Harry Potter Party

Time flew by this October! Ammon and I were planning on having the Powell kids over for a sleepover BEFORE Halloween, but it ended up happening the day after. Oh well. It just meant we didn't need to buy as much candy!

I took the Hogwarts Letter and the List of Supplies and rolled them together. I also printed off on cardstock some owls. I tied the rolled up letters onto the feet of the owls - you know, so it looked like the owls were delivering the lettters ;) While we were at Grandma Dietz's house, I went outside and hung one above each child's seat, so that when they went out to the car, they'd have their own owl waiting to deliver their Hogwarts letter to them! Melissa said they went so crazy because they were so excited. There was a debate among the kids as to whether they were going to the REAL Hogwarts, or to Ammon and Allison's house! Avri is such a crack-up when it comes to Harry Potter. Believing in Harry Potter is like believing in Santa Clause for her. She was SO positive they were going to the REAL Hogwarts!

The evening started off when we reviewed how House Points work. You can get them by being good and by answering questions, but if you're too noisy or if you're not being nice, they could be taken away. Of course, we had rubies (printed on cardstock) since that is what Gryffindor uses! Avri asked me how many rubies they had to earn and what the prize was; good thing I use to be a teacher, thinking on my feet with questions like that come fairly easily. They had to earn 20 rubies to be able to watch the movie.

We were watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, so we planned the activities based off of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

We went outside where we had a golden egg (ball of caramel corn wrapped in plastic wrap so we could eat it later)and each child took turns being a dragon guarding the egg, and the one trying to get it before the dragon tagged them. Successfully getting the egg = 1 ruby

Next, instead of going swimming in a lake searching for their best friends, we bobbed for apples! I wasn't sure how well the kids would like this, but they absolutely LOVED it! It might have helped that we used warm water. They all wanted to keep playing this game over and over! Getting the apple = 1 ruby (which they earned a lot of rubies because they wanted to keep playing...)

Although we proved our green thumb abilities with our garden this past summer, we weren't feeling up to the task of growing shrubs into a maze. So instead we practiced for going into the maze. I had made a simple question game on PowerPoint using their Charms knowledge. Just simple questions about different charms/spells. 1 correctly answered question = 1 ruby. I asked Avri before we started if she wanted to be on her own team, or if she wanted it to be 2 kids vs 2 kids. She chose to have Rigdon on her team, because then it would be like she was on her own team. So Ammon helped out Sadie and Talmage (only a little). Although throughout the game she kept saying it wasn't fair because occasionally Ammon was helping Talmage and Sadie, I think she answered more questions correctly! Lol!

We counted up the rubies they had earned, they had earned almost 30(phew!)! If they hadn't earned 20, I'm not sure what I would have done next, because I was planning on watching the movie! During the movie we snacked on caramel corn; and about half way through the movie we took a break to have some ButterBeer. I made it out of slushy cream soda and coolwhip that had butterscotch flavor in it. We drank it in The Great Hall which I decorated with floating candles and pumpkins! It added a really fun touch! Talmage was funny because after drinking his first glass, he asked for "more beer, but no butter." A few weeks later Rigdon asked me, "Remember when we drank beer at your house?" I just started cracking up laughing because I can only imagine him in nursery at church telling how his Aunt Allison gives him beer...I reminded him that it was really just soda pop.

After the movie, it was super late, so we quickly got ready for bed and went to sleep! In the morning we had "Quiditch Pancakes" for breakfast. I made yellow pancakes that had wings coming out of them for the Snitches and then the kids wanted all the different balls that are used in Quiditch so we also made Quaffals and Bludgers!

It was another successful and SO much fun party!!

3rd Anniversary

Since we had already gone on a nice "anniversary trip" to Washington DC, on the day of our anniversary we went out to dinner to a local steak house. It was a great evening!

Labor Day

We had an AWE-SOME Labor Day! We started off the morning with a HUGE breakfast - we all ate way too much! We had omelets in a bag, cinnamon rolls, fruit, juice, bacon, maybe some other really yummy things that I can't remember now. After breakfast, we pulled out all of our projects that are games! First we played Kickball Croquet (Kendall and Melissa's project). Then we played Cornhole (Ammon and my project). We made a BYU (Ammon's alma mater) and UVU (my alma mater) boards. Yes, that is all painted! It was hard, but we think they turned out really well! Because of how Cornhole is played, you don't really have a BYU and UVU team (both teams play on both boards), but Kendall and I are both UVU graduates, so we were the UVU team, while Ammon and Melissa both graduated from BYU and was the BYU team. I think this is the only sport that UVU and BYU play each other in (wink wink). I'm am incredible proud to say, Kendall and I represent UVU well; we won! Kendall and I went on to play the second BYU graduate team (Dad and Mom Dietz) and again, UVU won! I definitely love BYU, but I'm proud to be a UVU grad!

