Who Can You Trust, Padawan? Professor Trelawney. A Birthday Post.

I was threatened with cadaver parts today.

And threatened with bodily harm.

I laughed in his face.

"Bring it."

Except severed fingers on my desk is kind of a disturbing thought.

Yesterday I climbed into a car with a few of my co-workers and we headed to the gas station for a quick drink run.  We'd hit the afternoon lull and needed a pick me up.

(A pick us up?)

As I climbed out of the front passenger seat I threw my door shut and then...

I was stuck.

My index finger of my right hand had some how become lodged between the two doors in the process of us closing them.

I stared at my finger crushed in the crevice of the doors and felt the pressure and I glanced at the others.

They were blissfully unaware and were starting to walk to the gas station.  I did the only rational thing I could do in this situation and started yelling, "Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow!"

That got their attention.

I looked at the co-worker who had closed the back door that had trapped my finger.

"The door, the door, open the door, open the door!" I cried.  I couldn't get any other logical thing out of my mouth.  My finger was beginning to pulse and I might have panicked a little.

Just a little.

Finally he realized that my elbow wasn't tweaked up in the air for the fun of it and rushed to open the door and release the car's grip on me.

My finger throbbed and grew hot.

And I repeatedly told them I was fine though I was struggling not to cry.

You can't cry when you're the only girl.  

That makes you the silly girl.  

My finger swelled to twice the size and looked like a little sausage.  There was no feeling to it on the outside, though there was plenty of feeling to it on the inside.

I continued to assure them that I was fine.

Last night Cali complained of a stomach ache. 

(This ties in, trust me.)

And then Brynn complained of one.

In the middle of the night Tayler also complained of stomach pain.

So when my alarm went of this morning I called in with sick kids, figuring with three of them I should stay home.

I sent an email letting various people in my office know I would be home with sick children, but if a certain co-worker asked, to let him know that I was out with a hurt finger.

(See?  It tied in.)  

He's the prankster of the group.  It's fun to prank a prankster.

Turns out this morning the girls woke up and felt fine after all.

So I sent them to school and headed in to work.

Turns out the office had played my hurt finger off well.  One person telling him my finger had been hurt so badly I had to stay home.  The chief investigator told him that because it had happened in a State vehicle he needed a memo explaining what had happened.

He was feeling pretty bad and agreed quickly to write a memo about it.

Then he was called into the Director's office.

He began to understand what was happening at this point and after the Director mentioned it, said that I had been speaking badly about the Director so he slammed my finger in the door.  He said I'd deserved it.

And the Director actually believed him for a split second.

My co-worker said he knew where this was coming from and not to worry, I still had nine fingers left that he could go after.

When I arrived at the office he smiled at me and said he knew someone and had access to cadaver parts.  

Don't be surprised if I find extra fingers lying around.

The moral of this story is: it may be fun to prank a prankster but be warned, it only fuels them.

The rest of my birthday was fun.

Aside from the creepy gas station clerk who called me Padawan (is it bad that I know that's from Star Wars?) and then sang the afro circus song to me while dancing.  

I just wanted to pay for my drink.

And he was egged on by my co-workers who told him while doing this that it was my birthday.

Thanks again for that guys.

Thanks to everyone who drove my house honking.

And thanks to our family who showed up for dinner.

 

P.S.  It's not Padawan, thank you very much.

Professor Trelawney is in the house.

P.P.S.  Thank you to my husband who knew that the funny party dress ups would be hilarious.

He gives the best presents.

hogwarts express trolley

The Man and I came home from our visit to Hogsmeade (here) bearing gifts for The Circus.  Of course we did, how would we get away with not?  But we didn't tell the kids right away.  We waited a few days and got prepared for the presentation for it.
I went shopping for ingredients and made butterbeer and pumpkin juice.  We told them we were having a family night and turned on the first Harry Potter movie.  When it hit the scene where Harry and Ron are on the Hogwarts Express for the first time, and they had just bought all sorts of goodies off the trolley, and right when the chocolate frog jumps out the window...

We hit the pause button.  Hey guys, want something off the trolley?

They were confused at first, but followed us into the kitchen where the chocolate frog boxes were laid out on trays with a pitcher of pumpkin juice and the makings of butter beer.

