Harry Potter Weekend

Early last week my mom and my brother came over for a Harry Potter movie marathon and extravaganza! We originally planned to go to Harry Potter world, but the tickets were so expensive we decided to save up a little longer and go another time. Instead, we did everything Harry Potter at home! We opted to view only our favorite Harry Potter movies, instead of all of them since watching all of them takes a whopping 21 hours.

While movie watching, we made Butterbeer using this recipe. It was....gross. I tried it using Diet Cream Soda, so I don't know if that was part of why it was so disgusting, but the main issue I had with it was all the rum and butter extract. It make it all have a strange extract/rubbing alcohol taste in the back of your mouth that was very unpleasant. But we made an effort!

Next we tried our hands at making wands using this tutorial and it was awesome! It was so easy and I love how they turned out! Next time I will try to get the glue in faster because it would dry to fast from either side and leave a weak spot in the middle. I let James play with mine and he broke it apart at the weak spot faster than you can say "Expecto Patronum" :)

James had so much fun playing with his Grandma and his Uncle Daniel. He still doesn't say "Grandma" (he calls my mom "Mommy!" like me) but he learned to say "Naniel" while they were here. My mom was so disappointed. No fair!! She visits way more often, but what can you do? 

He snuck into the office to play on the computer and this is how we found him. At least it looks like he is using it right and not breaking it. For now.

One afternoon we took a quick trip to the beach to get James out of the house and let him run around. He was kind of hard to handle, all he wanted to do was go up to people's cars and get into their stuff so I was constantly pulling him away from something which he did NOT like. It was a perfect day for the beach, not too hot, breezy and beautiful.

James was determined to push this lifeguard stand. He got so mad that he couldn't move it!

On our way back to the car, my brother spotted this tortoise crossing the road. It was so big! James loved it,  he kept saying "durdle, durdle, durdle"

Anthony, our friend Kyle, and my brother all went out to a local free shooting range to shoot their guns. Anthony has had his grandfather's rife in our closet for awhile now. It is from 1947 and still has its original case and everything! My brother helped him research it and clean it since he knows way more about guns and they were excited to take it out and see if it could shoot. I was a little nervous for them since I can imagine all the things that could go wrong when you shoot a gun that hasn't been shot in forever, but luckily it went really well! Anthony had a blast, he even came home and said, "I could get another rife...I could see myself getting into hunting!". The place that they went is just a really casual designated shooting area for anyone who wants to go, so maybe next time I can go and try my hand at it!