Whew!

What an incredibly long week, followed by an incredibly long weekend! I wasn't sure if we'd survive either, but we came out of both with flying colors.

Friday afternoon completed our week of running R back and forth to Knit Picky for the knitting camp. The great staff at Knit Picky and all the new 'fiber artists' hosted an open house for the parents. The girls were working tables to show what they had worked on all week and to show little demonstrations to their parents.

Above is a Kool-Aid dyeing demonstration with some yarn they had dyed earlier in the day.

Needle felting was a big hit too. Here one of the visiting brothers got in on the action.

Here are some of their knitting and crocheting projects from the week.

They learned so many things! They tie-dyed, dyed cotton yarn, kool-aid dyed wool, learned to spin with a drop spindle and a spinning wheel, make felted beads, needle felt and, or course, knit and crochet. I was very impressed with how smoothly everything went. You would never had known this was Knit Picky's first year at this.

Then - it was home to rest up for the - HARRY POTTER BOOK RELEASE AT BORDERS! We have never gotten any of our books on the night of the release. We debated, many, many times during the week whether we should wait until Saturday morning and pick up our reserved copy or suck it up and go for the whole experience of the midnight release. Realizing that we had never done that before and that we would never get the chance again - since this is the final book - we decided to go for it. Whew! I am NOT a crowd person - at all! I can't tell you how many panic attacks I have walking from one end of the mall to the other! What had I gotten myself into? We tried to look at magazines to pass the time. Nope, too many people beat us there. Well, we didn't leave our house until 10:30 p.m., so half of the county beat us there! Camera crews were there. Young children were there. Lone adults were there. Parents were there with their children. Many, many, many young people who had grown up with Harry Potter were there. To be honest with you, even though there was a costume contest, I think some of the people just looked weird and we couldn't tell who was dressed for the contest and who wasn't! We found a cool, quiet spot back in Computers and Finance and waited and waited. We got brave a couple of times and ventured back into the fray, but we would always retreat into the same corner. We met a great mom with her two kids who were visiting from Virginia and couldn't wait until they got home to pick up a book. We also met a dad who had come by himself to pick up the book for his wife who was home with their four young children. We told him he had won by not having to stay home with the little ones, but after three hours with ALL THOSE PEOPLE, I think she was the winner! I don't know how our evening would have gone if we hadn't found those kindred spirits to spend it with.

Yes, this is a blurry picture of a gazillion people waiting and waiting. The blurry pictures kind of show how we were starting to feel the closer it got to midnight after having had such a busy week!

I cannot commend Borders enough for the fabulous job they did! They kept order in a situation I thought would never be orderly! 'Snape' kept us all in 'line' with announcements of what would happen next and 'Voldemort' made sure you weren't in line until your number/letter came up. The staff looked slightly overwhelmed but they were extremely efficient.

Of course some Harry Potter knitting took place! The hat was finished in time to go to the store and the book mark/book scarf was my knitting project at the store.

And yes, we read and read and read and read and read. RL kept us fed - bless that man! We read some more. We got up and stretched. We took potty breaks. We walked in the yard. We read and read and read. We went to bed late. We got up on Sunday and RL kept us fed again. We read and read and read. We avoided phone calls when possible. We read some more. We discussed what we didn't understand and went to look up stuff in the other books. We read and read and read and then around 1:30 a.m. Monday we were finished. My voice was scratchy, the kids were tired, but satisfied and we headed for the showers and then to bed. I'm glad we read the books as a family. Nobody finishes before anybody else. We discuss what we don't remember or don't understand and somebody else always remembers that part or understands it. Great book and, after some doubts I had the first day of reading, I am now convinced that the wait at Borders was worth it. The all day readings were worth it. And most of all, the time we spent as a family was extremely worth it!