illguthlife: October Events including a special surprise

Hey look, it's me trying not to get super behind on the blog again.

But as always we did a ton in the last little bit and we are already dangerously close to getting behind so let's get cracking.

Okay these first few pictures are ones that didn't make it into the content dump that was last week's post.

Here's a picture of the girls sharing an umbrella on the way to school one morning. We've had several rainy days this fall followed by warm and sunny days. On the raining days the kids wonder why I don't drive them to school. I told them they need some hardship in their lives.

Here's Veronica doing some math homework. She has learned so much already this school year. I was super impressed when she was able to solve a math problem with three numbers. It was something like 9+3+6= ? And she added up all the numbers in her head with some help from her fingers. This is NOT the same child I was homeschooling last year.

The end of the quarter was on October 15th and the kids didn't have school. This would have meant that I could have slept in, but I had Bible Study. We've finished Titus and are going to start reading a book called "Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God's Image." But this week was just to chat and talk. That was fun to do. I got to know some of the other ladies better.

Then I went home for a little bit and then went to a dentist appt. Back when I'd made the appt six months ago I hadn't realized that this would be a day the kids were off of school. I got my kids all nice and clean and then came home again.

But I wasn't there for long because I needed to go to work. I brought Veronica into work with me. It was fun for her to have some one on one time, and it ensured I wouldn't spend a super long time at work.

All the other kids have come into work with me on various days for various reasons. The other three kids are usually content to read books while sitting on the couch in my office. But not Veronica. She asked for a chair and then sat next to me and played with my 10 key calculator the whole time I was working. The only time she stopped was when I had to make a phone call and the calculator was too loud.

She also was super interested in everything I did on the computer and watched me attentively while I prepared the deposit. She wants to be a police officer when she grows up, but I think she'd also make a fabulous accountant.

After about an hour Veronica kept asking "are we done YET!" So I hurried and finished up everything and then we went home.

At home we had a very sad thing to do. Lydia's mouse Rascal had died the night before and it was time to bury him. The girls already had him in a box and I dug a hole for him next to the back fence. Lydia made a grave stone out of a brick.

Everyone was very sad and Lydia spent a lot of time in the tree after the ceremony.

I stayed out side with her and took pictures of my garden and then did some yard work. Here are the peas I planted in August. They have blossoms, but I'm not sure if they will produce peas because I'm not sure the pollinators like bees are still doing anything.

I cleaned up a lot of dead plants and buried them in this garden bed. Then I planted garlic in the garden bed.

Here are my raspberries which are still producing fruit.

Look at the harvest we got one day. I've been so happy with these raspberries.

And here are my tomatoes which were still alive even after getting briefly snowed on earlier in the week.

The kids played in the leaves while I was working on the garden. First it was just Charlotte . . .

But soon they were all playing.

At about 1:45 I had to pause what I was doing so I could take Derrick to get his flu shot. This year I decided to have the girls get their shots at their well child checks. But since Derrick has a spring birthday I had to schedule him for a separate appt to get a flu shot.

I made the rookie mistake of writing "Derrick's flu shot" on the calendar. As soon as Derrick saw that he wouldn't stop talking about getting his flu shot. He wasn't exactly nervous about it, but he was very interested in talking about it over and over and over and over. For like a WEEK! He had everything all planned out about where he wanted his shot. (His left leg) We also talked about ALL the other times he had shots.

So I was very happy to finally get this over with. This year shots were done at the same building as our doctors office, but in a different Suite. Derrick had fun helping me find "Suite F." When we went inside he was fine sitting with me. As soon as we got called back he started saying, "I'm scared, oh I'm scared." It sounded a little fake to me, but I wasn't sure. The nurse was nice and quick and the shot went really fast. Derrick kept whining and saying "Oh it hurt, and I'm scared." All the way back to the car. After a few minutes in the car he said, "Just Kidding. I'm fine." And immediately started talking normal.

I was like, "You little punk." But I just laughed at him. We went to McDonalds to get ice cream cones. I got myself one as well because I'd had my flu shot earlier in the week. We were in the drive through line for a long time. (Probably longer than we'd been in the shot clinic.) I took this picture of the little faker.

Derrick gets his shots in his legs because two years ago his arm swelled up super big. So all day we kept an eye on his leg for any swelling. It did swell a little bit, but it wasn't as bas as his arm had been.

After we came back from McDonalds we picked up the girls and went out to Buhl to visit Crismor's Pumpkin Patch. We came out here two years ago (coincidentally, also on a Flu Shot day) but we haven't been out since. The kids were so excited to come back.

