Confession:

I'm a big nerd.


I'm sure if you've been reading for awhile or know me personally, you've figured that out by now. There are a lot of things that contribute to my nerdiness: I am practically blind, and although I wear contacts most of the time now, I opted for giant, circular glasses in junior high. I used to have braces and even headgear that I had to wear every night in bed. (Whoever invented such a torturous device is seriously twisted). I am a hardcore bookworm. I could play Tetris for HOURS. Are you getting the picture here?

Like I said, there are a lot of things that make me a nerd, but not the least of these is my love for Harry Potter. I've seen all of the HP movies, most of them two or three times. I'm about halfway through reading the books. I'm not usually too into the whole "fantasy" genre, but for some reason, when I had to read HP and the Sorcerer's Stone for my children's lit class in college, I couldn't put it down. I was so shocked at how much I loved the book, and became a closet Potterite (yes, that's a real term. I googled it). Since then, I've claimed my love for the books and movies a little bit more because it seems like EVERYONE loves them.

On a scale from 1-10, I'd say my love for Harry Potter is probably at about a 7. My sister, though, on the same scale, would rank at about a 27 ;-) She has read all the books. She was one of those nerds who waited in line at Wal Mart with a wristband for 5 hours when the last book came out. And then she didn't eat or sleep until she had devoured every last page. I'm not exaggerating. Her boyfriend is the same way. And that is why we are all so excited to be in Orlando this summer! If we go, that is.

The other day, I mentioned that another couple might be going with us to Orlando, and that couple is my sister and her b/f! The reason they want to go is pretty much solely because of the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter that is set to open at Universal Studios, Orlando this spring.

Although I'm slightly more excited about visiting Disney World, (I love Universal, but it's just not the same as Disney!) I am absolutely THRILLED to be able to visit this new Harry Potter section of Universal Studios! I've been following it's progression online since as soon as I heard about it, and I'm super excited to be one of the first to experience it! In my pre-vacation excitement, I went to Universal's website today to check up on the latest progress.

The park is going to include lots of great things from the books: Hogsmeade (for all you lay-people who are not Potter-heads, it's a shopping/dining area) complete with: Dervish and Banges (a shop for magical gadgets and instruments), Honeydukes (candy shop), Olivanders (wand shop), The Owl Post (post office), Zonkos (joke shop), and Three Broomsticks (pub). There will also be a Hogwart's Castle (the school of witchcraft and wizardry, in case you live under a rock and don't know that :-P) with a tour ride inside which I'm sure will be spectacular...I'm most excited about this! In addition there will be a mild roller coaster called "Flight of the Hippogriff," and another roller coaster called "Dragon's Challenge" which is just the old "Dueling Dragons" ride with new theming. If you are a Potter-fan, you know your heart is racing with excitement at the thought of an area like this actually existing in the world, too!

I can't wait to go and see all of the beautiful, gothic theming. I'll be sure to take LOTS (probably hundreds) of photos of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter if/when we go there :-)

Here are some pictures I found online of the progress so far. Can you tell I'm excited??

All the pictuers were found here

Here are some concept drawings:
Hogwart's Castle
Hogsmeade
Dragon Challenge Entrance
And some actual construction progress. I think it's supposed to open to the public in April or May, so I bet they're working hard!

So that's what I'm excited about today! Yesterday I wrote about how I was tired of trying to think of things to write about that I thought other people would find interesting, so I'd just write about what is on my mind. And today, this is what is on my mind!

Please know that I thought about creating a new blog used only for planning this vacation. That's how excited I am about it. Visiting Disney World with Luke has been a big dream of mine for a long time! (See?? Nerd.) So I'm going to make the most of every minute, even every minute PLANNING. And I'm an expert vacation planner...Luke is lucky I don't plan scheduled restroom breaks...that's just about how detailed I can get! So I may be blogging about our upcoming trip a lot (even though it's not 100% sure yet, I'm going to pretend like it is!) And I'm not going to make any apologies for it, because it's what I want to write about :-)

I hope everyone is having a great week!