The Girl Turns 11!

What do 11 year olds look forward to the most on their birthday?
     Well, duh, their acceptance letter to Hogwarts, of course!
And how do you get to Hogwarts, you ask?  By train, silly.

Let me explain to you how I pulled off the greatest birthday surprise, ever.  (At least in our household, anyway)

First, I'll take you back six years ago.  In 2009 my daughter made new friends in pre-school.  She loved school and meeting all these new kids her age.  They were just like her!  Flash forward to the end of the school year and she has a new very best friend.  The other mother and I decide to make sure the girls get together in the next couple of weeks before Kindergarten starts and they go to different schools.

Here we are in 2015, lo and behold these girls have remained best friends and have had a play date at least once a month for the last six years.  That other mother and I have become close friends, too.

Needless to say, we are chatting one evening while the kids play and I start to talk about how my daughter wants a 'Harry Potter' party.  Ummm, huh?  How do I even begin to plan that?  Of course I headed to Pinterest and some things start to fall in place.  As I talk with her about what I might do, she stops me mid-sentence and mentions that her daughter wants a HP party too.  But here is the kicker!  THEN, she says, "you know what?  we should take the girls to Universal."  BOOM - just like that bells start ringing, ideas start flowing and the light bulb just hits.  #bestbirthdaysurpriseeva begins the planning stages.

After a couple of down-low meetings and phone calls we picked the dates of travel, the mode of travel and where we are going to stay.  We book it.  And here's the thing:  If you stay at a hotel on Universal property you get to go to the parks an hour earlier.  (it does help and is awesome being there with no crowds)  Also, when you purchase your two-day (or more) park to park passes you get to ride the Hogwarts Express to get to the other side.  Oh my!  Can you plan a more perfect surprise for an 11 yo HP fan???

We were planning this for both the girls birthdays happening this summer, but the dates that worked for us had us arriving on my daughters actual birthday.  I decided to bring cupcakes with us, so we could at least sing to her that evening.

One surprise I worked on for both of them was I created an acceptance letter and turned it into a scroll attached to a stuffed owl.  We planned on putting the owls on the girls beds right before they arrived in the room.

We also made them tee shirts, so that the first day at the parks they could dress alike.  Have you seen the memes on FB?  I printed the saying and ironed it onto a plain white tee.  And I happened to find a picture on google of their favorite quote and added to the back of the tee.  They loved the shirts and they got so many compliments!

When we decided on traveling by train versus driving, we realized 13 hours was a long time, but since the train ride was overnight we were hoping that the girls would fall asleep after the initial excitement wore off.  Yeah, so needless to say when we arrived at the train station we found out our train had been derailed.  So, we were going to have to wait for a coach bus to take us to GA where would then catch our train and head out the rest of the way to Orlando.  We get on the bus, driving 40 minutes, then we have to turn around because the folks at the train station forgot to put the checked luggage on the bus!!!  What!!!  My friend and I just looked at each other like, oh no, this can't be good.  Luckily, even though we didn't tell the girls where we were going, they guessed and said they were on the Knight Bus.

But we made it onto the train at 0500 and even though the conductor kept yelling Orlando, we still didn't confirm where we were going.  We pulled into the hotel parking lot and the girls couldn't contain their excitement.  Surprisingly enough our room was ready when I checked in, so I walked a bit ahead of everyone and set the owls up on the beds.  It was the first thing they saw and they squealed.  They opened their scrolls and read them aloud together.  It was an awesome site to witness.

We got to fly above the Quidditch field with Harry, Ron and Hermione.  We took a ride to the basement of Gringotts.  We drank butterbeer.  And of course went to Olivander's.  And wouldn't you know it, our girls were picked to be a part of the show.  Their wands literally picked them.  Just like its supposed to happen.  And with their interactive wands they got to cast spells around Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley.

We planned on keeping it easy the first day, then going to the parks the next two days and on our check out day hanging by the hotel pool til our cab came to take us back to the train.  I can't believe how smoothly this trip went.  And on the train ride home when my daughter hugged me and thanked me for an awesome birthday trip, that 's when I knew my daughter got it.  She didn't just think this was owed to her for her birthday.  She knew that mommy planned a surprise because she earned it and she understood all the work that went into the planning of it.  That was my #proudmommymoment.