None of our pumpkins grew this year so all the kids needed to pick out a pumpkin.

They picked out their pumpkins and then we enjoyed the farm.

There was a little corn maze that was free. It wasn't very big, or hard, but that wasn't really the point.

The main fun thing this year was the straw maze. The kids played here forever. I'd invited a new family in our ward with a girl Charlotte and Lydia's age to come out to the patch. They met us there and played for a long time. When they left the kids played tag with some boys.

After about 2 hours we finally get ready to go. The farmer totaled up our pumpkins and I paid for them. I completely forgot to get a picture of the pumpkins, but I took a picture of this train that went by right as we were leaving.

We were supposed to have Hoagies for dinner, but that didn't really inspire me. So Brandon suggested we go on a date. So he made sandwiches for the kids. Then we turned on a movie for the kids and went to a restaurant on Main Street. After dinner we walked around Main Street and I took this picture.

Saturday was a day we'd waited for for a long time. We were going over to Pocatello to go through the Open House for the Pocatello Temple. We'd wanted to do this for a while, but we'd had a hard time narrowing down a weekend to do it. This was the best weekend for us. But by the time I'd figured that out, all the tickets on the open house website were gone. I thought that meant we couldn't go, but I contacted the Facebook Page for the temple open house and they said the tickets were more of a formality to try to space out crowds. No one would actually ask for tickets. So we could just come whenever and wait in line.

At first I thought we should get up early and head over to Pocatello to avoid the crowds. But our house was a mess and I was tired. So Brandon and I decided that we'd sleep in a bit on Saturday, clean the house a bit, and then head over to Pocatello.

I was feeling a bit off that morning. I just figured I was tired, but there wasn't much I could do about it so I was trying to get through the morning as best I could. I was helping everyone clean and trying to be happy.

We hadn't done any laundry since before Veronica's baptism the week before. I'd meant to get the laundry going on Friday but had been so busy with Bible Study, and the Dentist appt, and work, and yardwork, and flu shots, and pumpkin patches, and dates that I'd completely forgot about the laundry. (Honestly, I'm not sure I even went into the basement on Friday.) So on Saturday I was hoping to at least get a few loads of laundry through before we went to Pocatello.

The kids were cleaning their rooms and bringing their laundry downstairs and Brandon sorted our laundry and was getting ready to bring it down. I started a load and then made a horrible discovery. The washing machine wasn't agitating.

I yelled upstairs for Brandon to come listen to the machine. He listened for a second and said, "the motor is working but it's not connected." He was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing and assured me it could be fixed, but I looked around at the literal piles of laundry and felt overwhelmed.

Our washing machine has NEVER broken. Which is kind of amazing when you think about it. We've had the same machine since 2008. We bought it and the dryer off KSL or Craigslist for a total of $200. The dryer has needed heating coils replaced several times, but the washing machine has never ever had a problem. It's been a faithful helper through everything so to suddenly have it give out felt a little like a betrayal.

I was already not feeling 100% excited about the day and now I was feeling apprehensive about the week. We hadn't done laundry in a week in a half. We NEEDED to do laundry today if anyone was to have anything decent to wear the next week. How long was the washing machine going to be out of commission? How expensive was the repair going to be? How many trips to the laundromat was I going to have to make?

I asked Brandon, "do you think we should just stay home from Pocatello and focus on getting the washing machine fixed?"

Brandon assured me again that this would probably be a quick repair. He still wanted to go to Pocatello. So we kept going ahead with that plan. We finished cleaning the house and then we got ready to go.

This is where we ran into a few more problems. We wanted to dress nice for the temple open house, but that's a little tricky when you haven't done laundry for 10 days. Plus we had plans to go roller skating at Deleta after the open house which meant we needed regular clothes in addition to the church clothes. And this was the second Saturday in a row where we needed to dress up for a church event. It had taken a lot of effort to have everyone looking nice for the baptism. I just didn't have it in me to do it again. So everyone ended up in various states of "church clothes." We ranged from Brandon who was in a blue dress shirt with a tie to Derrick who was in too short sweat pants and a polo shirt. I wore yoga pants with a skirt over them. Lydia and Veronica wore regular clothes and threw dresses over them when they got to the church. And Charlotte put a skirt on over her jeans.

