Harry and Ron, my loves...

You know, the last few days I've just been thinking about Harry Potter quite a lot.

I have to admit, I am a huge Harry Potter nerd. There are few things I enjoy more than convincing someone to read the books, or talking with someone who has just read them for the first (or 2nd, 3rd, 20th, whatever) time. I know the series is over now (sniff), but thinking about the books just makes me smile.

When I first heard about the books, I thought the world had gone a little crazy. I wondered, "What is the deal with this Harry Potter thing?" after watching the news and seeing the crazy lines around the time Goblet of Fire came out. I was kind of against it for a long time...Then the movie previews started for the Sorcerer's Stone. They looked semi-interesting, and a bunch of my friends were going on opening day. I decided I wanted to try to read the book before the movie came out...I got to chapter 2. Ha ha. The movie was pretty good, so I decided to pursue the read. I had a little bit of a hard time getting through book 1, since I knew the ending already, and it moves a little slower. But when I started Chamber of Secrets, oh boy! I was hooked.

So now, I just think of all my fond memories reading the books, etc. You fellow Potterheads understand:

• Just about dying of shock after realizing that Sirius Black is not a bad guy
• Finding out that Harry can talk to snakes, even fake ones to enter the Chamber of Secrets
• Almost crying from excitement when Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup (I wasn't as emotional then as I am now...)
• Firebolt dreams!! (I miss those)
  
• Reading the Half-Blood Prince at work, hiding the book in the drawer and getting SUPER-ticked if a patient came in
• Forcing myself to STOP reading just before the cave chapter in HBP so I could enjoy it at home instead of being continuously interrupted
• Locking myself in my room to remain undisturbed and crying my eyes out when Dumbledore died (actually during the entire last five chapters or so)
• Laughing out loud reading, even the same chapters multiple times (the movies are wonderful, but just not very funny)
  
• Endless conversations about HP with my wonderful sister and Mom (but mostly Rachel, that still haven't stopped :)
• Actually visiting Platform 9 3/4 and being around all the crazy other psycho fans that were waiting in line to take pictures there
• Standing in line for three hours and seeing the guys who had the books already, walking back through the line trying to sell theirs to us, "Fifty pounds, fifty pounds..." :)
  
• Starting to read Deathly Hallows on the cab ride back to the hotel at 3 am
• The Gringotts/DRAGON chapter?! Just about the most amazing thing I have ever read!!
• Running downstairs to the pay phone (in London) to call Rachel (in Phoenix) and talk about stuff that had happened (I've never spent so much on long-distance calls...)
  
• Skipping London sight-seeing for a whole day to read the book, and finishing on the plane (not to mention the elation of reading everything for myself and not having anyone ruin it for me!)

These are just a few memories, and I wish I could find more of the hidden pictures in my computer to share! But here's a little trip down memory lane... :)

My ticket to HP and the Sorcerer's Stone

My first (and only I think) Harry Potter scrapbook page
(it took a while to draw and cut those letters!)

Goblet of Fire movie premiere and our awesome shirts

Platform 9 3/4 and the cover of my FABULOUS British version

Ahhh. Need I say more? Besides, Wizarding World of Harry Potter, here we come...next year! (That post will be much longer...)

:) :)

Birthdays!

At the beginning of August, we decided to surprise my mom and drive down to Thatcher for her birthday! Then we came home, and went to my sister's the next day for my nephew's birthday! Lots of birthdays. :)

Mom:

Preston:

Today

Right now, I'm sitting in the dark. I'm checking blogs, facebook, e-mails, etc. And I keep smiling.

Why, do you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Today is the FIRST day in a long while that I have been able to relax. Do I have dinner to cook? Yep. Do I have a room or two to clean? Yep. Do I have jobs to apply for? Yep. But today is the first day I can remember (besides being sick and FORCED to do almost nothing) being OK with just sitting here. Do I do it anyway? Sure. I sit around and dink on my computer for hours sometimes. But by this time I normally feel HORRIBLE.

But tonight, I just keep sitting here. Appreciating my life, counting my blessings, and not turning on the lights. Anxiety, I'm taking you on. And at this moment, I'm winning. :)

4th of July!

Ok, first off, I have to say that Independence Day is one of my absolute favorite holidays (I can't decide between that and Thanksgiving for the top slot)! I love feeling extra patriotic, listening to my "Spirit of America" Mormon Tabernacle Choir CD (The Star-Spangled Banner always makes me cry a little, but the emotion's even stronger on the 4th), barbeques, fireworks, family... ahhh. It's all very good for my soul. Even with all the problems our country has, I can't forget how blessed we are to enjoy the freedoms we do. I love the historical patriotic stories I hear around that time of our forefathers and how they fought for our country's freedom. And I LOVE celebrating it!

