Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

It's my 30th birthday today!!! Brandon and I made it back from Orlando yesterday and much to my surprise, I had quite a bit of fun. The heat wave took a toll on us over the weekend and I think perhaps I'm getting a bit too old to be running around theme parks in July, but we had fun nonetheless. It was great getting to see my whole family again. After spending the day at Sea World with my sister and nephew, the entire family (22 of us) ate at a restaurant and celebrated all the July birthdays we have in our family (though it was mostly for me and my grandmother). My grandmother got a July 4th-themed cake and mine was, you guessed it, Harry Potter!! It turned out to be a great night but unfortunately I was too distracted to take many pictures so I'll have to wait on family members to send me some.

We had a blast going to Islands of Adventure to see the new Harry Potter theme park. We arrived first thing in the morning so the lines through the famed Forbidden Journey ride were quite short, less than 20 minutes. Let me point out that Brandon and I have been married almost 4 years and we've never been to a theme park together. Therefore we've never ridden a roller coaster together. Therefore he didn't know that I'm a screamer. I was expecting the Forbidden Journey ride to be like a 4D simulator ride and it was, but it was also alot like a roller coaster. So I screamed the whole time. And of course they snap your picture during the ride, which didn't occur to me till the flash went off. And what resulted was (in Brandon's opinion) the funniest picture he'd ever seen (click for a better view).

In my defense, this picture was taken during the part of the ride (spoiler alert!) that takes you through the Forbidden Forest and among the spiders. I.hate.spiders. But then again, since I screamed during the entire ride this picture probably would have turned out the same no matter when the photo was shot. Oh well.

I wish I had gone on the ride again immediately after getting off. By the time I decided I wanted to go again the wait time was over an hour, so I decided not to. Everything else was extremely crowded, all the shops were packed full of people and the wait line to get into Ollivander's Wand Shop was over an hour as well. I ate at the Three Broomsticks with my family, sampled the butterbeer which tastes a bit like cream soda, and tried the pumpkin juice which has a cinnamony/spicy taste, almost like liquid pumpkin pie. The Three Broomsticks actually had a traditional English breaksfast meal so Brandon and I were able to reminisce about our lovely breakfasts from Ireland. I went shopping in Honeydukes and Zonko's Joke Shop, buying myself an enormous Chocolate Frog which even came with a trading card (I got Rowena Ravenclaw).

The rest of Islands of Adventure was a tad boring and we didn't stay the whole day. That afternoon a smaller group of us went to the T-Rex restaurant in downtown Disney. While we were there I noticed a couple sitting next to us in a large round booth....with 4 car seats. One of them had a blanket covering it and Brandon thought it was a backpack but I knew it wasn't. I couldn't believe someone with infant quads would go to a place like the T-Rex, especially when they weren't even old enough to sit up on their own. It's not exactly a cheap place and it was sweltering hot outside. But to each his own.

After dinner Brandon and I considered driving by Ripley's to touch the "real" fertility statues but I was too tired/lazy to go there so we just skipped it.

But I'm sure you guys are reading this post for other reasons, mainly my Harry Potter Birthday Giveaway! I really wanted to include a Chocolate Frog as part of my giveaway but unofrtunately it's July and it wouldn't last in the mail. But I should point out that my Chocolate Frog is oh.so.delicious.

So I had to pick some equally cool stuff for my awesome readers. The first is the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 dvd. My second item is a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans (and they mean every flavor). And the third item in my giveaway is a bottle of U-No-Poo from Weasley's Wizard Wheezies which, from my observation, seems to be a popular candy that begins with M and ends with M.

HOW TO WIN:

Open to residents worldwide. Each entry must be left in a separate comment, otherwise it will only count as one entry. If your entry is not linked to a Google account please be sure to leave a valid email address along with your entry. If the winner does not respond after 48 hours a new winner will be chosen.

Mandatory Entry

Leave a comment stating who your favorite Harry Potter character is. **You must do this entry first or all other entries will be deleted!**

Additional Entries
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2) Blog about my giveaway and leave your link in the comment field
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Entries will be accepted through midnight EST on Saturday August 6, 2011. A winner will be selected on Sunday the 7th.. Good luck to all!