Since we planned to go roller skating the kids all brought their roller skates. Derrick, Charlotte, and Lydia all still fit the ones they got for Christmas last year. But Veronica has grown a lot and he skates didn't fit at all. She was so sad about this and cried and cried. I kept telling her that we could rent some, but she was still so sad.

Finally we were all in the car and driving toward Pocatello. Our DVD player remote had been misplaced so we couldn't watch any movies. Fortunately I'd known that ahead of time. I'd been reading Little Women to the girls so I brought that and read it.

Soon we were in Pocatello and drove to a church in Chubbuck where a shuttle bus would pick us up and take us up to the temple. We didn't have to wait very long and soon we were all on the bus heading up to the temple. The kids were very excited about this.

Here are Brandon and I.

The buses dropped us off at the temple and we got into a long line that led to a tent that led to the entrance. I took happy looking pictures of us in that line.

And we were happy.

And having a good time.

But underneath the smiles I was starting to have a low grade anxiety attack. Everything seemed just a little too loud, and the kids were touching me just a little too much, and the line was a little too slow, and the experience just a little too much.

But I tried to put on a happy face for the kids. Here they are sitting on a bench in the tent.

We reached the temple entrance and volunteers put booties over our shoes. We were also given masks to wear.

I couldn't take pictures inside the temple, but here is a link to some pictures. The temple had a pink and green color scheme that looked good overall, but sometimes reminded me of the kitchen in my parents house when I was a teenager. There were ugly chairs in the lobby, but beautiful ones in the ordinance rooms. My favorite part was a large wrap around staircase.

When we were done my kids all desperately needed a bathroom and we were directed to a portable trailer with bathroom stalls. Even this bathroom was very nice. It was nearly as nice as the temple. There were even PICTURES on the walls.

Outside the bathroom was a snow bank. It was left over from a big snowstorm that had blown through on Tuesday. The kids had fun playing on it.

Then we walked around the outside of the temple.

And we attempted a family picture. For weeks I'd been seeing my friends post pictures of their well dressed and smiling families in front of the temple. My friends had been gushing about how pretty the temple was and how peaceful it felt. I'd hoped to take a similar picture and write something similar. But the kids and my brain wouldn't cooperate. So this is us making our best attempt.

We walked back around the temple and took a few more pictures along the way.

Here's the front.

Then we walked up a staircase to the sidewalk where we waited for the bus back to the church where we'd parked. This is my favorite view of the temple. This whole area had tons of dirt excavated to make room for this parking lot and the temple. It's amazing to see all the changes.

We rode the bus back down to the church and the girls immediately ditched their dresses. My skirt came off pretty quick too. Brandon went inside the church and changed his whole outfit. Then we sat on the grass and had a picnic. The weather was really warm and we had a nice time.

Then we got into the car and drove to Deleta. The kids were so excited to come here. Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick had come here once a week during the summer they were in Adventure Camp. We'd also come here as a family at least once and a couple times for birthday parties.

Brandon and I didn't want to skate so it was just the kids we needed to pay for. We got them all situated and they started skating right away - well most of them did. Veronica didn't have the advantage of weekly practice. Also she was in heavy rental skates. She had a hard time getting around. She went over to the little practice area. The other kids joined her for a bit and I took a picture of all 4 of them.

I tried to get other pictures when the kids were out on the main rink, but the lighting was terrible. Here's Charlotte zooming past.

Lydia

And Derrick. Derrick is AMAZING on skates. He could zip around and weave in and out of groups of people.

And here's Veronica. She was not doing well. We rented a little skate support for her, and that helped a bit, but she was still really unstable. She was so sad that this happy event wasn't going that great for her.

I wasn't doing that great either. The music was really loud and it was so chaotic. I was trying to keep track of all the kids and keep Veronica happy. Really all I wanted to do was go to the car and relax. And I couldn't stop thinking about how much laundry was waiting at home.

After about 45 minutes of skating the kids were ready to play games. Lydia and Charlotte and brought their wallets and I loaned Derrick and Veronica some money since they hadn't thought about bringing any.

The kids skated around playing different arcade games.

They had so much fun.

And got a bunch of tickets.

And turned them in for prizes.

Lots of tickets

And lots of prizes.

But for me this was not fun. I was already so stressed out and watching my kids blow all their money on stupid games and prizes did not help my stress levels.

I was very happy when Derrick and Veronica said they were ready to go. We went out to the car and waited for about 10 minutes. Then Brandon and the twins joined us.