Next we pulled out the bows, arrows and bb gun. Then we went inside to play our balloon game (Ammon and my project). We should have taken more pictures of this project, we'll have to later. In the picture you are looking at the front of the game. When you remove the front board, you will see 25 little cubbies. At the back of each cubby is a screw (sharp so it can pop a balloon when the balloon pushes against it). Each cubby is big enough for an air-filled water balloon. Inside each balloon we put a question or something to do (example: Do 5 jumping jacks; give somebody a hug; what is your favorite season). To play the game the kids take turns throwing a bean bag at the box and if they pop a balloon, they get to answer/do what the paper said. We made this game with church teaching callings in mind. We put church related questions inside the balloons to answer.

We had a very fun Labor Day! This is not the first time we have lived by family (we lived about 10 minutes from my parents for the first 1 1/2 years of our marriage and about an hour away from Elise for a year) and we really like living by family! It makes holidays like these so much fun! Thanks for helping us have such an great Labor Day this year!

Washington DC

This past week we went to Washington DC. This was Ammon's first time in DC. Although I've been there a few times, we did some new things that I hadn't done before! We decided to drive there (instead of flying)even though we parked the car at the hotel and didn't use it almost the whole time we were there! We drove all day Monday to get there. We were offered to stay at the home of some relatives, but decided that since this was our big vacation for the year, we'd stay in a hotel. Although it's nice to save money, it's also nice that we're NOT college students anymore (meaning we can afford a hotel!) We stayed in a really nice hotel in Alexandria, VA.

Tuesday morning we packed a lunch and took our bikes into DC. It was so much fun seeing the monuments by bike! The Washington Monument is still being retrofitted, so we couldn't go up in it, but we rode by it (a few times).
We went to:
WW II Monument
Korean Monument
Lincoln Memorial
Arlington National Cemetery (we took the tram tour - so glad we did! It was very interesting!)
Iwo Jima
Vietnam Memorial
White House
Capital Building
Martin Luther King Jr Memorial
Theodore Roosevelt Memorial
Thomas Jefferson Monument
Then we rode to Union Station and ate dinner, then headed back to the hotel. By the time we got back to our hotel it was around 8:30-9pm. It was a very full and fun day!


Wednesday:
Today was another busy, packed day! We started off going to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. This was a very interesting tour! We really liked it a lot! Then we went to the Holocaust Museum. It was really good - a lot like the one in LA. Then we went to the Air and Space Museum. We only got to see a small part of it before we needed to head to the Capitol Building for our scheduled tour. After the tour we went to the Postal Museum and then to Union Station for dinner. We went to the Natural History Museum, and again only saw a small part of it. We got back to our hotel and crashed! Our feet were so tired!


Thursday:
We saw the backside of the White House. We also went into the White House Museum. We finished the Natural History Museum. Then we went to the National Archives building where we say the Declaration of Independence, Bill or Rights and the Constitution. We walked a few blocks to the Spy Museum. We were so excited to go to it because it sounded so cool! When we got there we found out it cost something like $15/person. We decided to skip it :( But we were really close to the Ford Theater, so we went there and to the house across the street where Abraham Lincoln actually died. We walked back to the American History Museum. After that we went back to the Air and Space Museum to finish it up. Then we headed back to our hotel. We changed clothes and headed to the Washington DC Temple. When we were walking into the temple, we ran in to Uncle Joel and Aunt Laurie who were also in DC on vacation! After the temple we stopped and grabbed a very late dinner.


Friday was our drive home. We had such a fun time! The museums were so wonderful - especially since they were all free! It was definitely a well-worth-it vacation!

Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory

It's that time again...time for another SLEEPOVER MOVIE PARTY!!!!

Invitations: Golden Tickets hidden inside Wonka Chocolate Bars. This was a little tricky because chocolate bars are no longer wrapped in the foil paper with a paper band around them (at least not around here!) they're all wrapped in a sealed plastic wrapper. After opening the candy bars (I used Twix, Resess, Kit Kat and Cookies & Cream) I put the golden ticket around them, wrapped them in freezer paper, then put on my Wonka paper wrapper. When I told the Powell kids I had bought them a treat, it didn't take Avri more than 30 seconds for her to say, "I think I know what this REALLY is!" Meaning she knew that it was an invitation to our next movie party :) What a smart girl!


