Mom and Dad were at full-power and very
happy this morning; and I seriously doubt that it was because they went
straight back to their room and off to sleep last night. While I’m sure that Aunt Leanne will want the
full report from Mom, I do not require any added details; though I am glad that
Mom had a happy birthday!
We’ve all had an amazing day here at
Universal Studios. That started out with
a quick breakfast before we headed over to Diagon Alley and had fun wandering
around the stores there – and going on the awesome ride at Gringott’s for those
of us who could do that too. People seem
to have a love or hate it thing about the Harry Potter books and franchise, but
I’d be surprised if most people in both camps don’t find seeing Diagon Alley
come to life very cool. That probably
sounds very funny to some coming from a Magi Master with actual, ‘magical’
abilities, but I have a fairly active imagination; love reading; and read the
Harry Potter books as avidly as anyone.
By the way – so did Ethan and Ehlana after
finding out that we’d be coming here.
The good news for them is that they didn’t have to wait for years until
the final book was published like millions of us did! ;^)
The Gringott’s ride was the most extreme
part of our visit to Diagon Alley, but I have to say that I had a lot of fun
with my family and friends getting our wands at Olivander’s and visiting the
other stores – with Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes and Quality Quidditch coming in at
number two and three on the list. If you
actually needed to wonder about it; no, Magi Masters are not immune to tourist
traps. I was the worst offender today
for buying souvenirs, including a bunch for family and friends back at home;
but another hotel perk was that I could get most of that stuff sent to my room
instead of hauling it around. In fact,
the only things that we kept with us were the interactive wands we bought so
that we could use them to do magic at the different locations in Diagon Alley
where we could learn and do the spells.
Guess which wands we picked! ;^)
Okay, I won’t keep you guessing unless you
want to pause and do that. First up, I’ll
mention that the parents all flat-out refused buying the Elder wand for
themselves. That might have been funnier
yesterday on Mom’s birthday; but it was still fairly amusing. I didn’t go with that choice either, but not
because I was worried about seeming to be an arrogant Magi Master picking the
most powerful wand – I just thought that going with the Hawthorn wand was
funnier. Not everyone in our group gets
the joke for that today; but they likely all will by the time they read this
journal entry. I did talk Michael into
getting one of the Elder wands, though; and Aunt Leanne bought one of them for
Zack too.
Only some of us picked up the interactive
wands. Mom and Dad went with the
Dumbledore/McGonagall wands; Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne opted for Viktor Krum
and Fleur wands respectively; though they took turns trying out Zack’s
interactive wand while the rest of us took turns with the others. Rowen went with a similar joke to mine and
picked the Rowan wand; while Tim was the only one of us to take a walk on the
dark side of the wands and choose the Voldemort wand. Finally, on the cute side of things, Ethan
and Naomi have the Harry and Ginny wands; and Ehlana and Aiden have the
Hermione and Ron wands. One wand from
each pair was interactive, and again; they took turns trying them out around
Diagon Alley.
It would be scary to write about everything
we picked up today; so I won’t do that.
There were snowy owls, pygmy puffs, Quidditch supplies, jewelry, books,
shirts, hats, wheezes, and sweets that were all sent on to our rooms; and we
all definitely spent more money on all of that than we should have. Oh yeah – add some collectible money to that
list; since we have some galleons, sickles, and Knuts to take home with us
too. I did avoid totally emptying my
Gringott’s vault by deciding not to buy a few Firebolts, though they were cool;
and would have been cool for things like Halloween costumes! We also skipped buying robes; though for the
kids and teens that was mostly because they wouldn’t fit for long anyway unless
we’d bought over-size.
If those Firebolts could actually fly; I’d
still be tempted to go back and get a set.
Oh wait – I actually could make them fly! ;^)
I’m just kidding, Mom.
Having a real, live Quidditch match with my
friends would be very cool, though; and just think about how much multi-tasking
would need to go into making that happen.
Keeping fourteen people flying around on brooms and able to go where
they wanted would be tricky; and that’s before dealing with the bludgers,
quaffle, and golden snitch.
Maybe I’m not kidding about that as much as
I thought; since that really does sound like a fun thing to try.