We had plans to go to McDonalds for dinner so we drove to our favorite one by the ISU campus. Three years ago the whole resturant was torn down and rebuilt. It was set up as a cafe on the inside and so we wanted to eat inside. We went inside and Brandon ordered everything for us. We sat at the tables that are next to a big couch. I sat on the couch and relaxed for the first time that whole day.

One of the workers brought our order to the table. When I bit into my cheeseburger it was the tastiest cheeseburger I'd ever had. I guess having heightened senses from anxiety is good for something.

Most people were using the drive through so the restaurant was pretty quiet. There wasn't even music playing. The kids played on some electronic games mounted to the wall and I lounged on the couch. I told Brandon, "this place is more peaceful than the temple!"

We stayed at McDonalds for a long time. I loved the calm atmosphere. I'd promised the kids ice cream back when we'd been in Yellowstone and I still hadn't delivered on that promise so we ordered vanilla cones for everyone. They tasted great too.

Eventually we decided it was time to head back to Twin Falls. First we stopped at Autozone to get some fuel system cleaner. We'd noticed that our gas mileage had been terrible on our drive over to Twin Falls so Brandon wanted to run some of that through the car. It made a big difference. On the drive home we used about half of the gas that we'd use on our drive to Pocatello.

McDonalds hadn't completely calmed me down and I was still a little on edge when we got home. It mostly had to do with how much laundry was still piled up in the house. I went through the laundry and pulled out the things that I knew HAD to be washed. Brandon helped get them into the car.

Then I went to the laundromat and did four loads of laundry at once. By this time it was like 9:00 at night and there was hardly anyone at the laundromat. I liked the rhythmic humming of the machines and it smells nice and soapy. I calmed all the way down there. I was lamenting to myself that these were probably going to cost and arm and a leg to dry when I remembered that I had a perfectly good dryer at home. So when the loads were done washing I just put them back in the laundry baskets and took them home to dry them there.

When I got home Brandon had stripped down the washing machine and found the problem. Some sort of broken something or other. He was able to buy a replacement part for like $20 on Monday and had the whole thing working again by Monday night. Whew, problem solved.

On Sunday I declared that I wasn't doing ANYTHING and spent most of the day in bed writing in my pajamas. I did go to church. But it was mostly a writing and pajama day which was good for my soul.

On Monday when I woke Derrick up for school he showed me the tooth he'd pulled out. He said, "it was wiggly and there was not root." He was right. I told him I was proud of him for waiting to pull it out.

Monday was back to the grind, but we were only looking at a 3 day school week so that was very nice. The kids were off school on Thursday and Friday because of Parent Teacher Conferences that were happening all week. This year the teachers wanted us to sign up online unless we didn't have a computer. I was ALL for that. The worst part about Parent Teacher Conference is trying to schedule everything just perfect time wise and then waiting in the hall while some other parent goes long with a teacher and screws up the perfectly timed schedule. So I liked the idea of doing it online.

It also was super easy to schedule everyone. I decided to do them on Monday at just get it over with early in the week. So I had Veronica scheduled at 4:00, Derrick at 4:20, Lydia at 4:40 and Charlotte at 5:00. I just stayed in the same seat the whole time and had a spot for which ever child we were talking about to sit next to me. Brandon came home from work during Veronica's conference and pulled up a chair behind us.

All the teachers had good things to say about all the kids. But I think Derrick's conference put me in the best mood. His mainstream teacher and the Special Ed teacher both talked about how well behaved Derrick has been. Now that his behavior is under control he is even starting to progress academically. He's still far below grade level, but he's catching up.

After dinner I went outside to plant some trees.

I guess I should give the back story on these trees. When we lived in Pocatello I heard about a program through Idaho Power that would give home owners two trees. The idea was that the trees would help shade a house when they were mature and help cut down on heating bills. I tucked that bit of info into my mind and when we moved into this house I signed up for the program. A few weeks ago I got an email that it was our counties turn for free trees. I was directed to a website that pulled up a map of my house and helped me pick the trees and the best spot for them. I ordered the trees and then waited patiently.

On Saturday, when we came home from Pocatello, there was a package with two little trees sitting on our porch. I didn't have the mental capacity to do anything with those trees on Saturday and didn't even get them out of box until Sunday. But on Monday I was determined to get them into the ground. So I went and dug some holes after dinner.

This is the before picture.

Derrick was outside with me most of the time and was goofing off with the box.

Here's the after picture. (It was dark by the time I was done.)

So I went outside the next day and took pictures for real. I'd put little fences around the trees so we don't forget where they are.

