Farewell Hogwarts

With tears in our eyes we have taken our final departure from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Even though I can't find it, I am certain I have shared here before that the kids and I have been working our way through the Harry Potter series.  (Feel free to look through the blog and locate my previous post about it.) (Oh wait, I found it!)

We have loved every second with Harry, Hermione, and Ron (amongst others).   As Summer Break fell upon us, we found more and more time to read about our favorite people.  We completely fell in love with them, and found that we could not bear to spend too much time away from reading all about their latest adventures.  In short:  We became Harry Potter Nerds this summer.  (I feel like singing "And if lovin' him is wrong, then I don't wanna be right.").  As the release of HP 7 part 2 quickly approached, my kids (OK, and I) found that we really wanted to see the movie in the theater.  However, I had a steadfast rule: You may only watch the movie IF you have read the book.  That meant this past month we have been up to our happy little eyeballs in Harry Potter.   We successfully covered half of book five, all of six, and all of seven in 26 days.

Thankyouverymuch.

I think, at one point this month, my sister called me and asked where I had been.  I had no answer except, "Hogwarts."

Am I sad that we spent an ENORMOUS amount of our summer break reading and living in a fictional world instead of enjoying the great outdoors and other summer type activities?  No.  This has been one of my most favorite activities the kids and I have done together in, well, in forever.  We have had the best of times reading, watching, and working through the stories, events and characters in this series, and I don't think I will ever forget it.  My hope is that they won't either.  That they will fondly look back at the summer of 2011 and lovingly call it the "Summer of Harry Potter". 

OK.  That probably won't happen.

However, I have fond memories of my parents reading aloud to me, so I do hope that some of this sticks in their little memory banks.

As we took in the last movie, and the last few pages of the last book, there were tears that can't be described.  Not that it was so intensely sad that I can't put words to it, but that it was so difficult to describe.  Happiness, relief, exhilaration, sadness, and mostly a longing that it wouldn't really be over, but that we could continue being apart of these characters, whom we fell in love with, lives for just a bit longer.  If I sound sappy, I am.  I loved every part of this experience.  Not just the books (however brilliantly written, they were), but the time I spent with the kids, the movies, the discussion, the excitement as we anticipated what might happen next, and watching my kids fall in love with the same characters and stories that I was.  We shared a common interest.  It was like I was hanging out with good friends instead of supervising an activity in a motherly fashion. 

And for that reason "The Summer of Harry Potter" will always have a tender place in my heart.

Even if no one else refers to this summer in the same way.