The Z Chronicles: Harry Potter World

All right Harry Potter fans, this post is for you! Robert's parents, Stan and Betty (aka Grumpy and Grandma to Abby), arrived here on Saturday. Abby had been excitedly talking about their arrival for several weeks. Just 4 hours after they arrived, Robert and I were out the out the door to hear our friend Anthony play the Mozart Bassoon Concerto with the Florida Orchestra. Hooray for a much needed date night!

Harry Potter World is at Universal Studios in Orlando and we'd heard that it isn't a good park for little ones, so our sitter Meghan came over on Monday to watch Abby. The girls had a blast at the beach that morning and Meghan said Abby giggled while chasing around a little crab.

She also spent quite a bit of time washing off rocks. My little neatnik.

We were lucky to have cooler than usual temps and a rare humidity-free day for our day out. Off to Hogsmeade we go!

How great is this scene and the snow?

This guy was a total cheeseball.

We tried both butterbeer and pumpkin juice but neither Betty nor I could finish our syrupy sweet butterbeer.

Robert's older brother Tom had taken his family to Harry Potter World in December and he told us that getting a wand at Ollivanders is a really fun experience. Betty saw a style that she liked and when a girl working in the store asked Betty what her birthday was to match it to a wand, it turns out it was the same one! Kismet.

Here's Hogwarts! We thought all of the details inside the castle -- talking portraits, Dumbledore's office, the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom -- were really great and on the ride itself we loved soaring around on our brooms with Harry.

Next we jumped on the Hogwarts Express to get to King's Cross.

The Knight Bus!

We were all really impressed with Diagon Alley. Everyone in this photo was looking up at the big dragon perched on the building, waiting for it to breathe fire.

Here are two grouchy goblin tellers at Gringotts.

After the Gringotts ride, we took a quick break at the Leaky Cauldron.

The fun part of buying a wand is finding the different spots throughout the park where you can cast spells. There's a little gold guide on the ground that shows you the pattern you have to trace with your wand. In this one, the water fountain turned on when Betty got the spell right. What you can't see from the picture is Robert standing to the side, laughing at me and Betty as we failed over and over again while trying to make it work. He thought we looked ridiculous.