Camp Hogwarts-Prisoner of Azkaban

Day 3!

The first two days were so packed full of activities, I was beginning to worry if I had enough stamina to finish the week at this point. Nevertheless, I had a great plan for day three and I was excited to surprise the kids with one in particular. We actually got a bit of a late start as well, because the house was a wreck from the days before and I was starting to feel anxious. We spent the morning cleaning up and getting things back in order. I framed it like this: "Let's pretend we're house elves for the castle and it needs to be cleaned up!" They sort of bought it.

Schedule:

Breakfast menu- Porridge (oatmeal) and pumpkin juice
Activities- Make your own Maurader's Map, Field trip to Hogsmead, Magic 8 Ball Divination, Time Turner Minute-win-it
Lunch- 3 Broomsticks lunch (World of Beer)
Movie- Prisoner of Azkaban
Dinner- Shepherd's Pie
Treat- Butterbeer

Once the castle was cleaned up, we spent time making our own "Maurader's Maps" of the house. I got out paper and art supplies and told the kids to make a map of our house, just like it would be for the Hogwarts castle. It was fun to see where their little creative minds went. Tucker's map was actually pretty spot on! I decided to make one too.

I told them to make up their own secret spell to enchant their maps so that no one but them could read it. It's amazing to see how creative kids get when encouraged. They kept these maps out all day and used them to anticipate foes coming around the corner (usually our dog Hazel...poor girl).

It was then time for the surprise I had planned. I didn't tell them in advance what we were doing, so they were very skeptical and curious. I wanted to simulate going to the wizarding village of Hogsmead to visit the sweets shop and have lunch. Luckily, one of the local malls had a candy store called It's Sugar that was perfect for our Honeydukes. Once we arrived, I told the kids that we were on a field trip to Hogsmead and asked what Harry's favorite part of the village was. Tuck instantly knew it was Honeydukes. We rounded the corner to the candy store and both kids jumped with glee!

I gave them $10 each to fill a bag with what candy they wanted. I never let them run free in a candy store so it felt extra special I'm sure. We lucked out too because they even had their own Harry Potter section of sweets! Tuck chose some Bertie Bott's beans and I snagged an official Butterbeer. Olivia delighted in choosing the biggest gummies she could find in the bins. I think she came home with a gummie bear that was as large as my hand!

Before I let them dig into their bags we needed to have lunch. I had planned on grabbing lunch while we were out, but didn't plan for our choice to be so fitting. Right next door to the candy store was World of Beer. The candy store associate raved about it and I was already feeling a little faint from the length of time without food so we made it easy and went there. It was early so we had the place to ourselves, which was great because I'm not sure how I would have felt about having an audience to me bringing a couple of kids into a bar. Not that it's just a bar, but that's where we ended up sitting. The menu felt like a perfect fit for our 3 Broomsticks lunch. I ordered a delicious tropical beer (I figured I earned it with all the work I was putting in for this week) and some tacos, while the kids ordered a grilled cheese and pizza. The food may not have been on-theme, but the pub atmosphere definitely was.

With bellies full and happy kids, we headed home and went straight into quiet time. Thank goodness for breaks!

After quiet time we all found our energy again and continued with the rest of our activities. Divination was a subject that I knew would be fun to simulate. We shut the blinds to darken the room, turned on our hovering candles, and sat in a circle around Tucker's Magic 8 Ball. We took turns asking it questions and reading the fateful messages. The sibling bickering began at this point and my question was "will I make it through this week without turning my children into toads?"

8 Ball answered "Most Likely"

Lucky.

Tuck had the great idea at the beginning of the week when we were trying to plan everything out, to make his own "tea leaves". He drew blob-like pictures on little squares of paper and wrote what they meant on the back of them. They floated around the house (like many of their creations do) and even ended up getting water dumped on by accident and then air-dried outside. So by the time it was time to use them, they looked like ancient pieces of parchment that were extremely fitting. I got a teacup out and randomly stuffed one into the cup for each person and we took turns reading our fate. I captured most of our activities on video, which I was happy to have done so I could look back on them, but Tuck also videoed me in a few too. I'm certain I'll look back on these memories with fondness despite how silly I looked!

The Seeing Eye- fated with seeing things before they happen

The next activities I hoped would expend some of their pent up energy. These "Time-Turning Challenges" were minute-win-it inspired that I found from a blog post on Pinterest. They had to wear the Time Turner, turn it three times, then start the timer for the challenge. Some of them included: Levitating a balloon, spider walks, and "Dumbledore says". Basically anything that got them up and moving. And because I'm a real nerd, I even had a Time-Turner necklace. So very on-theme.

It was finally time to wrap the day up. I made a dinner of Shepherd's Pie while the kids started their movie. Afterward, I mixed up some Butterbeer for us all to enjoy. There are a million recipes out there on the internet, but I kept it simple with this one:

1/2 Can of cream soda (I used Zevia)
1/5 Scoop of vanilla ice cream (we used Breyer's Lactose Free)
Drizzle of butterscotch syrup (this was hard to find!)

It was good, but ultimately far too sweet for my liking. Even Olivia- my resident sweet tooth, couldn't finish it. I'm sure there are better ways to make it, but I went for simplicity instead of authenticity this time.