Harry Potter Mania

Most people know we are HUGE Harry Potter fans, so with the movie and book coming out this last month, you may guess that it's been Harry Potter mania around here. The movie "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" was rated PG13 so Joshua and I went to see it on opening night without the kids. It had a modest amount of tense and scary moments, but Spencer and Jessica were eager to see the movie too, so we took them a few days later since we figured they could probably handle it. Alex and Logan don't mind waiting until we buy it on DVD. They've done that with all the other Harry Potter movies and don't know any different. Most of the information goes over their heads anyway, but they enjoy sitting and watching the movies with us here at home. They consider themselves big Harry Potter fans too.

Spencer has read all the books, finishing the sixth one, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" last week and just in time for the weekend release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Josh has read all the books around 4 or 5 times, with the exception of the most recent one of course. Because he read the books so many times, I believe he sparked Spencer's interest in reading them too. They each have their own set of books. Don't know why we must have two sets, but we do. Spencer has been nice enough to let Jessica borrow his books. She just started reading the second one, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."

Okay, Yes---We admit to being in line on Friday night at midnight to buy "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". Our "Meijer" store had a good promotion on the book -- It was on sale for $19.99 but if you bought an extra $30 worth of merchandise between midnight and 6 am, they would take $7 off the book, making it only $12.99! I called around to other stores and most were selling it for around $26.99. So, Joshua and I came up with a plan. We got to Meijer at 10:45, and while Joshua, Spencer and his friend Chandler (who was spending the night with us) stood in line for the book, I did some grocery shopping. They were actually pretty close to the front of the line. But as I did my shopping, the line grew very quickly. By midnight, there were people wrapped around the store! Meijer was crawling with more people than I had ever seen there before. It was definitely a party atmosphere---Meijer was handing out prizes, refreshments and had games for the kids. They even had a costume contest. I tried to get Spencer to dress up in his Harry Potter costume from Halloween last year, but he was too embarrassed. I think someone dressed as Hagrid won "best costume".

When I was done with my shopping, I met them back in line and we split the groceries in two baskets, with at least $30 worth in each basket. At 12:01, the line started moving as the employees began passing the new Harry Potter books out. Both Spencer and Joshua picked up a book at the front of the line. Then Joshua took his basket and I took mine and we went to the front of the store to buy our merchandise. We thought we were pretty clever getting $7 off each book, as did other people who watched us split our groceries. One person told me they wished they would've thought of doing that.

Joshua started reading as soon as we got home and read until 4:00 am. He continued to read all day Saturday and was done by Saturday night---with all 37 chapters, 759 pages! He is a speed reader! He said it was really good book. I'll probably read it someday too but I don't read as fast as Joshua. I'm a slow reader. Spencer is already on chapter 9 and loves it already. He'll read about 2 or 3 hours a day. At this rate, I'm sure he'll finish in a few weeks.