the boy who lived

For those of you who don't know where the Leaky Cauldron is, how to get rid of a dementor, or what is so awesome about being able to apparate, you may not appreciate this post very much.

Katie and I completed the Harry Potter journey this past weekend by seeing the final movie that came out last week. We don't usually see regular priced movies but this was an exception. But we couldn't just end the series by merely going to the movies. We had to prepare for this epic finish. I wanted Katie to finish reading the last two books before going to see the final movie. After all, I think that one can't fully appreciate the movies until after reading the books. Katie wanted us to watch the previous 7 movies before going to see the last one. After realizing both of our wishes weren't that realistic in light of our over-anxious desires to see the movie, we settled on watching Part 1 of the last movie right before going to see Part 2 in the theaters. But Katie couldn't stop there. She had to really make the experience come to life so she made butterbeer for us to drink while watching the movie!

This is the legit stuff too. I have to say that butterbeer is one of my most favorite things now. I keep asking Katie for more of it and she always has to tell me that we are all out. I guess we'll have to make another trip to Hogsmead soon!

I just have the cutest wife! I love that she enjoys doing fun things to make our time together more memorable. And way to go Harry Potter!

Family Fun!

Last week Grant and I had the chance to go to the Trindle family reunion (my mom's side of the family).  We spent a whole lovely day of traveling, flying to Houston and then driving all the way to Oklahoma City with Danny.  It wouldn't have been too bad, but there was terrible traffic, adding on a few hours to the trip.  When we finally arrived we were able to spend time playing games and chatting with family.

Nice shades Dad!

All of the Parker boys were successful in "face the cookie"

My mom's so talented!  She could do all of the games!

After we noticed the "rival" reunion at the same hotel had a poster, we decided that we needed one too.  Jeff did a great job making it and it followed us around the various reunion locations.

When the reunion ended on Sunday we caravanned back to Houston.  The biggest bummer of the trip is that there was a firework ban in Texas because of the drought, so our fourth of July wasn't fully complete.  I love 4th of July fireworks, especially back home with our special traditions, so I was so sad when Grant didn't get to experience it.  I'm sure we'll get another chance in the future, though, and we still had a good time.

One of my favorite things about going home (besides being with family of course) is getting to eat all of the great tex-mex, traditional homemade foods, and bluebell.  Grant pretended not to like bluebell, but I know he really does ;)

On Tuesday, Grant had to leave me to go back to school.  Even though I missed him a lot, the quality time with the rest of my family continued.  We went swimming and shopping, Stevie started his first job, I got a pedicure with my mom, and the siblings did some fun workouts together.

I'm glad to be back home with Grant, but it still feels like my vacation to Houston was way too short.  And I don't like knowing that it will be quite a while before we get to go back again.  BUT we are really looking forward to our Zinn family reunion in less than a month!