don't mess with texas

Ok, Texas is serious about their state. I don't think their is a place with more state pride. we have never seen another state that has their own state store. At the mall and in downtown Austin there was the "Texas Store". That was the name...Texas Store. I wonder how a California Store would do or how many people would visit Utah Store.

Everywhere we went the Texas star (or some form of it) was displayed proudly. I saw it on fronts of houses, on backyard fences, on buildings, store fronts, cars, etc. I am not kidding when I say it was everywhere.

Here is a Texas rangers star in our hotel bathroom. There were also stars on our room walls. On a side note the hotel we stayed in (The Driskill) was pretty amazing. It was built forever ago by an ol' cattle baron. It had some cool history and was beautiful. Of course the star was present in force at the capitol building. One morning I took a walk through Austin by myself while Derek was in meetings and I ended up at the capitol. What a beautiful building with so much history.

The walk was miserable because of the heat - how does anyone live there? I can't believe I served a mission in the south and tracted and rode bikes in the heat and humidity. Gotta love California!

Door into the capitol

Looking up at the ceiling in the capitol

the front gate

a room in the capitol building - the lighting fixture is the star

I could have taken hundreds of star pictures - I probably should have it would have been a cool gallery but oh well, the stars will just have to live on in my heart.

been trying

I've been trying to update the blog with pictures but I'm having no luck. I'll keep trying but don't hold your breath.

hey y'all

Derek and I took a quick trip to Austin, Texas while the kids stayed at my aunt and uncles house. We got home late last night and now the kids and I are trying to clean up the mess from the Harry Potter party. I have pictures to download and share but they'll have to wait. Check back tomorrow and hopefully I will have pictures up.

The begining of the end

We are now home from Borders happy, with books in hand. It's time to lay down and begin to say good-bye to the boy we love. Happy Reading to all those who are enjoying book 7.

i'm gonna hate myself in the morning

oh wait, it is morning. My computer says it's 2:41 am and her I sit happily waiting for some things I'm printing. I am right in the thick of preparing for tomorrows shindig and I'm feeling wide awake and full of energy (I'm sure the candy and soda I have been nourishing my body with has something to do with it) My only concern is how I am I possibly going to be able to keep myself awake while waiting in line at midnight tomorrow? Wonder if I can convince Derek that it's way fun to hang out at Borders for 4+ hours with hyped up teenagers and cranky tired kids (and adults) How can I make it sound good?

two thumbs up for mr. potter

Megan with her golden ticket
just one of the 8 lines outside the theater for the midnight showing
my brother hanging out with the ladies

Megan and I loved the movie. I always get a little perturbed when they leave stuff out or change things and that happened a great deal in this movie but I guess that's to be expected when the books are so long.

We both are anxious to see the movie again with the rest of the family - how nice it will be to not have to wait until midnight to see it. I think Meg may be on her own for the next midnight Harry Potter.

potter peek

Friday is the HP party. Here is a peek at the potion bottles I have been working on. I think I have done somewhere around 30 or so bottles. I have a few more left to do but am having a hard time figuring out what to use for the contents.
Today I started to turn our family room into the Gryffindor Common Room. We are also creating a herbology classroom, the yule ball, the divination classroom, the great hall, and the room of requirement - that's the plan anyway. We'll see how much we can get done over the next few days.

get ready tooth fairy

Luke has his first loose tooth and he is beside himself with happiness. We think he is anxious to get it out and get some cash from the tooth fairy because we caught him doing this...yes, he decided to try and pull his own tooth out with the plastic tweezers from a kiddie doctor set. He has had no luck as of yet but Derek did offer to try knocking it with a hammer - Luke wanted nothing to do with that plan, go figure.

still recovering

I am still so tired from the midnight movie on Tuesday but we are plugging along anyway with Potter party preparations. Here is the invite we sent out via email...

Note...With owl post being checked regularly we couldn't risk sending this to you by owl so instead we are using muggle email and hope that you have the understanding to use email correctly. Should you have any problems reading this email please contact Arthur Weasly at the Ministry of Magic, Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Division.

We're pleased to inform you that you have been invited to the Hogwarts School of Magic and Wizardry for an extraordinary evening of celebration, commemorating the release of the 7th installment of our own Harry Potter's personal memoirs. The open house style celebration will take place on Friday, July Twentieth from half past seven until half past nine. Please feel free to come and join us anytime during the celebration.

The evenings festivities will be centered around many of the well loved and time honored traditions & activities that we hold dear here at Hogwarts. You will be able to participate in some of the classes that are taught at this fine wizarding school. For the wizards and witches that have already graduated from our fine institution perhaps you want to come and relive your night at the Yule Ball. All will be able to walk our halls and see those special places throughout the castle that Harry, as well as other students, visit daily. These activities and many more will take place on this very special evening.

When the bell tolls announcing the end of our celebration all who wish to are invited to join the Hogwarts staff as we head to Flourish and Blotts to purchase our own copies of Harry's memoirs...Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. All in the magic community are invited to Flourish and Blotts, but to not arouse any suspicions amongst the muggles the store will magically relocate to 22372 El Paseo, Rancho Santa Margarita and will take on the look of a popular muggle establishment, Borders. Harry's book will be available for purchase at midnight that evening.

