Kennedy Turns 11: A Magical Birthday Party

Ever since Kennedy and I read "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" when she was in kindergarten, I have dreamed of having a Harry Potter-themed party for her 11th birthday.

We started off by inviting each friend via owl. The invitations were in Hogwarts acceptance-style. When each child arrived at the party, they were given a wand. There is a great tutorial online that shows how to make personalized wands out of paper, glue and paint. I added a few embellishments that I already had on hand.

After each "student" acquired a wand, they proceeded to Platform 9 3/4. I sponged "bricks" onto some white fabric and cut a slit down the middle so they could walk through into our home.

Once all the guests had arrived, we went on adventure in the Forbidden Forest where they had their O.W.L exams. I had stations set up throughout the forest, scenes from Harry Potter, and quizzed them on their Harry Potter knowledge. 

The Unicorn-slaying Voldemort from "The Sorcerer's Stone"

The "Demenor's Kiss"

Dementor

Aragog and family

Various Potions, including a jar with a bezoar

The Penseive, complete with a glowing potion made from a highlighter and water

More potion ingredients

I didn't get a picture of it, but we had a real sorting hat that we used to sort all the girls into their houses. Funny, no one ended up in Slytherin.

The Great Hall, complete with Hermione and Harry

The Feast

Hedwig made an appearance to deliver Kennedy's birthday present during the feast: an iPod touch!

Hedwig the cupcake cake

The girls all knew their Harry Potter. After the exams and feast they watched "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". When the parents came to pick up their child I gave the party guests a chocolate frog to take home. I think the girls had fun. I know I did!

First day in Jerusalem

We spent our first day in Jerusalem visiting several, what our tour director called, "A sites." These are places where historians are sure it is the actual location mentioned in the Bible. First, was this one, the Garden of Gethsemane. A beautiful and peaceful place. 

 We also visited the Orson Hyde Memorial park, which is just up the street from the Garden. It's a beautiful park that climbs right up the hillside. Look at the view.

 

One of the gates in the wall around the Old City of Jerusalem. It had three names but I can only remember one of them. Lamb's gate. 



 

 This is not an A place. This is what Muslims do to their homes or businesses when they've accomplished the "hajj," the pilgrimage to Mecca. We saw these kinds of decorations all over as we walked through the Muslim quarter of the Old City.

 

 Here is one place where you can walk, literally, where Christ walked. In fact, they ask that you take off your shoes to do it. This is in the remains of the Roman Fortress, the Antonia, where Christ would have first taken up the cross to carry.

These are the remains of the pool of Bethesda, where Christ healed the man who was sitting by the water, waiting for someone to put him in.

 

After visiting a few other churches and such in the Old City, our last stop of the day was here.

 

Golgotha. Can you see the skulls?

 The tomb.

Some say it's an A place. Others say it's not. I don't know. It felt a lot more like the real thing than the place we visited the next day, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Maybe because it was peaceful and beautiful. Like the Garden.  

Masada and Bethlehem

Masada was originally built by Herod. He was paranoid that people were out to get him so he built a fortress at the top of a butte in the middle of nowhere. After Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, a group of zealots took refuge there. Determined not to let them get away, the Roman army laid siege to the group. In the end, they all committed suicide rather than be taken by the Romans.
We were supposed to visit Masada on the day we came into Israel but had to postpone because a big rain storm made the road impassable. Luckily the tour directors were able to squeeze it in on another day because it was a not-to-be-missed site.
This is a shot from the tram on the way to the top of the butte.

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 As you can see, we're way up there and the surrounding area is very desolate.

 

This is a water cistern. The boulders at the bottom were launched into the fortress by the Romans

Here's the ramp they built to bring up their siege engines.

 There's a pretty extensive bunch of ruins at the top. They've been restored somewhat. Can you see the black line running along the walls. Everything under the line is original.

 

This is the Roman bathhouse built by Herod. See how the floorboards sit on top of little columns. That was so they could build fires underneath the floor to heat it.  

 

 

Masada is a really fascinating place. We could have stayed here a lot longer than we did. 

 

Bethlehem, on the other hand, was a little disappointing. Not the quaint little town that you imagine. It's also in Israeli occupied Palestinian territory so we had to pass through a check point to get there. We also had to drop off our Israeli guide and pick up a Palestinian one.

 

The Catholic church likes to build churches on top of historic sites, which is what they did with the traditional birth site of Christ. In a cave under the Church of the Nativity you find this, a silver star, which supposedly marks the spot where the babe was born.

 

We went to this church, too.

I can't remember what it's called, but afterwards we gathered outside in the cloisters and sang Christmas carols. Now that was cool.

Megyn

                                             Megyn in her cute little Halloween costume.

Galilee, Part 2

 

We've got a couple of hours before we head to the airport for our flight home so I thought I'd post pictures from one more day. I'll have to catch up on the rest when we get home (if anyone's interested?)

Anyway, on our second day in Galilee we started at Capernaum. 



 

 Archeologists have been able to unearth the ruins all the way down to stones from the time of Christ. The black stones under the white were part of the synagogue where Christ preached.

 

Capernaum sits right on the shores of the Sea. It's a beautiful setting.

Next we went to a place called Tel Dan. This is where the tribe of Dan lived. There are remains from a stronghold there and this is where Jereboam built a golden calf for his people to worship. That silver thing shows where the altar would have been. This place is really close to the northern border of Israel. We could see Lebanon from here.

 This is Caeserea Philippi. These are altars to the god Pan. Lots of pagan worhsipping went on in this part of the country.

 The best part of the day for me was that night when we got to go out onto the Sea of Galilee on a boat. Since it was Sunday, we had some testimonies and teaching from our tour leader. Then the lights were killed and we sat on the boat in the dark, and the peace, and listened to the story of Peter walking on the water. It was pretty wonderful.