Date night and Harry Potter in Staunton

Mark and I are far from weekly date night people.  We are probably closer to every 6 weeks which is not a great record but we are working on it.  Mark particularly wants to improve this.  This past Friday we went on one of our best dates ever.  Often when I am walking around UVA I see the Lime Electric scooters laying around and I have secretly wanted to try them out for months now.  So Friday night we did.  And it was awesome. 

We downloaded the app, checked for scooters on the map, found and loaded two into the Highlander, parked near my building and started riding.  It was so fun.  It made me feel cool and young and maybe even trendy.  It was fun whizzing around UVA (they go up to 14.8 mph) and chatting as we did.  There is something about being at a University that excites me.  We rode around for about 25 minutes and then stopped at ColdStone for ice cream. We had not been to ColdStone in years, like more than 8 years and it was delicious.  Such a fun date! I would totally do it again.

 You can just make out the chemical engineering sign. 

Saturday we went to soccer and Lydia had her best game yet.  It helped that she actually paid attention and did not let her fear of the ball keep her from playing.  She even scored a gaol which she was thrilled about.  Jared's team lost but he scored 4 of the 5 goals his team made so he had a pretty good game.  They lost 7:5 but thats how it goes sometimes. I was prepared (and relieved) for this to be his last season but we were talking to the league coordinator after his game and he said that Jared can play next year since he is still 10 when season starts.  He will turn 11 about halfway through.  So, one more year.  Which is fine!  I am happy for him to do something he really enjoys and can't really complain about how it is set up.  All the games/teams on the same field at 9:00?  It's about as good as I think it can get for schedules.


After soccer we drove over to Staunton for their Harry Potter festival.  They do a nice job and its fun to see so many people out who love Harry Potter but we all felt a little let down this year since we had just done the studio tour in July.  We enjoyed our Butterbeer, watched Jared play Quidditch, and Jared and Lydia got sorted into the houses they wanted. Lydia did not play in a Quidditch match like Jared, but on one end of the court they had rings set up so she made some shots there.  We stopped at a chocolate store to get some chocolate frogs as well.  I wanted one little bite and asked Lydia for one.  She looked at me, I leaned in to take a small nibble and she popped the rest of the frog in her mouth!  I was shocked. It was so unlike her.  I was pretty miffed. She may be sweet and wiling to share many things but not chocolate frogs apparently. 

Such a great Fall window display! 

Too bad it was 90+ degrees out.  Lydia may have lasted in her robes about 10 minutes.  

Jared held out for longer but even he had to take them off. 

To make it more challenging, sort of like you were flying, you had to balance 

on these circular boards which was a nice touch. 

Lydia got "snitch" eyes face painted on her. You can just barely see it.  I do not like face painting.  This is probably the 3rd time she has had it done in her life.  I liked how it was cute, simple and small.  For the record neither Lydia or Jared have really asked to have their faces painted so it has not just been me being mean.  

A few months ago Jared lost his Harry Potter wand. I feel like we had looked everywhere for it. I am by far the best at finding things in our house and was having no luck.  Jared felt that the last time he remembered seeing it was when we did campout day at the beginning of August.  So we wondered if maybe it was in the tent when Mark put it away. I set the tent out weeks ago for Mark to look at but of course nobody really wants to unroll a tent and then try to get it back in its box.  So a few days before the festival I busted out the tent and there it was!  I found the wand.  It was great.  Not so much for Mark who had to put the tent away but Jared was so happy to be reunited with his wand. I was really glad we found it in time for the festival.