our journey to hogwarts

Holy moley, last night was fun.

I was searching for something to do on parentsconnect.com a couple days ago and saw that there was the opportunity to go to a Magical Museum. It sounded very Harry Potterish to me and I do like Harry and the whole Hogwarts feel. I also feel that we don't go out of our comfort zone when this time of year rolls around so I thought it would be fun to try it out.

It was brilliant.

There were people walking all over the place in their Hogwarts robes and speaking in an English accent and talking about magic with live owls everywhere that it felt like I was actually in the school itself. Or really made me want to be in the school itself.

First stop was choosing a wand. Although they all looked pretty much the same, the containers were different and the boys took it very seriously. Heaven forbid they choose a fairy wing wand. That would be disastrous.

We then proceeded to go to the Owlry and write a message to Professor Dumbledore (that he will respond to by email! Fancy that!) Liam wished him a happy birthday.



Next we were able to observe some enchanted rocks and shark teeth most assuredly used in the most deadliest of potions. We purchased some of these treasures with a few of our galleons and then went off to meet the charming Professor Lockhart.



Andrew was chosen to show the audience what a wizard would dress like and he loved being in the spotlight. However, I don't think that I would take a wizard dressed like this very seriously.



Professor Trelawny was waiting in the next room to read our fortunes. This lady was freaking awesome and the boys were in awe of her skills. Liam was even invited to write his name on the magic crystal ball. For what purpose, I don't know, but he sure thought he was pretty darn cool.




Next was a lesson on dragons and fairies. My favorite part about this was the regular old stone painted with some swirlies and put in a fancy box and the boys totally believed it was a dragon's egg. They didn't even touch it. It just reaffirms that ordinary things can definitely be extraordinary with an imagination.


I thought this was clever. These two were like the characters in the paintings. I really liked the attention to the details that made it seem like it was really Hogwarts.


We headed down to the dungeon and listened to a story by Professor Umbridge's sister about the famous Utahn Butch Cassidy. It was super interesting because she was able to intertwine the fact with a little bit of magic. The dungeon included a replica of a jail that had some dementors inside--Luke and Andrew ventured inside the jail but weren't in there very long. Liam and I kept our distance. Who wants the life sucked out of them anyway?

Then it was off to Honeydukes. Seriously, this was amazing. I didn't get any pictures of all the fun candy they had there because the boys went crazy. They had jelly beans, chocolate frogs, gummy bugs and such, chocolate eyes and other body parts, cobwebs, gummy salamanders, pop rock chocolate bars, licorice wands, gummy earthworms...and that isn't all. The spread was incredible.


Potions class was last and the best of all the game. There was the old mentos exploding in the soda bottle trick, dry ice, making bubbles look like they are crawling out of a glass, and of course, burning things.

I thought for a while I was having more fun than the kids but then they asked if they could go again the next night. I am glad that there is a new Harry Potter movie coming out this fall so I can copy all of these ideas and throw a party.

A definate repeat for next year. So. much. fun.