So, this year we were able to spend the fourth with my sister, Rachel, and her family (minus one of her boys who was at Scout camp). We brought our fireworks (illegally obtained in Colorado, shh), David and Rachel cooked hamburgers and ribs on the new grill, waded in the kids' pool, and played Lego HARRY POTTER! :)

I bought these flip flops for a dollar at Target! (They're even super comfy.)

Dinner! (SUPER good and yummy:)

(The last pic is of us playing HP, even though you can't really tell. I wish we had pictures of the fireworks, but we just took non-digital videos.)


Such a good day! I didn't even mind the heat that much, believe it or not. :)

Utah/Colorado Vacation 2010

Our big vacation this year was to my Massey family reunion in Utah. Wahoo!! :) I was pretty excited to get out of the heat for a few days, and have more of my family meet Travis. So we decided to drive up to Park City, and also extend our trip for a few days afterward to visit the wonderful mountains of Colorado. :)

So I have about a million pictures to post from it!

First stop: Flagstaff. We wanted to spend some time hanging out with our friends, Camilla and John (and their cute kiddles too) :). We had dinner (and a semi-interesting concert) in the park, and Travis and John had quite an entertaining night playing video games. (I really thought John might pee at one point from how hard he was laughing...)

Camilla and John were super great sports and let us take pictures of them first thing in the morning (see how "sleepy" they are?) :)



Then, we were off to Utah! We caravan-ed with my sister, Amber, and her family. So, this was our view for much of the drive:


(The gorgeous cliffs weren't there the whole time, unfortunately, but the van was! :)

Some more of the beautiful northern AZ/southern Utah cliffs:

That night we hung out with one of Travis's mission friends and ate at Cafe Rio (Wahoo!), then the next day we started the family festivities. We spent a good chunk of the first day at Utah Olympic Park, riding the Alpine Slide (VERY slowly) and the ziplines. It was WAY hotter than I expected, and I got sunburned pretty good on my face and a nice farmer tan on my arms, but it was a pretty sweet place.

We all took group pictures in the bobsled first:

This was super cool. These ski-jumpers flip, and fall into a pool! (It's kinda hard to find the jumper, but he/she is upside down on the right side)

A few shots from the chair lift/standing in line for the slide:



It was so hot out that we decided to get popsicles. Travis and Felicity somehow decided to have a contest to see who could eat them the fastest...(Travis won. Ha ha)

Amber got some good shots of us coming off the ziplines, and I got some of Amber and Josh too :)



When we finally made it back to the park to join the rest of the family, we were able to eat some AMAZING halibut and pulled pork sandwiches, play a few games, and do skits. Most skits were funny, some were serious, but all were great!



And, last but not least, my Dad and Morgan having some fun with the "hooey sticks" which Dennis had showed us examples of earlier. :)


The tradition of both nights was to go play games at Markel & Kathy and family's house they rented. It was pretty sweet to play fun and get to know our cousins a little better :)



Day two of reunion: Jordanelle Reservoir. Super beautiful, more games (mostly cornhole :), great food, boat rides (thanks to Jerry and Amy!) and jet skis (not my thing on a windy day with cold lake water and no swimsuit, but Travis had a good time). We didn't get there until late this day, but still had a grand time :)


Playing CORNHOLE! (It sounds weird, but it's actually a very fun, quite addicting game which involves bean bag throwing.) One of these times, it was quite unbelievable that the bean bag didn't actually go in (What the!?)...

...but in one of the next turns, I got 3 out of 4 bean bags in. IN ONE TURN! :) (I rock.)

Unfortunately, I really didn't take too many pictures of my family...and somehow we didn't even take a group picture either. But my family's awesome, even if I can't show more of them!

Day 3: We drove over to Colorado, taking the scenic route. This included driving by (and stopping at) Bridal Veil falls. Gorgeous!
We had driven by here a TON when I was younger, but we never stopped. Travis and I did, and that water was SO cold...My feet were numb in like 5 seconds.

Second major stop was in Vernal, where my Great-Aunt Maria and Great-Uncle Ronald live (and where my Grandma Massey used to live). It was such a nice visit, and they even fed us (even though Maria was apologizing about it the whole time. So silly)! :) After, we went to visit my Grandma Massey's grave, and it was so special. She was such an amazing woman!

Then, we continued on to Colorado. Due to storming and lack of sleep, we only camped one night.




The camping experience was interesting...horrible mosquitoes everywhere, having a devil of a time getting (and keeping) the fire going, some weird people a few campsites over that gave us a bit of a scare (by screaming and yelling super late at night), not being able to sleep due to the coldness... Not the BEST experience ever, but we learned some things for next time.

We took a few fun pictures in Grand Junction (including G Road...how awesome is that), hung out in Cabela's (can you see my feet?), and ate some amazing ice cream at Enstrom's (and bought toffee...). Then we headed home! We wanted to stop at Four Corners, but it was closed for construction. Boo.




Woo! That was a not-so-short summary of our vacation. It was an awesome trip. Coming home and transitioning back to real life again? Not so awesome. But, that's another story. :)

Thanks for reading!