Here's the Red Oak.

And the Red Maple.

Later I bought a big bag of mulch and made sure both trees will have roots that are nice and protected all winter.

On Tuesday Charlotte had a dentist appt so she was able to stay home with me for about an hour after the other kids were in school. She recently found out the truth about Santa and she and I were talking about that. It's still been a little hard for her to process. During our conversation I got the feeling that she was feeling like all the magic was leaving her childhood.

I told her, "You will still have magic in your life without believing in things like Santa. In fact, I have a huge surprise for you on Friday that you are going to freak out about."

Well a mention of a surprise perked her right up. As we drove to the dentist office she tried to guess what the surprise could be. I told her she'd never guess it.

Her appt went well, it was to fix her chipped tooth. The chip was so small she didn't even need to be numbed.

Then I drove her to school and she kept asking me what the surprise could be. I told her the surprise was for Lydia too and she could tell her. So after school they both peppered me with more questions.

Tuesday afternoons are normally Derrick's speech therapy day. But Derrick's speech therapist recently left the company. They are working to replace him, but so far they don't have anyone available for Derrick's time slot. They did offer to transfer us to another therapist at the hospital, but I said half the reason we go to the clinic is because it's super close to our house. I'm just fine waiting if it means we can still be close to home. So for the next little while Derrick doesn't have speech therapy and it's actually kind of nice to have our Tuesdays back.

I was feeling kind of off again and had a little cough so I was glad we didn't have to go anywhere.

I had a work meeting that night and I'd planned to go straight to symphony rehearsal right after the work meeting, but I wasn't feeling well enough for that. So instead I went to the meeting and then came home.

Since the kids had Thursday and Friday off I was trying to hurry through my school schedule for the week. My sister Hillary was coming for a visit on Thursday and I didn't want to worry about school stuff while she was visiting. So I was trying to condense 5 days of studying into three. I spent a lot of time on Tuesday night studying.

Fortunately the section was on how to calculate the break even point for a company. This was like catching up with an old friend. I remember learning this concept in my AP Economics class when I was a Senior in Highschool. It had made NO SENSE until suddenly it all clicked. I also remember learning it again in Applied Calculus my Sophomore year at Snow College. When I learned the calculus behind the break even point I got physically excited by how much it all made sense.

So to go over the concept again made me feel smart, happy, and nostalgic all at the same time.

On Wednesday morning Derrick surprised me by being already up and awake when I got out of bed. I'd thought I'd heard him moving around in the basement, but I hadn't been sure until I got up. He greeted me with "Good Morning Mommy!" He was in a fabulous mood all day. I later wrote about in an Autism Parents Group that I'm in. This is what I said:

I just want to celebrate a good day for a minute. I hope this gives some hope to some of you.

This morning my son woke up and got himself dressed about 10 minutes before the rest of the family. He greeted me with "Good morning Mommy."
He happily went to school. I assume he had a good day there because he was still in a good mood when he came home. He watched a movie with his sisters (and got everything set up and turned on by himself.)
He happily went to behavioral therapy. Then he came home and ate all his dinner even though it was a soup he'd never had before. He told me it was delicious and asked for a second helping!
He took a bath by himself and got dressed in pajama's without any help. At bedtime he told me he loved me and gave me a kiss.
I remember six years ago when he was first diagnosed and each of these things felt IMPOSSIBLE. But we just had a day where they all happened!
I don't know what tomorrow will be like, but I'm enjoying the fact that we had a good day today.

It really was an amazing day.

It was made all the better by it being the last day of school for the week!

We all slept in happily on Thursday. Unlike the Friday before, I didn't have a lot planned for this day off. So we all enjoyed doing nothing.

I did have to go to work for a bit. This time Charlotte came with me. Here she is reading on my couch.

Later she hooked all my paper clips together. She said, "I could jump rope with this."

We finished up what I needed to do and then went back home. Charlotte found my hair donut and made a cute bun in her hair.

Around 1:00 my sister Hillary arrived with her two kids. Hillary's husband has been working from home since the pandemic started. It's been going well, but recently he's had a lot of meetings that he's had to lead. Hillary was like, "Well I'm not hang around here trying to keep two kids quiet." So she came up to my house for two days.

We talked for a while and then Hillary decided to lay down for a little while. She hadn't felt well for several months, but has been doing better recently. Still I was happy that she could rest at my house. We took care of the kids and she went down into the basement guest room and slept for hours.

While she was sleeping the kids and I made Halloween themed chocolate covered pretzels.

