Friday, September 30, 2011

Harry Potter World

For a little while in September, we were having trouble with Rea in the morning. She is not a morning person AT ALL. And she would cry, yell, scream, throw tantrums, and basically make it an exhausting affair to get her school uniform on and drop her off in her classroom.

So I solicited some advice and decided an incentive chart on our fridge would be good to try. We did this when we were potty training her to poop in the toilet. Rea is her own little woman; she likes to be in charge of as much as she can in her world.

So, I made a simple chart for the past two weeks. And she loved it. The past two weeks have been pretty easy.  It's simple: if she is sweet, good and there are no issues in the morning getting ready and actually going to school, she gets a smiley face on that day. If a problem occurs, then nothing happens for that day... I marked those with an "X" to show that we have moved past that calendar day. She had to get 5 smileys in a row in order to get her big prize: A trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando.

Since yesterday happened to be a Jewish holiday and therefore, there was no school, it was the perfect opportunity to go! Even better, was that Steph has no classes on Thursdays and Jack was able to take the day off of work and join us! YAY!

Do you think she is excited? 

2 of the best Aunts! 

Hogwarts Express! (Ri would've loved this!)

Hogsmeade Village

Yum

Ugh. So many people.

Heading in to eat at the Three Broomsticks

Rea was so excited she would only eat 1/2 of her food. 

So glad you came Jack!

We are standing next to a screaming mandrake



See, there he is.

Looking in the window at Ollivanders.

Watching the bludgers bounce



Hogwarts Castle

In line at Hogwarts



Still in line at Howarts



More mandrakes... these weren't screaming.  
Slytherin is far behind in the House Points. 

The entrance to Dumbledore's office

Rea loved it


Coincidently, this is Rea's favorite spell... it was nice of them to have it up. 

The sorting hat
Well, that's where the pictures run out.

Rea was too short (by like 6 inches) to ride the castle ride... and thank goodness too. She would've freaked out on it! Rea and I left Hogwarts Castle and decided to ride the Hippogriff thing. Then Jack and Steph came out carrying a Nimbus 2011 and told Rea that they just saw Harry Potter and he felt bad about Rea not being able to ride the ride. He wanted her to have this new broomstick. I don't think I have to tell you how much she LOVES that Harry Potter himself gave her a gift! She literally talked about it the whole way home.

So we did ride the Hippogriff (sp?) roller-coaster. And after that we went to Ollivander's to pick out a wand. We waited in the ridiculous line (outside, no cover, in the FL heat). It was worth it though. Steph was "the chosen one" and she tested out wands: killed some flowers, set off some bells, and had the heavens open up.

We had a great day. I know Rea really loves that her aunts came to experience it with her. And it meant a lot to me too.

3 comments:

  1. I'm so glad you guys had a fantastic time!

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  2. Awesome!!!! We never got to go inside Hogwarts when we went and E hadn't even watched the movies yet when we were there, but I'm bummed bc I didn't know you could go in... Please tell me you also tried butterbeer!!! Soooo delicious!!!

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  3. Thank you!
    We had a wonderful time... and spent a small fortune. =)
    Yes, I did have the butterbeer. I ordered mine frozen. It was AMAZING! I may have dreams about it.

    ReplyDelete