This will be the final celebration here at Hogwarts so all are invited to participate in this historic event. In an effort to prepare for all those wishing to attend we need to plan accordingly. Please contact the headmistress by sending your response via email to dbakerfam@cox.net as soon as possible. Please let us know your name, the names of those attending with you and the ages of any young wizards under the age of 18 so that we can be sure to have proper and legal activities for our underage witches and wizards. You may forward this invitation on to others in the wizarding world that you think would be interested in attending but please try to send it only to those individuals known to the Hogwarts staff. During these perilous times, with Lord Voldermort lurking about, we must be cautious and allowing large groups of strangers into the castle would be foolish. Some exceptions may be made so feel free to contact us if you have any questions. As another safety precaution the location of Hogwarts will be revealed to you after you respond via email

A few last minute items...

Wizard or witch attire is encouraged, but muggle clothing is always appropriate.

Drinks and hors d’œuvres will be served.

We hope that you will be able to join us as we celebrate the boy we have come to love and his final book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

I may not post much more this week but check back next week for party pics and much more.

i'm not as bad as i thought

64%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

the rebellion begins...did you get your tickets?

Tickets were purchased last night and now it's just a waiting game. Megan and I, along with some friends plan on getting in line around 8pm. I got dinner made and packed up, magazines to read and games to play - it's going to be a long night but it's so worth it.

thanks for the post

the checks in the mail.

I have hijacked the blog! You will have to bear with the lack of entertainment value in my post, since I could never compare to the master blogger who is my wife, but I thought I would sneak on and make a post of my own. Denise is always way too kind when posting about me, and I could bore you with all of the reasons I don't live up to the hype, but instead I will take a moment to blog about my favorite subject....Denise.

As you may have noticed on this blog, she is talented, funny, beautiful, and just a plain blast to be around! I feel so lucky to have her as my friend and my wife and look forward to spending forever together. Sorry guys...you will have to settle for some lesser lady out there...the best one is taken!

Love you Denise!!!!

a little wet cement

So here is what we are planning for Monday if I can talk myself into it the drive. I love having LA close enough to go and do things but sometimes, well let's face it, most of the time the drive is long because of traffic. We are also trying to get to San Diego this Thursday to visit Scholastic's Knight Bus so I may be way tired of driving.

Back to LA...for any of you visiting this summer, or anytime for that matter, and looking for things to do while you're here check out these two sites...Audiences Unlimited and On Camera Audiences You can get free tickets to TV show tapings at both of these sites. You have to check back often because they update dates frequently but if you can get tickets going to the shows is a ton of fun. We have gotten tickets to Hannah Montana, Cory in the House, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, America's Got Talent, Disney Channel Games and Are You Smarter Then A Fifth Grader. A few of these we got because we are on a waiting list so some of them we weren't able to go to because of date conflicts. We have been lucky with some of them to be able to pick the dates we wanted to go and had it all work out nicely.

Anyway, if you are looking for an LA type thing to do I recommend going to a taping. Think about it...not much is free anymore but this is and at some of the tapings they feed you - pizza, drinks and candy and entertain you with the show and a warm up comedian person - good deal!

Some pictures from one of our tapings...Disney Channel Games (last year)

Jackson "I said good day" Stewart

"Smokin' Oakin"

"Bop Bop Bop Bop to the top" Ryan - HSMusical 2 coming soon

the cutie himself...Troy/Zac - we are all excited to see Hairspray

"Corey Corey Corey in the House"

now showing

Friday night was movie night again at the Baker house. We showed The Incredibles and ended up with 32 people here - if I counted correctly. We didn't do hot dogs this time but we had popcorn, nachos and drinks free of charge. We decided to let people pay for the candy so we set up a concession stand case to showcase what we had. It was a great addition. I found a shadow box at Michael's and used velcro to secure the candy inside. I printed up little yellow tags with the price and taped them to the candy. It was an easy project and made life so much easier since kids couldn't come and just grab candy off the table. Emily worked the concession stand and kept all the candy hidden behind the table only giving it to people when they paid.Another addition to our movie night was tickets. I loved how they turned out that I plan on using them every time we show an outdoor movie. I got the template for the tickets here I found the link on the forums at Backyard Theater. If you are thinking about an outdoor theater you have to check the website out -lots of good ideas and great pictures of outdoor movie set ups. Back to the tickets...the template was easy to use and once we had the tickets printed up on matte photo paper they look pretty legit.

welcome home!

Davis returned home from his mission to Canada on Friday. Carise asked us to go to the airport to take pictures since Cassidy and Carly couldn't be there. Here are some of the shots...

waiting and waitinghe's here!Carise could hardly contain her emotions and a ton of my pictures after this one came out totally blurry because her crying was making me cry

brothers

so happy to have her brother home

love this shot of a mom so happy to have her boy home

busy with summer

We're still around just busy with summer. Today we are swimming in our blow up pool from Big Lots and running down the ice cream truck for sweet treats. We spent most of the morning cleaning bedrooms because that's what all kids want to do on summer vacation :) It had to be done.

We are still busy with Harry Potter preparations and I am starting to get my pre party stress feelings. Will I get it all done? Will the decorations be ok? Will the party be any fun?

I'm hearing yelling from the pool - I better go break it up before someone ends up crying.