They turned out really fun. And then we ate them all.

Ever since Tuesday Charlotte and Lydia had been trying to figure out what the Surprise on Friday could be. They'd learned that it was a birthday surprise and it was just for the two of them. But I hadn't told them anything else.

On Thursday night at dinner I nonchalantly told one of them to go check the mail. Lydia did and she bought everything back to the table. One of the envelopes was addressed to her and Charlotte. It was from Wilson Wizarding School. Inside was a letter from the school and tickets to come to the school that evening. Both girls looked at me like, "What is this?"

I told them that the birthday surprise was a night at a place where people dressed up like Harry Potter characters and acted like they were part of the wizarding world. They would be able to get sorted into houses and even get a wand.

The girls FREAKED OUT. They'd both told me that they secretly wished they would get letters to Hogwarts when they turned 11. Lydia was already planning to be Hermonie for Halloween and Charlotte had thought about being Ginny before deciding on something else. Friday evening was going to be a dream come true for both of them.

That evening Hillary came with me to my ward's Relief Society. It was a Yoga class taught by the wonderful Amy Toft. She is so good. I love how relaxed I feel at the end of her classes. Hillary loved it too.

That night after the kids were in bed Hillary cut my hair and then cut Brandon's. Then we stayed up talking for HOURS. I think we went to bed at 1:00.

On Friday I took Lydia to work with me. Then we came back and Hillary was able to go on a solo thrift shopping trip. She was looking for swimming suits because we had plans to go swimming but she'd forgot to pack their swimming stuff. She was able to find everything she needed at Goodwill.

At noon we all went to the city pool. They were having a free swimming day so of course we were there for that.

Walter didn't want to get in the water so I sat on the stairs with him. Penny did like the water so Hillary took her around the shallow end. All my kids stayed in the shallow end with their cousins.

Here I am with my new haircut.

Hillary stayed about an hour and then took her kids back to my house. Penny was so cold her lips were blue. I helped Hillary get her kids changed and then went back to my kids. They were still playing in the shallow end. I was like, "hey, guys you don't need to be over here any more, let's go back to our usual area."

So we moved to the other side of the rope. Then the kids remembered that they all can go in the deep end so they took the swim test and got their wrist bracelets that gave them access to the deep end. I went over with them. It was funny how we'd gone from the very shallow end to the deep end in less than 10 minutes.

At 2:00 the pool did a "Pumpkin Dive" which was more of a pumpkin gather since none of the pumpkins could sink. The kids had fun gathering pumpkins.

They got prizes at the end.

And when we left the pool everyone got a goody bag. It had been an afternoon well spent.

We came home and everyone changed. Hillary and Walter were still awake, but Penny was fast asleep. Soon Hillary decided to go take another nap. She slept for hours again.

Meanwhile I was getting the girls ready. I'd found a Hogwarts Robe and Tie for Lydia at Once Upon a Child. So she was set. Charlotte was a little harder. At first she said she just wanted to wear her witch costume from last Halloween. But when she tried it on she didn't like it. I'd suggested that we could modify Brandon's graduation gown so she told me that's what she wanted to wear. I hurried and basted the hem higher and pinned it in the back. She wore one of Derrick's Sunday shirts under the robe and we tied the whole thing with one of Brandon's honor cords. It turned out pretty nice.

Brandon wasn't home yet, but Hillary was awake when I needed to leave so we left her in charge and started driving to the theatre. The theatre is in Rupert which is about 45 minutes away. The whole way there the girls were wondering what the experience would be like. I told them I wasn't sure. I'd only heard about this through a Facebook post.

We arrived a little before the doors opened at 6:00. We got in line to wait. I had the girls pose by this funny back door because it seemed very Harry Potter-esk.

I'd paid $25 for each of the girls' tickets and $10 for my general admission ticket. I felt like we got our money's worth just waiting in the line. There were all sorts of people dressed up like Harry Potter Characters. We saw Hagrid, Luna, Professor Trelawney, and Professor Snape. Each one had a different personality. We briefly saw Harry Potter and Ron Weasley walking along. They called out, "First Years, any First Years." Charlotte and Lydia were shy and quietly said, "We are first years." But the boys didn't hear them. Harry and Ron stopped to talk to some people who were in quidditch robes in line behind us. Harry asked them what position they played and told them that Ron was a Keeper. A little bit later Voldemort walked by. Charlotte and Lydia were scared and got closer to me. They didn't know what to think of seeing Voldemort in person.

