frustration, because it has been a relatively easy transition. I sigh because it is yet another big transition that means my girls are growing up.

Over the summer both Marin and Silje finally transitioned out of naps. NOT one of the prettier transitions! In fact, we are still working our way out of that mess. I'm sure this is the case with a lot of kids - it was certainly the case with Ailey three years earlier - that they don't need the nap and have a difficult time falling asleep at night if they do nap, but they just can't make it all the way to bedtime without showcasing their exhaustion in some ugly form. *Sigh*

Then just a few weeks ago Marin got potty-trained. In only a few days time she had a couple accidents, took 1,094 trips to the potty, and kicked diapers, pull-ups and the training panties. She's a champ. About the same time, she decided that she would spit out the toothpaste so that she could use Ailey's big girl toothpaste with flouride. *Sigh*

Since before Marin and Silje were a twinkle Andy's and my eyes, Ailey's Big Girl Bedroom was decorated just for her. That is, before we knew we were having two babies who would need two cribs in a very tiny little nursery. But we weren't about to take away Ailey's bedroom just because we were silly enough to have two babies at once, so we were lucky that we could fit two cribs in that room. But for three years now we've wondered what we would do when they grew out of their cribs. The room - even without the dressers and the chair - would probably not hold two twin beds.

Luckily, I have a twin-mom friend with girls just 18 months older than Marin and Silje. I tend to get a lot of hand-me-down things and ideas from her. Her girls just transitioned out of their toddler beds and the beds were offered to us. So do we store two toddler beds until whenever, or get rid of the cribs now? Last week the thought occured to me that, since Marin and Silje aren't napping anymore and tend to drop like bricks into bed at night, this would be the perfect time to "drop" them into toddler beds while they don't have the energy to jump in and out of bed for hours after bedtime just out of curiosity.

So yesterday Andy took down the cribs and I washed the sheets. Ailey, Marin and Silje enjoyed some novelty time in a half-empty bedroom....

Then Andy went and got the beds and delivered them to three very excited girls who could hardly wait for the sheets and pillows and blankets to go on before testing them out. Their "new" Laurie Gilbert custom-made fleece quilted blankets sat at the end of their beds until it was time to tuck in last night (unbeknownst to Marin and Silje, the blankets were a gift almost three years ago, but they are "new" to them!). They are also trying out pillows for the first time.

Marin on her new bed.

Silje on her new bed.

It has only been one night, but if last night was an indication of how this transition will go it wasn't too bad. Marin and Silje did drop like bricks onto their pillows even after all the excitement of the new beds. But luckily they only floated like feathers as they took turns sliding out of bed in their sleep. I wish I had dared to take a picture of Marin as she slept with her knees on the floor and her head on the mattress. Or of Silje as she sat on the floor with her head laid back on her mattress. Those rails don't hold them in at all, but at least they don't have far to go to the floor!