the birthday

well, the birthday was great! i can't believe i'm 24 years old. it still feels like i'm 21. age is an interesting thing.

we had ordered harry potter 7 from amazon.com who guaranteed delivery on the 21st. it ended up coming in our mail at about 11a - not too bad!

when we got it in the mail.

waiting for us to read it. i was waiting for spencer to come back.

here we are with our new copy of harry potter and the deathly hallows! (i had just taken a shower before it came - hence the wet hair...)

you don't have to worry that benny got neglected that day - even if we had wanted to, he wouldn't have let us - he did not go down for a nap until 4:40p because he didn't act tired all day! he had a lot of fun playing with both mommy and daddy in the room. he even got a bath that day! we took a little time out when we both spent some time on the floor playing with benny. it was really fun!

benny was having a great time with daddy and the easter eggs.

well, again, the birthday was great as was harry potter. we spent most of time reading that day. we went to sonic for lunch (i read in the car out loud on the way there and back) and had average burgers. it was so hot we had to come back home to eat.

we kept reading and went out to dinner at tepanyaki - a japanese grill. that was fun! then we came back home and stayed up way too late reading. if you ask nicely we might tell you...

just so you know, we did go to all three hours of church on sunday and we didn't have to stay up nearly as late to finish the book. we were done about 9p on sunday, 22 july, and boy was it great! i have been thinking that the harry potter series is - in a way - similar to c.s. lewis' chronicles of narnia or j.r.r. tolkien's lord of the rings. it's amazing to look at the world created by j.k. rowling (pronounced rolling) and to see how complete it is. what amazes me the most is that all my questions were answered with book 7, but i'm sure we'll both read the series again (probably not as quickly as we did this last time). i look forward to reading these books to our kids.

hope you have a chance to read the harry potter series if you haven't already!

harry potter

we are both harry potter junkies. we admit it openly. as you can see, the final book of the harry potter series comes out in roughly 36 days. a few months ago spencer came into our room one morning while i was sleeping. he woke me up and told me to "guess when harry potter 7 comes out!" knowing it was coming out in july (don't ask me how i knew) and knowing spencer's excitement i said, "on my birthday." "yes!" spencer answered, "happy birthday, honey!" spencer was (and i'm sure is) much more excited than i am. i am very excited for the next and final book, but it was so fun to see spencer so excited. we decided that for my birthday i would be the one to go pick up the book from costco and i could decide when to come home that day. spencer has been willing to let me read to my heart's content. since then we decided we would order the book from amazon. they guarantee delivery on july 21 (i think before or by noon). they also guarantee the lowest price until july 21. we've already received notice that the price has gone down once since we ordered. i'm not sure i want to use my birthday present on reading harry potter 7 as long as i want, especially because it's so fun reading it together.

when book 6 came out we went to barnes & noble at midnight to get it. on the way home i started reading out loud. we went on to read together for a few more chapters. then, on our way to lake powell a couple of days later, i read out loud to spencer again. once on the house boat we had to read silently together. there were 3 or 4 other people reading all at different paces. we had a great time sharing that with each other - especially toward the end when we would stop and look at each other and re-read certain sections. because of how much fun it was to read it together and talk about it after, i don't think i will read it on my own first. we'll see how it goes.

two or three months ago we re-read books 5 and 6 in preparation for number 7. unfortunately that was too early to read those. there was way too much time left. spencer started reading over at number 1. i was busy reading another book, so it took me a little longer to start again. it worked out well for spencer to have a head start so we weren't trying to read the same book. spencer has made it back to book 6 already and is going strong. i am currently on book 2. that's the only one we've had to check out from the library. we have all the others here. at the library yesterday, the only copy they had checked in was their large print edition. i may go blind reading it, but it'll be worth it, right? who knows if i'll make it through book 6 again, but it will be fun trying.