Here's a sign advertising the school.

We made it up to the box office area. This was made to look like Gringotts bank. The ticket takers had goblin masks on. (I took this picture later after the ticket takers had moved onto other things, but you can imagine.)

Charlotte and Lydia were handed official acceptance letters and a ticket that would give them access to the different activities. I was given a hand stamp.

The letters had official seals on them.

Then we went into the theatre and were really transported into the Harry Potter World.

The level of detail was amazing. Everywhere we looked there were little displays with different things from the Harry Potter Universe.

The main part of the theatre was "The Great Hall." There were even floating candles. The girls could have started here and been sorted into their house, but the line was rather long. So we were directed to do either a potions class or to get our wands. We decided to get in line for wands.

That line took us to a door to Diagon Ally. The girls tried to figure out the combinations of bricks to tap to open the secret door.

When we were allowed to enter we were able to see the most adorable shop windows.

Again the level of detail was just amazing.

They even had the monster book of monsters.

I'd brought Charlotte's Hedwig Owl along just in case Charlotte wanted to pose with her. The owl came out of my bag for this photo op.

Another group was finishing up their wand selections while we explored Diagon Ally. When they were finished our group was ushered to the wand section of the room. A lady came out and explained that she was the wand maker. She had a little girl come up and select a wand. Then she had the girl point to an orb and say Lumos. The orb started glowing! Then each child could go up to the counter and select a wand from the display. The workers would give the children a box that corresponded to the number on the wand. Here are Charlotte and Lydia picking their wands.

And here's Lydia opening her box. She'd been asking me when she would get a wand to go with her costume and I'd been telling her, "Don't worry, I have that covered." She never dreamed she'd get to pick one out like this. She said she nearly cried when she saw her wand.

Charlotte was also thrilled with her wand.

She immediately posed with it.

We followed some signs out of the shop and through a narrow corridor. We saw this funny sign on a bathroom.

And ran into the three headed dog.

The corridor went out side. There was a Knight Bus Stop.

And then we got in line for the Forbidden Forest. While we waited in line we took pictures with the wands.

A mom and her teenage daughter were in line behind us. They thought Charlotte and Lydia were just the cutest ever. The mom was having just as much fun as any of the kids. She'd paid for the full experience ticket too and was thrilled to have her own wand. When it came time to go into the Forbidden Forest we decided that the 5 of us should go together.

In the forest the girls learned how to do the Expecto Patronym spell. They waved their wands one at a time and one at a time a Patronus showed up on a screen on the wall. Lydia's was a cat and Charlotte's was a dolphin. They were each given a card with their Patronus on it. Then we had to walk through a dark section of the building while Dementors jumped out at us. The girls yelled Expecto Pratronym at each one. It was very thrilling.

When we left the Forbidden Forest we realized we were right by the Hogwarts Express. So we hopped on that. It was really a tractor that had been decorated to look like a train.

But it felt real.

The tractor pulled two cars and we got in one of them. Then they drove us all around the theatre and around Rupert's cute Town Square.

Here's a video I took on Marco Polo.

Charlotte and Lydia had a blast during the whole ride and we made sure to ride the train a second time later in the evening.

After the train the girls discovered a fun phone booth with a phone that had funny sayings on it.

We went by Hagrid's hut and got a picture with him and Professor McGonigal.

We went back inside the building to try to get into the sorting line, but that was still too long. So we got in line for the potions class. Potions was held in an upstairs room. Professor Slughorn taught the class. Professor Umbridge was there for a bit. And Hermonie was in the back of the room.

We were sitting next to Professor Trelawnie who oohed and ahhed at everything. Professor Slughorn and his assistants showed some interesting bugs like tarantulas and stick bugs and then did some magic tricks.

At the end of the class the back wall slid open and suddenly we were in Honeydukes. There were lots of cupcakes and butterbeer that we could have bought with Muggle Money, but we didn't do that.

Instead we went out into the hall and the girls had their pictures taken at a photo booth. Here's Charlotte's

And here is Lydia's. By the way, her shirt says, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."

Here are some more of the cute little details.

I liked how there was even a Marauders Map.

Madam Hootch and some other people were there to teach some more wand lessons.

They would tell the girls to say a spell with certain wand movements. Then little things would move.

Like these cupcakes spun around.

We found a bathroom and I laughed when I saw that the mirror said, "The chamber of secrets has been opened, enemies of the heir beware."

And look, they even had Professor Umbridge's kitten plates.

