ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

I'm not a movie person and have never been to a midnight showing of a movie so when I volunteered to take Payton and a friend of hers to see the new Harry Potter movie at midnight, I had no idea what a big deal it would be. We had purchased our tickets online beforehand and figured we'd arrive slightly early to make sure we got a seat and some snacks. What I hadn't counted on was waiting in a line outside the theater that wrapped around one side of the mall. All except 1 theater were showing the movie at midnight and we all made it inside in time. There were people in costume, people driving by yelling obscenities at us standing in line, and people clapping several times throughout the movie.

The storyline of the movie itself was very dark and I didn't understand much of it since we don't read the HP books and therefore don't know how to fill in the plot gaps left by the film. I miss the days of just watching them play a match of quidditch where it was more fun than evil. It seemed like a lot of people enjoyed it although the reviews haven't been great. I'm glad we got to go since this will probably be the last week for Payton to fit in some time with friends before we leave!

This weekend, the kids, the dog and I went to Wichita to look at houses w/a realtor (well, the dog and Blake didn't actually look at the houses but they did go to Wichita). We had given her the specs we were looking for which basically included the school district we wanted, the price range, living in an established neighborhood, preferably two stories w/kids bedrooms on the top floor, etc. After looking at houses today, we're going to open up our search to include some more options including new construction. I love new homes because the floor plans tend to be more open, the floors/lighting/etc., tend to be upgraded quality, there's no existing wallpaper to contend with, etc., but I don't like new neighborhoods because they feel soulless to me with no trees, no character, etc. The realtor is going to try to help us find a lot that includes some trees so we'll see what she can do.

We had a second potential buyer come to view our house today. We also received feedback on the first people to view our home. They said they loved our house inside and outside but didn't like the fact that our backyard is only accessible via a door on the side porch. We can't say we blame them - might explain why we never use our backyard!