30 Days of Thankfulness Day 8

Today I am thankful for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One, which comes out next week!! In a way, it makes me sad too, because after the next movie comes out...no more books or movies to look forward to. : ( They'll all be done for good.

It may not be known to others just how much I love Harry Potter. Many of my college friends know that another friend and I started a Harry Potter Fan Club on our campus. And yes, it was totally nerdy. And totally awesome!! We found out later that we were the first official chartered Harry Potter club on a college campus in the US, which is pretty sweet. : ) We had several members each term, which was a pleasant surprise! And, everyone was so fun!

My favorite question that we used to get was, what do you do at meetings? We actually did a lot of different activities. We had trivia and game nights. We had debates and discussions about all of the different books. At that point, not all of the books were out, so we had big talks about connections and theories about what was going to happen before the series ended. (I said it was nerdy : )

We also did volunteer work with a local elementary school reading program. We went to the movie premiers at midnight, many in costume. (including yours truly!) We had white elephant parties with HP themed gifts. Probably my favorite activity we had were our feasts. We did them for holidays and the beginnings of the term. We would have a potluck and everyone would bring a HP themed dish; butter beer, poly juice potion, pumpkin pasties, cauldron cakes (what would we have done without Google??), Dumbledore Hair Pasta, Mandrake Leaf Salad and sooooo many more. We would decorate the room to look like Hogwarts; we put black paper over the lights and poked holes through the make the 'night sky', we made banners for all the houses and we hung candles from the ceiling.

I love those books. I love that JK Rowling created and entire world of magic and fantasy. I love all the creative ideas she came up with. I love the characters. The story lines are great and keep you hooked until the end. I love that she got so many kids and adults to start reading! I love that she brought just a little more magic and make believe into this world, something we can never have enough of!

One of my favorite parts of my summer in Europe, Platform 9 3/4!!!

And yes, those are the official club sweatshirts: The front says 'Be All the Muggle You Can Be' and the back says 'Dumbledore's Army' which a golden snitch. Yes, WE ARE AWESOME!!