This spring has been a whirlwind of travel and big events, like first birthdays and kindergarten graduation, so I have lots of posts in queue to share with y’all. But first, let’s talk about my Harry Potter fangirling.
Two weeks ago I spoke at the Mom 2.0 Summit with Jessica, who I like to call my work wife. Jess and I became friends when we both lived in Nashville and then we somewhat serendipitously both ended up as authors and bloggers.
When you’re a writer you spend a lot of time alone with your computer and miss out on things like happy hours and water-cooler chats with colleagues. Voxer comes close to recreating that but it’s always fun to get to leave the house and work alongside someone who totally gets what you do AND shares your passionate love of Anne of Green Gables.
(dress is Lilly Pulitzer via Trunk Club and my top is from Stitch Fix. I tend to let other people pick out my clothes for important work events is what I am saying.)
Lately I’ve been writing a few other places, such as for the TODAY Show Parents section (You can read my current piece for them about being a softball mom + letting go as your kids grow here.)
I have loved the TODAY Show for quite some time, as evidenced by that one time that they came to my house and filmed me and my cute baby and then put us on air. But now I am hardcore loyal on account of what happened two weeks ago.
Right before I left for Florida, the TODAY Show emailed me and said that they had a surprise for their writers who were attending the conference. I thought maybe they were going to take us out to dinner and that sounded great to me because I am a girl who likes a good dinner, especially when I do not have to be the person cooking it.
And they did take us out to dinner but then they put us on a bus and do you know where that bus took us?
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, where Hogsmeade was completely empty except for us and a handful of caterers handing out Butterbeer and desserts.
Y’ALL, I LITERALLY COULD NOT EVEN.
In case you can not discern my level of excitement from that sentence, please allow me to present these photos as evidence:
If I look like I am about to cry, THAT IS BECAUSE I WAS ABOUT TO CRY.
It was completely magical, no pun intended.
They gave us each a wand (mine is Harry Potter’s) which activates “magic” in the windows of the shops. It was so much fun except that turns out, I am kind of a Ron Weasley when it comes to perfecting my wand skills. You have to actually wave it in the specific pattern for each “spell” for it to work and it is real hard to be that precise when you are simultaneously jumping up and down.
(I can not emphasize enough just how excited I was, y’all.)
I went back during the daytime to board the Hogwarts Express (which is a cool themed ride in and of itself) over to Diagon Alley and found it to be even better than Hogsmeade. Being able to see one of my favorite books from my tweenage years come to life in such incredible detail was such a fun, nostalgic, and fantasticly immersive experience.
I don’t even like roller coasters but I loved the Harry Potter themed rides! Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey was my favorite but I also really loved the Flight of the Hippogriff. Which APPARENTLY is a kiddie roller coaster but as someone who is afraid of those things, I feel like it was perfectly suited to me. I exchanged Muggle Money for Gringotts Bank Notes, which you can spend within the park, and I visited the Weasleys Wizard Wheezes shop, which was really amazing to see come to life.
But my absolute favorite thing was the Butterbeer. I had it regular and frozen and am now obsessed with recreating it at home. I have yet to succeed but don’t worry, I am very persistent when it comes to my love of sweets.
Honestly, if you have children who love Harry Potter, I can not speak highly enough of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
I feel a bit sentimental about it, maybe, because I am five years older than my little sister and remember laying in bed at night reading the very first book aloud to her while she was still in elementary school. The only thing that would have made my trip better was if she had been there with me. I thought about buying her a commemorative Gryffindor jersey but then I remembered the time she purposely tore the entire last chapter out of my Sweet Valley High book and so I figured she would probably have been sorted into Slytherin 😉
“Words are in my not-so-humble opinion, the most inexhaustible form of magic we have.”
― Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
(Disclaimer: I was hosted by NBCUniversal but they did not sponsor or commission this post. It was a trip gifted to the TODAY parenting team writers but my decision to write about it is purely based on my love of Harry Potter novels.)
