'Arry Pott'r

 I'm takin' a break from the Holiday jabber to rehash some vacation fun.

Admittedly I'm a big dork over Harry Potter.  I'm sure you could've figured that out after seeing this year's Halloween costumes.  But seriously Harry Potter was so well written and just delightfully done that I can't wait to read it to my future kids.  It's just a damn good book.

(the broom ride is inside and you can walk thru most of the castle on your way to the ride it's really cool)

This year I had my Hogwarts dreams fulfilled and we got to visit the theme park at Universal Studios.  It's alot smaller than you'd think it would be, kind of crammed into one end of the park, but they did an amazing job on recreating the look and feel of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts.

Even Honeydukes was packed with just about every candy they had in the book, though I was disappointed with the Chocolate Frogs it was still bright and lively inside.

I sampled the Pumpkin Juice.

and decide the stuff that's fresh from the tap was better.  Yes, they have Pumpkin Juice on tap and it's actually VERY good.  I must say though I think a Harry Potter themed park would've done better further North.  It felt weird to be walking thru snow covered streets with tourists in shorts and tank tops with temps in the low 90's.  They had random walking performers stop and do short "meet and greets".  I missed the "Toad Choir" by about 15 minutes but managed to see the Beauxbaxtons.

Ollivander's wand shop even did limited wand castings in which Ollivander himself picked out one person to fit a wand to.  It was very neat, though the wait was insane.

All in all it was a fine time walking thru it all.  I'm glad we went.  Summer vacations always seem so far away once the season turns colder.  Do you remember your favorite summer trip?

Name that Fern!

 I need your help in naming this fern.  I totally forgot what it was called, but it's absolutely the coolest thing I've seen a plant do outside a Venus Flytrap. This plant was in our Behind the Seeds Tour at Epcot.

The guide joked with us that she has one at home and when new guests arrive she likes to show off her fern.  As the guests are ooo-ing and ahh-ing over it's neato defense system she'll bump the table and the whole plant with contract ALL of it's itty bitty leaves at once.  The guide then likes to tease the new dinner guests by telling them they've killed her plant.  Of course it's not really dead and the plant will open itself back up in a matter of minutes.  Spurred on by this news 3 younger boys in our group promptly gave the potted fern a good shake and made it wilt before our eyes.

Boys will be boys.

Behind the Seeds Tour

Of all the things we did on vacation this was probably my second favorite (sorry but Harry Potter was just too cool)  The "Behind the Seeds Tour" at Epcot basically went "behind the scenes" of their hydroponic gardening center and let us release ladybugs, eat hydroponic veggies and generally look in awe at all the bare rooted, MASSIVE plants growing around us.

All the while asking questions about how the systems work, what's actually in their hydro solution and how you can build your own hydroponic garden at home.  If you want to do anything extra at Disney it always costs more, but because of that the groups are usually smaller and definitely more intimate.

There were so many unusual things going on, not to mention the reDORKulous size of the fruit and veggies.  As it was all inside a giant greenhouse they had fans to circulate the moist air.  The outside walls were lined with corrugated cardboard which trapped the moisture the fans were pulling out of the greenhouses and that water would drip into a tray and off to a holding tank where it would be recycled back into the whole system.  Pretty spiffy, eh?

Even more amazing were how fast the plants grew in a soil-less environment.  Pepper plants were literally maturing within 2 months if not less.  Lettuces were ready for harvest in a matter of weeks.  It's so low tech it's high tech.  I've seen hydroponic gardens done with 2 liter pop bottles on a PVC frame, but this place was on a whole other level.

I wouldn't mind working in a place like that, you'd learn so much, but I don't tolerate Florida heat that well and I burn too easily.  C'est la vie.

A Trip and A Half

Last week we went to the "Happiest Place on Earth".  

While I would beg to differ on the title of "happiest place" it was definitely a different sort of place.  We haven't been on a vacation since our honeymoon in Charleston so it was time we went out of state for a change. We also jumped over to Universal Studios for two days so we could geek out at Hogwarts.

I'll be talking a little more about each place once I've settled back into a "normal" schedule again.

Some days were better than others.

High Five to the Weekend

The weekend was awesome.  I danced, but not so much as to be foolish.  I drank, but not so much as to be drunk.  And I ate and shopped and learned and laughed.  I smiled till my face hurt.

Between the drinking

 the shopping

the Viking crafters

the bagpipers and musicians

and audience participation

I really can't decide what was my favorite part.  But this festival is one I get so excited about and look forward to every year and always will.  It's well thought out, the music acts change nearly every year and it continues to really honor the Irish heritage of the city thru cultural exhibits and demonstrations that are beyond amazing. Like they say "the Dublin Irish Festival is like Ireland, only smaller".  I can't imagine next year as it will be their 25th Anniversary and I'm sure all the stops will be pulled out!

