Tribute to Harry Potter Saga

I had wanted to write this blog post earlier, right after I saw the last Harry Potter movie, but I didn't get a chance. In the days before the last movie came out I was thinking a lot about the last decade of Harry Potter: when I first started reading Harry Potter and got hooked...how many years the saga has spanned ...the fans of all ages who love Harry Potter ...the times I have reread Harry Potter and been amazed at how thought out it all was ... the fact that J.K. Rowling was told her books would probably never sell... the years that the movies have been coming out with almost entirely the same cast every movie despite the huge number of minor characters... and how Harry Potter has become a household name--you would be hard pressed to find someone in the developed countries who hasn't heard of Harry Potter.

I actually was a little bit of late bloomer in becoming a Harry Potter fan. My third grade teacher read us the first book in our classroom soon after it came out and I really liked it, but he never read another one to us since one of the mothers of a kid in my class was opposed to it being read in the class. I don't know why I never read the next book when it came out since I have always been an avid reader. Maybe it was the crazy girl in my class who made Harry Potter seem like a freaky cult as she worshiped Hermionie and chewed out anyone who would refer to Voldemort by anything other than He Who Must Not Be Named or You Know Who. But I had a lot of people tell me I would really like the series, so finally, for my 13th birthday I asked for the first four books in the series. After that I was hooked. I flew through the books, wondering how I hadn't read them before. I especially remember reading the third book, Prisoner of Azkaban, as it was my favorite. I remember where I was when I finished it: on the bus to Albuquerque for a school field trip. The fifth book had come out earlier that year and I got that book for Christmas. I remember that Christmas morning I was playing with my brand new Harry Potter Lego set when my dad came in and asked, "I know I just gave you the book as a gift, but do you think I could start reading it?" In the previous months my dad had been reading the books to Wes every night in the rocking chair in the living room. But one night my mom and I noticed that after their time reading Wes had already gone to bed, but my dad was still out there. We went out to the room and sure enough my dad was out there reading ahead in the book and he looked up at us with a guilty smile and a little laugh. From that time on, he kept two bookmarks: the spot where he was with Wes and the spot where he was by himself. When the last two books in the series came out I read them on the day they came out and read them all the way through. I have reread all of the books several times.

My copies of all the books

Other than the first two Harry Potter movies(since I wasn't an avid fan yet) I have seen all of them in theaters, and the last three movies(ever since going to college) I have seen at the midnight showing. To prepare for the last movie Samuel and I had gone back and watched all the previous movies in order. It is pretty cool to see all the same cast grow up with the movies, from when they were just little kids until now...




For the three midnight showings I have gone to I have had a special t-shirt, courtesy of Kylie's dad. And for the sixth movie and for this last movie(7th movie part 2) I have thrown a Harry Potter party to celebrate.

For the sixth movie, Kylie and I threw a Harry Potter party at our apartment with lots of awesome Harry Potter treats and some Harry Potter Scene-it ...we had lots of people come and it was fun!

We had chocolate frogs, licorice wands, cauldron cakes, acid pops, and more!

In the movie theater with Kylie and my cousin Chloe

The seventh movie(part one) came out last November. Rachel designed the shirts and Kylie's dad printed them.

For the last movie(seventh part 2) I had a party at our apartment with Samuel's siblings and Kylie. Once again, Rachel designed the shirts and Kylie's dad printed them.

I made butter beer, a Harry Potter cake, and pretzel wands

We waited in line for about five hours!

It's pretty hard to believe there won't be any more books or movies coming out, but the next thing on my Harry Potter list...

Harry Potter World Theme Park!!

9 States, 2 Receptions, and 1 Wedding Later...

It's been a while since I have written a post and a lot has happened in that time. The end of May and beginning of June were very full and busy with all things wedding. Everything went well, it wasn't stressful, and it was fun...but I am glad to be done with the endless To Do List that comes with planning a wedding and starting a marriage, as well as all the traveling we did in those weeks. It's nice to be able to go home to the same place every day and to not live out of a suitcase.

Samuel and I drove up to Washington the Friday before the wedding and were able to spend some time with his family before the wedding and to prepare for the wedding. On Wednesday all of my family came in to town along with my three good friends Kylie, Brianne, and Rachel. Under the direction of Jet, we prepared all the flowers and made the bouquets, boutonnieres, and filled the vases. The flowers were beautiful and Jet did a great job of assembling them.


That night we had a dinner with all of Samuel's family and all of my family in order to help the families get to know each other and it was a lot of fun. I felt really blessed to have my entire family at the wedding and all of Samuel's family as well. It was the first wedding of our family that everyone could be there due to missions, babies, etc so I felt really special. That night I stayed with my family at their hotel and Kylie stayed with us as well so that she could do my hair and make-up in the morning. A big thank you to Kylie for taking on that job, it was really helpful and I think she did a great job.

The morning of the wedding(Thursday) my dad brought in the newspaper and showed me the front page headlines which we found amusing for the wedding day:


It was supposed to rain the day of the wedding but it was a clear and sunny day. The sealing went really well and was very special. When we came out of the temple it was great to see everyone. The teal and orange turned out looking really good and I was very happy that I chose them as colors.

My number of brothers has doubled!

After taking pictures we went a luncheon at the Old Spaghetti Factory that Samuel's mom had planned. Everyone who had been at the temple plus a couple others were there. Then a couple hours later we had a reception at a recreation center near Samuel's house. The decorations were beautiful and everything went really well.



The day after the wedding we headed back to Utah and dropped a bunch of things off and then headed on to California to catch the cruise for our honeymoon. The cruise ship left from Long Beach and went down to Mexico and back, making two stops along the way: Catalina Island and Esenada, Mexico. It was really nice to be able to relax and to have all kinds of food available to us. We had a really great time.

On Catalina Island with our Cruise Ship in the background

We got to go snorkeling on Catalina Island as well

Ensenada, Mexico

After we got back from our cruise Friday morning we drove down to New Mexico for a wedding reception at my house the next day. We got in late that night and then the next day we prepared for the reception and spent time with my family and Samuel's parents who had come down for it as well. We got all set up for the reception and the weather was looking really nice, but then right before it was time to start, the crazy New Mexico winds started up and blew everything on our tables over no matter how much we tapped them all down. So we had to take everything off until the wind died down, but it all worked out alright. It was great to see all the people that I have known for so long come to the reception and help us celebrate.

Sunday after the reception we took Samuel's parents to Overlook Park

After spending Sunday with family, Samuel and I headed back to Utah on Monday morning. By the time we got back we had driven through nine different states and we were glad to be done traveling. We have been having a really fun summer and have been able to spend a lot of time with Samuel's siblings and other friends. I could put some pictures up of our apartment, but we will be moving to a different apartment in about a month(which we are excited about) and so for now I will just share a picture of my favorite addition to our apartment:

:)