A Farewell to Potter

I'm a bit late to jump on the Harry Potter movie fan blog bandwagon, but it's been on my mind a lot lately. We went and saw the final movie installment opening weekend to celebrate Brady's dissertation defense triumph. I'll spare you all the reviews and spoilers and just say we were satisfied with our final attendance at a Potter franchise event. Afterward Brady showed Ellie this video and they have been singing the song quite a bit. (Warning:if you watch either the original version or Brady and Ellie's below, the song will probably get stuck in your head for days.)


Sorry, my editing is a little jumpy, but she was a bit camera shy at first. Sometimes she has to watch the back of the camera first to see if there is already a movie playing on it, which is why she isn't on screen until partway through.

Attending the last movie reminded me of when we attended the last book party, something that happened before we entered the blogosphere but definitely a blog worthy moment.

Four years ago Brady and I were both busy in grad school. I remember as the arrival date of the final Harry Potter book approached I cancelled homework for that weekend because I knew none of my freshmen would do it anyway (how cool of an English instructor was I?). Brady and I made plans to swing by Wal-Mart around midnight to pick up a copy of the book, grab some treats and then spend the whole weekend reading. Not being big on crowds, we had enjoyed that strategy for the release of the previous couple of books.

Then we found out Brady's then ten-year-old brother Sam would be staying with us for the weekend. Brady's mom gave us money to buy Sam a copy of the book too, so we thought we were all set for our easy, no-crowd, no fuss plan. But then Sam asked if we were going to dress up or anything. Uh . . . no. He said, "okay, maybe I'll just bring my wand or something." Realizing we couldn't ruin his life on the day of the final book release, we agreed to take him to the party at the BYU bookstore. Then there was the matter of a costume for him. We hit both the thrift and fabric stores. Here's what we came up with.
Devotees will recognize this as Ron Weesely in his terrible dress robes from the fourth book. (Sam is purposefully looking dismayed with the robes in the picture, though he was a pretty good sport to go with this costume). I think I outdid myself in my sister-in-law and creative duties on this one, especially restyling a mullet-wig into Ron's hair.

Sam won first place the 7-15 age group, the prize being a copy of the book as well as the audio book, among other things. It was a good thing because we spent the money for his copy on the costume. He had several college-age girls asking to have their picture taken with him, something that I'm sure teenage Sam would now more fully appreciate.
We ended up having a pretty good time at the party, which goes to show it's probably best to not always avoid the crowds for Kids' sakes. We went home in the early hours of the morning and listened to Jim Dale read to us while we followed along in our own copies. Not a bad weekend.
Good memories with Harry Potter. It makes me excited to reread those and other favorite books in years to come with Ellie and Baby Brother.