Till next year Dublin!

Adventures

Back in May of this year (2010) Chris' dad and step-mom flew us out
to the middle of the desert...aka Arizona....
about 10 miles from Tombstone....
and give or take 25 miles from the Border....

(that little stretch glimmering there is Tombstone. Wave Howdy)

I didn't really like the desert. I'm not a "hot n' dry" kinda gal.

I like my moisture. I like grass. I'm not a fan of things that poke or
choking dust.

Tombstone was small. Very small. It's not hard to imagine cowboys and
gunslingers shuffling up to the bars there
and getting rowdy drunk. It IS the middle of nowhere.

But then there's the sad fact that it's entirely done up for the tourists.
So some of the magic is lost. SOME, but not all of it.
If you look really hard you can find some pretty great things where you
least expect it.

(Sheriff Armadillo as seen in a tourist shop in Tombstone)

A Reprive: Charleston Flowers

For Christmas we got rain, lots of windswept, sideways rain. In many ways it reminded me of our honeymoon :lol: Seems like this year is just a wash, literally. Unfortunately between all the running around we did over the last 4 days I did not bother to take my camera because honestly it's one more thing to cart around. I can not wait till I can convince Chris that we only need to go to 2 family events for the Holidays, not 8.

In any case here's something to cheer you up if where you're at happens to be a bit dull and grey right now :)
This was snapped at the Boone Hall Plantation. It was a very wet and chilly day, but it made for a vibrant picture.




I hope to have some more crafty pictures up in the coming week :) It's going to be very busy for me since I have some rare down time from the 9-5.

A Reprive: Charleston Vegitation?

Charleston, with it's temperate climate is different. It's wetter, milder and downright odd. I found more fungi in Charleston than I ever did in any mid-Ohio backwood.



And there are ferns everywhere. It felt primeval. Marshy, bog-like, moist....well moist because it also rained alot on all of our outdoor treks. (I secretly hate the word 'moist').

But this was my favorite fungus. I have no idea what kind it is, but it's cool.

A Reprive: Charleston Ironworks

I didn't really talk a whole lot about our Honeymoon to Charleston, SC, so I'd thought instead I'd share some of the best pictures (that I have) of our trip to the south.

Charleston has a real obsession with iron. Very ornamental iron. It's on every single house that lines the inner city. I think what amazed me the most was the symmetry of each piece. Perfect symmetry is one of the most catching things to anyone's eye.









But the most interesting find was this gothic goat head door knocker.

I love it. Maybe because it seems devilish. Charleston has over 100 active congregations in the "Holy City" so finding this piece of work makes me curious about the darker side of Charleston.

We Be Home!

I like to travel, but no one ever seems to really mention the relative exhaustion that follows short and long trips. Hence why I'm home today and not at work. Though "work" is a relative term in my world.

We took the weekend to skip up to Oregon, IL for a kitemaker's retreat, aptly called MAKR (Midwest Area Kitemaker's Retreat). It's mostly filled with middle aged kite builders who come in from all over the place looking for a good food, a good time and new kite building techniques.
Chris was teaching a class at this year's retreat so we got to go for free which was AWESOME because with the wedding and all anything free seems like a real blessing ^_^ He was teach the build for a kite called a Platz Glider, which is a "zero wind" kite. This just means it can be flown with no wind or flown indoors. It's incredibly light weight and still amazes people with it's ability to fly. Chris modified the plans a bit, but it's based off a German design. A quick search on Google for "Platz Glider" will pull up some interesting facts and a few pictures of Chris himself.

I made one simple kite myself out of recycled plastic bags and spent the rest of the time taking pictures.
Cliff helps Ross cut a bit of the end of his Marconi kite. Ripstop can be cut and sealed using a hot cutter. The picture really didn't capture the smoke rising up, but trust me it gets plenty hot.



Teeny little paper cranes, handmade by a guy named Andy. He had these hanging from his thread spool holder. Each crane decreased in size 1/4" ! He gave me a little gold one since I loved them so much ^_^









There was an abundance of wildlife in the area. Even the finches are starting to shed their winter colors for their bright yellow.


We finally packed up and headed out around 2:30pm central time, since we lose an hour going back home we didn't arrive back till 10:30pm eastern. Not bad. We discovered on our trip back that both Illinois and Indiana seem to be covered with wind generators. You have to go off the beaten path to find them, but there's whole colonies of these things out in the country. They seemed almost sci-fi with their gigantic blades.