Games:
Unwrapped: In the movie, there are factories where the workers just unwrap Wonka bar after Wonka bar looking for a golden ticket. We put the kids to the test to see how good THEY are at unwrapping candy! We used Starbursts instead of chocolate.
Suction: In the movie, the large boy falls into the chocolate river then gets sucked into a pipe. He got stuck in the pipe until the pressure built up and forced him out. We used tubes (straws) to see how well the kids could suck things up. We had squares of paper and they had to get the piece of paper from the middle of the room to their cup only using their straw - NO HANDS! Who could get the most paper in their cup?
Oompa Loompa Walk: Who can waddle like an Oompa Loompa the best? This game was tricky because you had to walk with a balloon between your legs and not drop the balloon!

Treats:
In the room where everything is edible, we had lolly pops and gummy bears.
Of COURSE we had to have Everlasting Gobstoppers!
Fizzy Lifting Drinkes were a MUST!
What is a Willy Wonka party without the CHOCOLATE!?!

Sleeping Bags and Pillows were forgotten, so Cool Uncle Ammon made a fort for the kids to sleep in. He is good at fort making! Lol! Talmage also helped with the ideas and the building. It took us a while to regulate the temperature enough in there that the kids would actually fall asleep. But they had fun with it!

Peoria Chiefs

As part of a Summer Reading program we did through the Peoria Library, we earned tickets to a Chiif's game. It was a fun FHE night!

Eggett's Come to Town

July 21-27 was RAGBRAI and my parents and Kimberly were going! On Monday I drove to meet up with them and spent the rest of the week as their driver. If you haven't ever heard of RAGBRAI, it's a HUGE bike ride (both in distance and participants) that starts on the west boarder of Iowa and ends on the east boarder of Iowa. The route changes each year, but even so, every day is anywhere from a 50 mile ride to 85 miles. And it's NOT flat. It is FULL of rolling hills! Anyways, each morning I would get up and take down both of our tents, pack everything into the car, drive to the next stop (which was more miles than the bikers because we had to take a round-about route so we weren't driving on the same roads the bikers were on). The traffic was always horrible! Then, I had find a camping spot - which proved VERY difficult on many days because of the city's lack of communication/organization. Set up the tents and camp site. Most days I had other tasks too, like going to the laundry mat to dry all of our bedding that was SOAKED the night before in a crazy rain storm, pick something up from the grocery store, etc. My family would make it to the campsite in the early afternoon. They'd shower, then we'd head into town, go into an open building and play games, or just relax. I rode one and a half days of RAGBRAI about 5 years ago, and watching my family ride it made me want to do it again! The endpoint of RAGBRAI was only 2 hours away from our house, so afterwards, my family came and stayed with us for a few days!

On Sunday we went to church and did a bunch of relaxing and visiting.

Monday we went over to East Peoria. First we went to Bass Pro Shop and did their shooting range (it's indoors and the guns shoot lasers). Afterwards we went to Costco and a couple of grocery stores to get ready for the awesome FHE we had planned for that night! Then we went home and relaxed before heading to Mark and Carrie's house to set up for FHE. Unfortunately, my dad got sick that day and missed out on the activities! For FHE we (both Dietz families, Eggetts and Powells) played water kickball. To kick the ball you stood next to home plate (a mini pool), then ran to first base where you had to sit on a bag of ice (we couldn't find ice blocks!), second base you weren't safe until you got a water balloon out of the cooler and sat on the folding chair; popping the water balloon with your butt. Third base you had to stick your nose/head into a bucket of water (we said nose because I wasn't sure if it would scare Rigdon to stick his whole head in the water - but come to find out, he LOVED sticking his whole face in the water!), then run home to the baby pool! Then we had a BBQ of Brats, Polish Sausages, Chips, Salads, Corn on the Cob, and lots of other yummy foods! Then Sadie gave us a cute lesson from the Friend.

On Tuesday, Ammon took the day off of work and we went to the CAT Museum in downtown Peoria. It was really interesting! Then we went out to eat for lunch at a restaurant that use to be a Speak Easy hidden underneath a Performing Arts Theater. Then we took a little drive through some beautiful neighborhoods. We came back to our house for a little bit then headed back out to Bass Pro Shop to go bowling at The Fish Bowl. My parent's car was making some funny noises throughout the day, so after bowling we went to Mark and Carrie's house and Mark and Ammon fixed the car.




Wednesday morning we went to the Wildlife Prairie Park and then to Safety Town for a picnic lunch. Safety town is a public park that is for bikes. It has all sorts of traffic signs/lights, lines in the road, on-ramps, off-ramps, divided roads, etc for kids to ride their bikes in.

Thursday came and my family had to leave. We had such a fun time having them here!