That’s gone way off-track; so let’s get
back to the news of the day. As with our
visit to Disney, having express passes for a lot of the rides and shows at
Universal is a major bonus; and allowed us to pretty much do everything we
wanted to do today plus a couple of bonus rounds of favorite rides. Including our time in Diagon Alley, we – the teens
– spent the morning with the rest of our gang until we stopped for lunch at
one. We mostly went on kid-rated rides
and saw two shows; and then we were set free for the afternoon to go on the
major rides. That was several hours of
amazing fun, and whether we were battling aliens and mummies, dealing with
disasters, or riding coasters; we had an afternoon of non-stop action and
adventure.
Even though we were given the afternoon to
play on our own, we did end up meeting up with everyone else for the ‘Disaster!’
ride; and had our visit to E.T.’s home world with everyone before stopping for
our dinner break. Make that nearly
everyone, since Zack couldn’t go and hang out with E.T.; but he and Aunt Leanne
opted for ice cream and some play time in Fievel’s Playland. We weren’t actually gone that long, and met
up with them at the playland and had ice cream snacks too; which pretty much
just meant that we had dessert before dinner.
That might be a problem for some younger kids; but not our little group
of them. Zack eats everything; and would
try to keep up with Tim right now if that was humanly possible without being
part of the ‘Honey, I blew up the kids’ movie.
Since he’d just finished getting a mouse-eye view of the world in Fievel’s
little corner of the park; maybe Zack was thinking along the same lines – his stomach
was bigger than his eyes.
Tim didn’t have that problem; and Michael
did a pretty good job of keeping up with him during dinner. Where is an all-you-can-eat dinner put on by
house elves when you need one? ;^)
Fortunately for us, the family business is
doing pretty well; so we won’t need to mortgage the house to pay for our meals
in the park – even though it might feel that way to a lot of parents getting
those bills. I’ve probably made that
sound worse than it was, especially since we were basically doing fast food for
dinner; and it didn’t even take all that long to eat and be ready to head out
to play again. Since we’d waited until
later to stop for dinner, that back out to play time for the parents and
younger kids was just on the way out of the park and back to our hotel;
followed by a swim in the pool before turning in for the night. Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I were allowed to
play at the park until it closed at nine; we followed that up with a wander
along CityWalk as we made our way back to the hotel; and then we went for a
swim too before splitting up for some couples’ alone time. As we’ve done for the rest of the week so
far, Michael was in my room for that while Rowen was with Tim in his; and we
put a twelve-thirty curfew on that play time because we have yet another busy
play day booked for the morning – though we’ll be waiting until game-time to
decide what we’re doing.
That’s because there could be a bit of rain
in the forecast for tomorrow. If that
looks likely for part of the day, we’re going to visit SeaWorld. If the weather looks good; we’ll be at the
Islands of Adventure park instead – and starting the day with a visit to
Hogsmeade. One way or the other, Michael,
Tim, Rowen, and I will probably be back at one of the Universal parks for the
evening; though Mom’s already warned us that we’ll be having a ‘real’ meal for
dinner tomorrow first instead of more fast food. We’ll see how much time we have to play after
that and wing it.
Michael was a happy camper when I sent him
back to his own room at twelve-thirty, and in case you were wondering; yes, he
has been getting goodnight hugs from Rowen too when she heads back to our room
from his. We’ve followed that up with a
fun little girl chat after Rowen got changed and ready for bed. You don’t need the details; but I was changed
and ready to tuck myself in by then and didn’t do that in record time between
when Michael left and she got back. ;^)
That thought has me smiling and distracted,
but then Rowen thought it was fairly funny too – not that she and Tim didn’t
have as much fun together as Michael and I did.
I do need to wrap this up and get some sleep, though; so let’s do that
and call it a night. There was only one
little family business job waiting for me in my email inbox, so that didn’t
take long. The email news from home wasn’t
anything exciting; and they definitely didn’t have a summer-weather day
either. Instead of hot and sunny, they
were stuck with rainy and temperatures in the forties – and then too close to
freezing overnight. I’m sure that’s especially
tough after the great weather up until yesterday; which is why I’m hoping it’ll
be a bit warmer again by the time we get home on Sunday.
Heading off to sleep on that thought isn’t
very exciting, so I’ll come up with something else to dream about instead. That is all I have for tonight, though, so I’m
out of here and off to those hopefully very happy dreams.
Until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
