The Chamber of Secrets

Andrew felt that food wasn't enough to make a Harry Potter party realistic... He recreated one of the greatest scenes in the history of Harry Potter using only tarps, a hill, water, and a lot of dish soap: The Chamber of Secrets. While nobody died, there was quite a lot of running and sliding in magical, colorful suits.

Food, Glorious Food

Jess and I put our heads together during Harry Potter weekend to further extend Jess's idea of hosting a Harry Potter feast. We came up with quite a few ideas (although we couldn't think of any use for marshmallows). Although I must say that the food looked pretty realistic, we couldn't afford real dragon snot and had to substitute with Grandma Wiley's punch. The spider was cheese, black olive slices, and peppers. The dragon teeth were triangular Triscut crackers. The basilisk eyes were deviled eggs with black olive pupils. The Aragog web was maple cotton candy (thanks to the Youngs). The herbology trays were plain old fruits and vegetables, and Grawp droppings was chocolate fruit dip. Mandrake Pus was ranch veggie dip, and the violet ink was sour cream. Pumpkin Paties were actually miniature pumpkin pies, and the stink sap was applesauce. Flesh-eating slug repellent was multi olored Gobstoppers, and Bertie Bott's every flavor beans were what their name indicates. Edible golden snitches were none other than yellow gobstoppers, and the wands were twisted cheese sticks from trader joe's. The Fortress du Fromage was a lot of cubed cheese and some toothpicks. And that was just the food...

Midnight Party

Jess came to the Landry's house for the weekend, and on the night of Friday the 20th, after viewing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Jess, Jenny, Jasmine, and Olivia attended the midnight party for the release of the last Harry Potter book- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. At this point in time, I have finished the book, Jenny has read the first chapter, and Olivia has read the first three chapters. Jess is almost halfway through it. How far are you????? (This is a question aimed at chatty people, because I desperately need to talk to someone about CERTAIN PARTS of the book.)





That last one is the next morning... reading feverishly... (I was up until 2 a.m., and you wonder why we look exhausted?)

Olivia's Camp Play

For the past two weeks, Olivia has been attending a multi-arts day camp, and at the end, they performed a play, titled "A Piece of Pie," I believe. They also performed some flamenco dancing and wore lots of makeup.

NEW HAIRRRRR!

As you know, my hair is... perhaps extraordinarily long and thick. So long and thick, actually, that I chopped it all off (well actually only a foot) and had it layered. The thick stuff leftover is sitting on a bag on the kitchen counter... waiting to be sent off to locks of love. Check it out!

Horseback Riding

The Wiley kids are currently participating in Kamp Katie (notice the K in Kamp, doesn't it look nice!?), and so the Wileys, Youngs, and Landrys (along with Jess, Katie, and all the parents) went on a horseback riding excursion. Sage, Georgia, Emma, Kenzie, Olivia, Jess and I went on a trail ride (resulting in very bruised bums), while Ben and Cooper rode ponies in the arena. Picture time!

New Blog

Okay everyone, I know this may come as a bit of a shock, but I have changed the location of our blog because I am having 'issues', which I will not go into deeply, with freewebs.com. A.K.A., anything I type now comes out in Chinese characters or just doesn't type at all. Let's just say I wasn't feeling particularly patient and decided to switch to blogspot. So here we are. Welcome to version #2 of the Wiley Family Blogger.