For the past 2 years I have taken our kids camping by myself while Matt worked.  Finally after being married for 9.5 years and having 2 kids, Matt joined us on a camping trip!

"We are a happy family"

Mason loved playing with our friend's dog

Kids enjoying nature

Talking to friends around the camp fire

5 families that all went camping together

Thanks to our friends who planned this trip and invited us to tag-a-long.

In our church we get baptized at the age of 8 or older.  This year Kalani turned 8 and was baptized by her father.

Dressed in white and ready to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized

Our beautiful girl in now 8 years old

8 fun facts about Kalani:

-loves to swim

-loves to play with Legos and really likes the new Lego Ninjago sets

-cries when she has to wear jeans and pull her hair back for her choir performances

-loves to read about her interests on Wikipedia 

-wears the same dress to church every week…although she has others to choose from

-makes friends easily even while we are traveling

-loves to cuddle with her parents

-hates having her brother play in her room and getting into her things

The beginning of 2011 Kalani got really into Harry Potter.  We made a deal with her that if she would read all 7 of the Harry Potter books we would treat her to a trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida.  And Matt had an even better idea to have it be a mother/daughter trip.  We loved seeing her carrying a book around and even staying up late to read.  It took her a year to complete, but that isn’t too bad considering she was 7 years old!

Harry Potter World is only 1 out of 6 areas of the Island Adventure theme park.  We spent half a day on Monday and all day on Tuesday at the park.  Since we went towards the end of April the crowd wasn’t too bad…a benefit of homeschooling!  I really liked that they have “child swap” areas so Kalani could wait for me while I rode a ride that she didn’t want to ride or was too short to ride.

Howarts Castle...Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride is inside

The Hogwart's Express and conductor

Hogsmeade had a bunch of chocolate frogs for purchase...with a trading card inside

Kalani loved getting her own chocolate frog...it wasn't a "jumper"

Enjoying Butter Beer; they had regular and frozen...we tried both!

Triwizard Spirit Rally Characters

Water Taxi from our hotel to the theme park

I realized 2 days before we were leaving that I forgot to book a hotel for us.  So I went with one that Universal Studio recommends: Loews Royal Pacific Resort.  It was a bit expensive, but with our room card we got to the front of the line on nearly all the rides.  I don’t know if Kalani would have handled standing in lines longer than 10 minutes and I wanted to have a good time.  Also we were able to go into the park an hour before the general public was allowed.  Kalani loved the pool that was at the hotel and made friends with some other kids there.  They even showed Thor on a screen while Kalani was swimming.  Overall it was a pretty great trip.  I asked Kalani what she thought of our vacation and she said, “AWESOME!”

More photos here

Months ago Kalani got into Harry Potter. It all started with her getting Lego Harry Potter video game for her birthday day. She started to watch the movies and talking about it with my sister. Finally we got her to start to read the books. She has wanted me to throw her a Harry Potter party for a few months, but I just kept putting it off. We had some pretty fun vacations I wanted to enjoy before I thought about having a party.

Finally the vacations came to an end and I had time on my hands. I googled “Harry Potter party ideas” and my search gave me LOADS of ideas. I couldn’t do everything that I saw or read about, but I did do a lot. We had around 30 people attend and I think everyone had a good time…even the parents.

"A Magical Day" sign on our garage

They had to run through the "brick wall" to find the correct platform

Sign on our front door

Professor McGonagall had to give some instructions to all of the 1st years

The sorting hat told everyone which house they belonged to

Everyone got to choose their own wands

Each house had their own class schedule

They all practiced spells using their wands

Potions class

Mixing the ingredients to see if they made "Goblin Goo"

Our bearded dragon was part of the Magical Creatures class

Everyone hatched their own dragon egg and inside the slim was a baby dragon (dinosaur)

The Magic 8 ball was used for Divination (the art of fortune telling)

Everyone went home with one of these "fortune tellers"

Transfiguration class = dress up class. A witch, wizard and house elf

End of year feast in the Great Hall

Dragon Snot

Butterbeer

Everyone enjoying the feast

We also played my version of quidditch, but because it is so hot outside we didn’t play for very long. I had a lot of fun hosting this party. I don’t know if I will take the advice of one of the students and have a party every year though.

We have had a busy summer. It seems like something was going on every week.

First off was Girls Camp. I was the camp director for about 28 girls from our church that were between 12-17 years old. Camping in Texas is different. It is hot, humid and you have to worry about hurricanes. And to get to any location where there is water or hills is FAR from Houston…like 5 hours away far. We planned and planned and then things changed. Then we planned some more. It all turned out really well and I was happy to be able to teach these young women and get to know them better.

While I was at girls camp, Matt had a work trip to the Philippines. He thoroughly enjoyed himself and wants to go back. He already has a post about his trip here.

Then Matt returned home for a day before he left to Florida for a conference.

The following week we had some friends from California come to visit for a few days. We would love it if they would move here so we could see them more often.

The last week of June we flew to California for a Farley family reunion. It was great to see our extended family again and Kalani really loved being around a bunch of cousins her age.

These cousins are all about the same age

Grandma & Grandpa with most of their grandkids

Grandma & Grandpa with most of their great-grandkids

The month of July has been a little bit calmer…at least not needing to be in the car for hours or take an airplane. I watched my cousins for a week while their parents attended a funeral in Utah. And I was busy planning a super fun Harry Potter party and decorating for a couple of weddings.

One more trip for me this summer and then we start back into school, co-op, gymnastics or swimming, choir, art, book club, and any other fun activity that we can schedule in. And I also have the great blessing of being the young women president over 30 girls ages 12-18 in our church. My life is busy. I may go crazy. But I’ll have fun going crazy!