The frogs were solid chocolate and the kids were elated, opening the boxes and finding their "moving" cards of one of the founders of the Hogwarts Houses. 

The only note that we would make is that the butter beer recipe we used has too much rum flavor in it.  I think we'll try halving it next time we make it.

Florida trip: Universal Studios Orlando

A couple of things...

First, who wears high heels to an amusement park? Why would you do that to yourself?  Why?  I just don't understand.

Second... no, that's all I had.  I'm pretty dumbfounded by the women tripping along in heels from one ride to another.  My feet and legs were killing while wearing flip flops and tennis shoes, I can't even fathom wearing heels.

Usually when we take a vacation I do day by day posts about it.  I think I'm going to do this trip differently.  Even though it was five days long, it really was comprised of two parts so I think I'll post it in two posts by the events instead of in five days.

First and foremost, my "twin" brother got married to a crazy fun lady.  I'm happy to call her sister now.  But I'm waiting for other family members to post some pics of that so I can steal them for my blog :). 

So the other part of our trip was Universal Studios Orlando.  To say that I was excited to see the Harry Potter world would be an understatement.  I was bouncing in my seat to see it, and it didn't disappoint me.

We flew into Orlando on Thursday night and I could instantly feel that the air felt "heavier".  I could feel the difference in the moisture of the air compared to the dry air of Utah.  It felt good.  By the time we rented our car and left the airport it was 1 am (Florida time) and we had yet to eat dinner.  A detour to Denny's (oh how sweet Denny's is with their 24 hour goodness).  Our GPS more than paid for itself with this trip and got us to our hotel by avoiding any toll roads. 

Friday morning our friend, Mr. GPS helped us find Universal Studios. 

We had a breakfast reservation at the Three Broomsticks and I wasn't about to miss it.  We walked into Hogsmeade and I literally gasped.  It was so... perfect.

 Breakfast in the Three Broomsticks:

West got the traditional English breakfast with baked beans and black pudding, I stuck with fruit and English scones.  We both tried pumpkin juice.  It was like Halloween in my mouth, amazing!  Pumpkin, cloves, nutmeg, and it was ice cold.

After breakfast we saw the sights and rode the rides.

Mandrakes :)

Dumbledore's staircase

The pictures really moved.

The sorting hat

Olivander's was Awesome with a capital "A".

They did a presentation, straight out of the book, where Olivander himself picked a child from the group and went through the process of helping that child find the right wand.  After a few spells gone awry, a light sparking, boxes shifting on shelves, the right wand was finally found.

We tried butterbeer

This is what happens when you have to share a lap bar with people who are bigger than you are... my question is, if this is okay for me in the name of safety, why do we need it at all?

The Man was able to eventually drag me away from Hogsmeade to see the rest of the park, which was pretty cool too :).

I don't know how it is where you live, but where we live the water rides at our amusement park (you can check out how the circus reacted to our local park here and here) are just teases.  You come up on a waterfall and just when you're about to go under it, it subsides. 

Not so at Universal Orlando.

When they pull out the water, they intend to use the water.  After three water rides were completely drenched from head to toe.

Which was just as well since by the time we hit our third water ride the rain started anyway.

What is it with torrential Florida rainstorms that only last 30-45 minutes?

We spent the entire day wet.  We shivered inside the heavily air conditioned buildings and walked around in the rain.  But the rain cleared up. 

Sort of.

All I can say is don't tease the cartoon rain gods.  :)  I spent the rest of the day with my jean shorts dripping down my legs.

Here's a fun picture sequence (at least it amuses me because I know how much I love to capture it all with my camera, and how much The Man doesn't).

I crack myself up.

We caught a live "Fear Factor" show with audience participants.  Those would be real people on the hoods of the cars grabbing for flags.

They even drank a gross concoction and put scorpions on a lady's head.

If you're still with me after all of that then you deserve a prize.  And I even cut out a lot of the pictures I took. 

I loved being with The Man and laughing.  Talking.  Eating.  Lots of eating.  We rode crazy fun rides and people watched.  We spent three days at Universal Orlando and I think my favorite day was the first day in the rain.  The rain was warm and it thinned out the crowds for us :).