On Sunday afternoon we went on a quintessential Colorado outing to the Garden of the Gods, a public park located just outside of Colorado Springs. With the kids in tow, hard core hiking isn't possible, so we are keen on identifying places that qualify as "a walk" but are still fun for the grown-ups. Garden of the Gods fits the bill perfectly: incredible natural beauty that is completely accessible to everyone!
...and we ended the day with clear, blue skies.
Maybe you noticed it, but the final Harry Potter movie was released this month. In the run-up to this blockbuster event, there were myriad behind the scenes, character overviews, plot reviews and uncountable conversations with friends. Anyway, during one marathon of HP extras, I kept hearing one of the most memorable quotes of the first film. When Hagrid tells Harry that he's a wizard, Harry replies, "But I'm just Harry." As Hagrid's reply indicates, nothing could be farther from the truth.
I was drawn into the wizarding world in late 2000, when a group of friends selected Sorcerer's Stone for a book club read. I flew through that one and the two subsequent books, catching up with the books' release dates. Joker and I stood in line at midnight for one of them; we've bought two copies of every one of them so that neither had to be second to read it.
The books excited generations of readers. Kids who hadn't picked up a book before were now voraciously tearing through thousands of pages. From my middle-school cousins to an octogenarian great aunt, hundreds of people I knew ranged from casual readers to completely obsessed.
Then the movies came out. Casting of the kids was perfect, but the secondary and tertiary characters... wow. Talk about a who's who of British actors! Major stars from screen and stage were called in to portray Harry's friends and foes, and they all brought their A games.
I took my own magic wand (a replica of Hermione's, if you're wondering) to see the final film. It was amazing. I cried from the get-go. Like, from the first time I saw the first trailer until the end of the movie over a year later. But it had nothing on the sobbing that happened when I read of Sirius's death, or that of Dumbledore. I cried when I finished the last book (and the last movie) because I knew I'd miss my friends. The Harry Potter series is so much more than just a bunch of movies and books. It really is magic.
We are finally settled - more or less - in our new house in Evergreen, which is a small town about half an hour west of Denver. It smells like the mountains, looks like the mountains, feels like the mountains so it can probably be considered to be a mountain town. Our view is of the mountains and the big, wide Colorado sky, and we have hummingbirds and deer and elk right in our yard on a daily basis. We finally have internet connectivity, which means I can return focus to two heretofore ignored pursuits: blogging and looking for a job.
Back to parenting for now, but I have a few posts waiting in the wings... stay tuned; my online yet unemployed self has much wit and wisdom to share!