We went back down stairs and saw that the line for sorting had finally died down. Charlotte and Lydia got in line.

They both told me they were very nervous. Lydia told me, "I feel like I did before I chose my wand!" They went up a staircase to the stage and I waited down below. I LOVE this picture of them together.

At Hogwarts they use a hat to sort the children, but since this was (sort of) not Hogwarts the sorting was done with a tree. The girls had to walk forward and put their hand on a screen on the tree. Then the lights on the tree would change color to tell them what house they were in. Charlotte and Lydia were fairly confident that if they touched the red part of the screen that would tell the tree they wanted to be in Gryffindor. But they weren't sure.

I was waiting down below when I saw a little girl walk slowly, yet confidently toward the tree. Then I realized it was Charlotte. I started filming and this is what happened.

Both girls were so excited to receive their red ties.

At this point we'd been there two hours and done everything. But we were in no hurry to leave. So we started walking around looking at everything again. Here I am enjoying myself.

I thought this Deathly Hallows symbol was cute.

We went outside and looked at the giant spider Aragog that was on the back of Hagrid's hut.

Here's a picture of the theatre. It was so pretty.

There were two big gas powered fire things outside the theatre. The girls posed with one.

We went to get in line for a second train ride and ran into Dumbledoor.

We took a picture of these mandrakes.

And saw Snape. Earlier he'd walked past the girls on the staircase and told them very coldly not to run.

We also saw this dragon.

The girls played with the phone booth some more.

They had so much fun with it.

Here they are with the Goblet of Fire.

This chart showed the different spells.

The girls wanted a picture of it so they could practice at home.

We saw Voldemort in Honeydukes and Lydia wanted a picture with him. She said she wasn't scared of him any more because she had a wand now. We tried to get close to him, but a bunch of other kids started "attacking" him and he took off.

We saw him again downstairs, but the same thing happened. A bunch of kids "attacked" him before Lydia could ask for a picture.

So we gave up and went back to poking around some more. We decided to go back to Diagon Ally to take more pictures, and who should we run into but Voldemort! And he was all alone. The girls asked for a picture and he was so happy to oblige. I showed this to Hillary later and she told me her 11 year old self was screaming at it.

Someone asked me if I wanted to be in a picture so here are the three of us. I think I'd had this smile on my face for three hours. This night had been amazing. Charlotte and Lydia kept telling me it was a dream come true.

Here's another cool display.

And here's the wand shop.

We went out and noticed Knockturn Ally. The girls had been so engrossed in their wands when we went through here the first time that they hadn't even noticed this.

We were able to go through the forbidden forest and fight dementors again. Then we walked around outside some more. Here's a dragon.

We walked over to the town square and looked at the cute pumpkin displays there.

There was a Great Pumpkin.

Then we went back to the theatre we stopped by the Owlery and pulled Hedwig out of my bag again.

And by this point it was nearly 9:00. We'd had such a good time and I'd been telling every staff member I saw that "This was absolutely great!" and "Thank you."

The lights came on in the area around the theatre right at 9:00 signifying that that experience was over. We walked back to the car all aglow about how wonderful the evening had been.

We drove back to Twin Falls and were so excited to tell Brandon and Hillary all about our night. Sadly Hillary wasn't there any more. Her kids had had a hard time falling asleep and she'd decided it was just easier to head home than try to get them to sleep in the guest room. But Brandon listened to all our stories and looked at all the pictures.

Charlotte and Lydia slept in their clothes and Charlotte wore the collared shirt most of Saturday. I think she was reluctant to take off that reminder of a great night.

After all that Saturday couldn't compete. So we didn't even try. Brandon had been tentatively planning to go Elk Hunting with a friend, but that fell through. I told him to pretend that he was gone anyway and to not worry about too much going on in the house. So he went out to the garage and worked on the jeep.

The kids and I stayed in the house and hmmm, I'm struggling to remember anything of substance that we did.

Umm, the kids watched movies. And I took it real easy.

I think we read a bunch from the book Little Women.

I know at some point I made sure to wash a bunch of socks so we'd have some on Monday. And that was the extent of my exertions on Saturday.

Brandon on the other hand, had a very productive day. He finally got the engine out of the Jeep. (This had been stalled by waiting for special wrench to arrive in the mail.) Then he cleaned the whole engine bay so that it sparkled and shown. At some point in the next few weeks he's going to rebuild this engine. I'm still a little in shock, but he says he did this with aircraft engines in school so he knows what he's doing.