Spoiler Alert and Tender Mercies

OK, so there will be a commentary about Harry Potter, so if you want to read my thoughts, they will be in the next paragraph. If not, then you can read this paragraph about a slightly related subject with no info about the movie, and then stop reading, and come back later after you have seen the movie. So we went to the midnight movie last night, and it was tons of fun. My friend Jana and I got there at about 10, and got into line, and within 5 minutes we were seated in our theater. Ours was one of the first to be ready for us, so that was kind of nice, but it means that there could have been tons of craziness going on in the outside that we missed out on. We were the oldest in the theater for a long time, and quite possibly the only people who needed to get a babysitter. And that brings us onto the tender mercy part of the evening. At first I asked my brother Matt if he could come up and watch the kids for me. So since Matt is just about the nicest person around he said he would come up and do it. But I thought that I'd still see if the neighbor girl would do it, since she only lives next door, and not half an hour away. So it turns out, that she was willing to come, so Matt didn't have to come. Anyway, long story short, our neighbor sat in our house. I think it was her first time babysitting, although she is in High School I think. Anyway, so it was all ok, until we were driving home, and as we approached the neighborhood we noticed how dark it was. Sure enough the power was out when we got home. The power happened to go out on Sunday night as well, and that night didn't work out so well for us. Neither kid slept in the dark. So we're pulling up and I'm imagining that this poor girl is sitting in the dark with two screaming kids. But the tender mercy is that both kids slept, and that the girl was able to call her mom who lived right next door and had a flashlight brought to her. It was small, but I think it was a major blessing for us.
So here comes the spoilers. I'm telling you, don't keep on reading. Dumbledore dies. Told ya so, I'm laying it all out on the table.
OK, just kidding, but I really am going to talk about what I liked and didn't like. First off, over all I liked the movie. Some of the things that I liked were the portrayal of Draco and Snape. I thought that they did an excellent job looking into these characters that have been so onesided so far, but are now coming to have more dimensions. I also especially liked Ron on the love potion, and Harry after taking the liquid luck. I can understand a lot of parts that were left out, and some of them were non-essential side things, but I don't know. I just feel like this movie had a different feel from the others. It was way way different from the book. The thing that I disliked the most: the Burrow scene at Christmas. It was not in the book at all. And it was totally pointless. And I'm sorry, Ginny running after Harry? Not Ron and Heromine? You can see that they were trying to introduce Ginny more in this movie, but they didn't do it at all like the book, and I can't see that it was really necessary. I mean, he's on the run with the whole next book, and she's really not a player. I can understand why they did it though, you know, give the people what they want and all. But here's another thing, when he's hiding the book, he doesn't see the diadem in the movie. That's essential for the last book. How are they going to work their way out of that one. Or did I miss something? I guess I'll have to see it again. But as it is, I'm tired, so I'm going to bed. Have you seen it? What did you think?

Washington DC

Kind of as an explanation of the posts to follow that I have already written (did you follow that?) this year instead of going on a big vacation we decided to have a staycation with several little daycations. The first part of the week Jesse was at scout camp, and I went to the zoo with my mom, and then on Thursday and Friday we went on a few adventures once Jesse got home. This post takes us to Friday when we went in to DC.
We took the Metro in again, and once again, no accidents. They are going awfully slow at certain parts though. We started the day at the American History museum. We saw just a handful of places, including the flag as a follow up on our Ft McHenry visit. Then we moved onto the Natural History museum. Nate really wanted to see the dinosaurs and I took Graham to see the hall of mammals. After that we headed out to the Air and Space Museum. By this point Graham had fallen asleep, so I sat with him while Jesse took Nate to see some of his favorites. Even though we hadn't really seen that much we were ready to go home. I guess when you live so close to places like this, there really isn't this feeling of needing to get the most out of each time you come.
So that was the third day of all day trips, and were were pretty worn out that night, but I'll tell you, it sure was nice to have everyone in their own beds in their own rooms each night. There's enough to do in this part of the country that we can do this every year! :)

