It was time for our yearly Labor Day mountain trip with the fam. We went to the tiny town of Morganton, Georgia. Minus the curviest road ever, it was a great spot. We did a good bit of hiking and waterfall viewing. We also ventured into Helen, which was toasty and crowded but certainly unique with it's German flair. We also went to Blue Ridge to ride the train. It rained while we finished off the day eating in a Mexican restaurant there. This is pretty much my ideal scenario. The boys loved the air hockey and shuffle board at the cabin. I loved the swingy chairs. Nox loved chewing up Logan's shoe strings. Returning to the real world was extra painful. Daron had to fix a flat tire on the way home and then we forgot our key and were locked out of the house. We survived and would do it again! Look at all these dreamy cousin shots! They didn't even complain!
Tuesday, September 3, 2024
August
We have a new SC family resident! My cousin Mary just bought a house in Lexington. She was a fun house guest for a few days while everything closed.
Silas and Rory had a 2 night sleep over with the cousins. This included Silas's actual birthday. It was a bit weird not seeing him, but they went swimming and had spaghetti, so I think he did not miss me.
The boys both started their new schools. Day 1 had a delayed start because of a hurricane (drizzle) and Day 2 was canceled completely. Still, I think it will be a great year. I am mildly obsessed with Rory's teacher and class. We went to the open house and everyone was nicer than you would believe in their new dreamy building. His sweet, over-the-top organized teacher had made beaded name keychains for every kid. I got 4 hugs and had 3 good conversations with prior strangers. This is basically a miracle if you know me at all. Ms. Zeigler emailed me that he cried the first morning but got it together and was fine. I also got 2 pictures. Silas seemed to have a good day too. I am so proud of him for stepping up for whatever presents itself. His only complaint was they played a name game in math and he was last so he had to name everyone and froze up completely. He was also legit mad at me for making him brush his hair. Sadly, middle school teachers do not send pictures.
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
July
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Sunday, July 28, 2024
Harry Potter
"Yer a Wizard, Silas!" My boy turned 11 and got his Hogwarts letter! I spent a year planning and crafting for this party. I also spent a million dollars. It is a slippery slope from "I'll just put up some themed decor." to "I am missing a nod to that miniscule detail from book such and such chapter 22. " Silas was over Harry Potter by the time it rolled around, BUT acknowledging that it was mostly for me, everything turned out pretty much exactly like I envisioned. It also happened that lots of people that don't normally get to celebrate with us got to be there!
My love of Harry Potter is very much wrapped up in my love for my buddy Joy. She turned me on to it in college, and we finished book 7 together when it released on a very long road trip read aloud. It made my life that she flew out for the party.
But that is not all... Silas's birthday twin Trevor flew out too! (Two years running!) We also love HP together and got to experience our first (and sadly my only) trip to The Wizarding World at Universal about 8 years ago.
But that is not all... Hannah is a new resident to SC and was in attendance, and my Aunt Jan, Uncle Doug, and cousin Andrew were visiting Julianna for her girls' baptisms and got to come too! That is on top of all the regulars!
It was a really good day!
Stop here and just look at pictures if you don't want to read every miniscule detail documented.
The Set Up
The dining room was the great hall. I had castle lattice on the windows, floating candles, torches, portraits, spiders, Faux's stand, the sorting hat, the house point counter, and Marcia's cake.
The Day Before
The day before the party we celebrated Trevor with a classic pink cake from Hagrid. I made an escape room to go along with the theme. I was thrilled that most of it went to plan and no one was stuck for too terribly long on any one clue. Here is the play by play.
First... Silas received a howler by owl that rode some fishing line down from the ceiling to the chair he was sitting in. It was from Madame Hooch yelling at the first years for leaving out the quidditch gear for Peeves to steal.
The note said she knew the thief because he wrote "Peeves was Here" in mud in the locker room. This lead everyone (after a fruitless search for a locker room) to one of the bricks on the wall that also had the message, "Peeves was Here". There was a tab to peel off the brick sticker, and on the back was a clue that said, "It looks like the mandrakes are ready for repotting."
This lead everyone to Herbology where the mandrake could be lifted out of the pot to reveal a puzzle. Once the puzzle was put together it had a picture of the word Revelio, a certain wand, and a phoenix. I had some red feathers and ashes (which were really iron shavings) in a boxed frame covered in glass under Faux's stand. I put magnets on the tip of Luna's wand so when you held it over the stand you could move the ashes and see they were covering a copy of one of the portraits hanging in the great hall. Rory had the key off the back of the matching portrait in a second.
That key was to a lock box they had to find which held a card with one of those messages covered in red scribbles that can only be read with a red filter. In this case it was with the spectrespecs. It said, "Have you done your spine ticking reading on monsters yet? You better do it now before it comes back to bite you." This sent them to the restricted section of the library where the Monster Book of Monsters was locked up. There was a number logic riddle they had to solve in order to get the combination. Once they opened the lock, they could take out the book and inside was a glass bottle with orange liquid (orange juice with red food coloring) that had a sticker saying "drink me". Once Silas drank the liquid the back of the sticker had the word "Capricorn".
They found the box with Professor Sinistra's astronomy flash cards and the correct constellation. It had the Capricorn configuration with 4 bolded stars and the note, "Find what you need in today's paper." The Daily Prophet was hanging on the Gryffindor bulletin board. In the same configuration as the bolded stars it had the letters LUCK as the newspaper section headings.
There was a recipe for brewing Felix Felicis (Liquid Luck) by the potions set up. The recipe called for several ingredients from the apothecary shelf including a bezoar. When they used the cauldron to mix everything, the bezoar fizzed and dissolved revealing a key. This key opened the trunk containing the quaffle! I am hoping this did not come out as gibberish, but I fear it might have.
- Conductor of the Hogwarts Express- Uncle Doug (killed it!)
- Professor Binns- Andrew (killed it!)
- Professor Snape- Gramps with assistant Meemaw (killed it!)
- Professor Sprout- Julianna (killed it!)
- Professor Flitwick- Hannah (killed it!) (Also did house elf duties with the sorting ceremony.)
- Honeydukes Employees- Alan and Marcia (killed it!)
- Professor Trelawney- Allison with assistant Wes (killed it!)
- Professor Hagrid- Justin (killed it!)
- Professor Dumbledore- Elizabeth (killed it!)
- Professor McGonagall- Joy (killed it!) (Also kept track of all house points and was the glue of the whole party.)
- Madame Hooch- Trevor (killed it!) (I forgot to give him the quidditch score sheets, so he had to be quick on his feet.)