Will's Harry Potter Party

We celebrated Will's 10th birthday on Saturday with a bewitching Harry Potter party. Six of his favorite friends rode the Hogwarts Express to the school in order to find out if they had what it takes to become wizards.

Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!

As students arrived, they were greeted by Professor Friedrich von Fizzle, Adjunct Professor Emeritus of Hogwarts and Director of Muggle Outreach. 

The muggle students were led through a series of classes to see if they could hack it at Hogwarts. The first class was Divination, where they attempted to tell their future.

Each student was given a cup of ice (with a dollop of gel food coloring on the bottom), and bubbling liquid (carbonated water) was poured on top. As they concentrated on the cup, the liquid changed color, revealing their future.

Will's liquid turned green, which means he will have a peaceful, long life.

Henry's turned blue, indicating that he will be a famous Quidditch player!

The next class was Herbology, which took them outside to plant mandrakes (basil seeds).  

Back inside, they headed to Care of Magical Creatures. Hagrid was supposed to come lead the class, but instead, he left a note indicating that the magical creatures had escaped. The kids were directed via clues to find all sorts of creatures, from the basilisk (hiding in the oven) to the owl on the piano. 

Professor von Fizzle had some trouble keeping the magical creatures in the bin once they were found!

 

The fourth class was everyone's favorite: Potions!

The first potion was the Bubbling Truth Serum, which forces a person to tell the truth. 

The students combined leech juice (a mixture of water, purple food coloring and some dish soap), crushed jabberknoll feathers (baking soda) and horklump juice (vinegar) to create a bubbly brew.

Our second potion was the Wiggenwald potion,which awakens a person from a magically-induced sleep. The instuctions called for mixing flobberworm mucus (glue) with honey water (plain water), salamander blood (green food coloring) and liquid lionfish spines (borax and water mixture). The result was green slime! 

The students' final class was the most challenging. In Defense Against the Dark Arts, they had to fight a dementor!

It took every single one of them, but they defeated the evil creature.

After some difficult work in their classes, the boys enjoyed snacks, including popcorn, crisps, raspberries, and these chocolate-covered wands.  

The boys all passed their tests and were relieved to be admitted to Hogwarts. Once admitted, they needed to be sorted, of course! They put on the sorting hat, which directed them to choose the cupcake of their future house. 

Sorting: Will and Henry both ended up in Gryffindor!

We all sang Happy Birthday to Will (10!!)

and then played some Harry Potter trivia. 

Hands and eyeballs were given out as prizes.

And as the boys departed, they stopped by Ollivander's for wands. "The wand chooses the wizard..."

What a magical way to celebrate Will's 10th birthday! 

Cruise to Cozumel

We just returned from a quick four-day cruise down to Cozumel, Mexico. My parents love cruising and one day we'd like to do a longer cruise (to someplace like Alaska) with them, but motion sickness is a big concern in our family, so we opted to do a trial cruise out of Galveston this summer. We booked a balcony room on the Carnival Liberty and headed down to Mexico! 

We left last Thursday, but first we puttered around in Galveston. We discovered the brand new Galveston Coffee Roasters, had lunch at Star Drug Store (the oldest drugstore in Texas) and poked around a used bookstore before having ice cream at LaKing's (traditions, y'all!).  

These boys were so excited about the cruise!

View of the Elissa from the ship

Celebratory drinks when we left port

Coast Guard ship 

Tanker

The pilot boat was right under our balcony and we watched the pilot step out onto the pilot boat when we left the bay!

Sunset on our first night

On our first sea day, Gene and the boys went to the pool, the kids went to a magic show in Camp Ocean (kids camp), and we played family bingo.  

Elegant dinner night

On Saturday, we arrived in Cozumel and disembarked. The Carnival Liberty is a big ship!

Our shore excursion took us to Isla Pasion, a private island. 

It was beautiful and the boys had so much fun playing on the beach.

View from the catamaran on the way back to Cozumel

Sea Day 2: We didn't opt for the Dr. Seuss breakfast, but that didn't stop the boys from posing in the cut-out of Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Our big morning adventure was learning how to make towel art. We made a sting ray, a puppy dog, and an elephant (named Toots). After learning how to fold the towels, we watched a cute play in which the towel animals came to life.

Brunch in the Silver Olympian dining room

A view from the deck

The boys spent a couple of hours at Camp Ocean, playing bingo and watching a movie while Gene and I wandered around the ship. They missed the chocolate extravaganza on the Lido deck, so we brought chocolate goodies back to the room for them. 

They played a couple of rounds of miniature golf before dinner.

We all looked forward to our evening dinner in the Golden Olympian dining room. We had the best waiters and we enjoyed the food (we even tried frog legs!). The first night, the boys were given kids' menus, but they almost always order off the main menu, so our waiters just brought them the regular menu from then on. Henry tried the mango cream, a chilled mango soup, on the last night and it was so good! He's making a funny face here because his soup is missing!

Mango cream

We ate four plates of mussels! Our waiters saw how much the boys enjoyed them and just kept bringing them.

Gene captured me dancing to the music.

Magic show 

And just like that, our four days of cruising came to an end and we were back in Galveston, passing the Elissa once again.

Our trial cruise was a big success! The boys absolutely loved being on a cruise ship, motion sickness was managed, and we all enjoyed the ease of travel by water.