A Day in Baltimore

We started our day in Baltimore at the Aquarium. Of course, it's the 3rd time this year we've been so we were able to do it quite quickly. The main attraction for the kids is always the dolphin show. They love it. This time however they added a new exhibit about jelly fish. It was really cool. Nate and Graham loved it too. After a bit of time in the Aquarium and a little lunch we decided to head out.
We next went over to Ft McHenry. Neither Jesse nor I had been there that we have ever remembered, so it was on our list of things to do. We spent time first at the waterside. There is a nice little park there right on the bay. I don't know what it is, but I LOVE the Chesapeake Bay.

After spending a little time in the park outside of the Fort we ventured inside. It is actually a neat place. There are large earth "walls" that have all sorts of building built into them. The flag that was flown while we were there was smaller than the original, but still pretty cool to see. I guess if the wind is right then they fly a flag that is the same size as the one that FSK saw. After we saw what we needed to see we left to head home. Luckily enough we didn't hit traffic until we were almost home. We left later than planned and were on the beltway right at the start of rush hour, but it wasn't really that bad.

The Zoo

Since Jesse was at scout camp for the first half of the week we decided that we would go on a little adventure. We gathered up my mom and brother and went to the Washington DC Zoo. We did all of the normal zoo things. We took the Metro down, and we made it there and back without getting rear-ended by another train, so that was nice. We got down there and it took us a while to actually see any animals. Nate kept on asking to see some animals. We finally got up close and personal with an elephant, and from then on, it was a pretty good day, with plenty of animal sightings. We made it home before rush hour, and were all pretty tired from a fun day.

The Fourth

This year our fourth of July consisted of the above picture. We were supposed to go to a breakfast in the morning, but well, we were still tired from the lake the day before. So when the alarm went off, we decided to just sleep in a bit. So we went out to lunch, and then headed over to Baker Park to see what was going on. That could have been fun except that when we got out of the car and put sunscreen on some of it got into Nate's eye, and that pretty much made him miserable the whole time. Poor boy.

So we came home, and Nate's eyes started to feel better. Since Nate does not like loud noises and explosions we decided not to even try to fireworks. By the time we did parking and found a spot and stuff it just wouldn't be worth it for Nate to cry the whole time. Maybe next year we'll try. Anyway, we did sparklers at about 8pm, while it was still light. Nate actually was brave enough to hold them this year, and he loved it. He still asks to get more sparklers and do it again.

So that was our fourth. Not too exciting, but it was nice for it not to be filled with the stress of going a million places.

The Lake

Can you spot Nate at the top of the trail?

Our picnic area.

In the past we have always taken time each year to go camping with our friends the Vandres. This year however, we decided that it was too much of a pain to camp, with now 6 kids under 6 years old. But the best part of the camping trip is that we always make this yummy dutch oven dinner. So we thought, what if we just took a day and spent it at the lake, and then made the dutch oven there, and then went home in the evening in stead of camping. So we picked a day, and invited friends and set out.

We were able to find a picnic area just inside the tree line which was nice and shaded, and great protection when it rained slightly for about 5 minutes in the afternoon. The kids had a ton of fun playing in the water and sand. Graham wouldn't get into the water, but no one was surprised about that. He finally got used to touching the sand, and would sit and play in it. He would not walk on it without shoes on though. What a weird kid.

The kids also had a blast running around in the woods by the picnic area. Graham decided to see how many things he could fall off of that day. In addition to tripping over every rock and root in the woods, he was a little banged up, and it seemed like he could not go 5 minutes without crying about something. But he's tough, and he loved it.

So that was our fun day at the lake. Now we probably won't go camping this year. I'm actually fine with that. :)

Coming soon

it's been a while, but coming soon look for a report on all of our little daycations that we have been taking. The Lake, the Zoo, Baltimore, and today we're on our way to DC. We've just been having too much fun to blog lately. (Yeah, that sounds like a good excuse.)