We stayed on-site at the Royal Pacific Resort, which allowed us an hour’s early entry into the park every day, and Express Passes (or as Kate put it “cut to the front of the line passes”).  We stayed at the parks from opening at 8 a.m. to closing at 7 p.m. and enjoyed every minute of it.  We ate at the Three Broomsticks, drank butterbeer, took a separate tour of Hogwarts Castle (twice).  Kate rode Forbidden Journey 13 (!) times — three with me, and 10 on her own using the single rider line.

We also went through Ollivander’s shop 6 times, and Kate was chosen the second time around.  Video of that is below.  It’s a little dim, but you can get the gist.

I’ve also got pictures below.

Pretending to wave to an adoring crowd:

Posing with their workbooks:

And just a normal picture:

I’ll post details later but here’s a picture from tonight’s party. Just a small one, and they are eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant before heading to a movie.

Update: they went to coldstone after the movie.

But in the meantime, here is a short video from Kate’s Winter Ball last night. Watch through to the very end where she mouths “Go away!” to Ted. Ha ha ha!!

You might remember that 6th grade offers a rite of passage around here known as cotillion.  Ben went through it and now it’s Kate’s turn.  She seems to enjoy dressing up a bit more than Ben did at that age.

These pictures are from the second dance.  I have a few from the first dance but I’m posting this from my phone and don’t have those handy.

In car you are confused, Kate is the shorter one on the right!

We had to give them two recent photos, one close-up, and one full body, so I’ve decided to post those photos of my star here.

First up:  the chorus concert.

Next: the band concert. Please note that Kate is playing the clarinet with much greater skill and musicality than I did when I was in the 5th grade band!

Kate’s on a championship run these days, following up her basketball championship with a soccer tournament championship this weekend.  I wasn’t there since I was with Ben at his soccer tournament 90 minutes away (Ben’s team also made it to the finals, but lost 0-1 in the championship) but I got frequent updates from Ted .

Kate’s team won the first game handily, 5-0.  Kate played goal in the first half and didn’t even touch the ball.  They lost the second game 2-1, to a cross-town rival, and a team with a girl that Kate goes to school with.  They then won the third game 1-0, to put them in the championship.  And who were they playing?   Why the team they lost to in Game 2.

It was a tightly contested match, with Kate’s team falling down by a goal at the half.  It continued this way until the very last minute of the game, when Kate’s team scored an equalizer.  The game then went on to overtime.  With 2 minutes left in OT, the other team scored and Ted, who thought it was sudden death, sent me a text saying that the girls had lost.  I read the text, and sent a quick reply.  As soon as I hit the send button, however, I got another text from Ted, which said that Kate’s team had tied the game!!!

Now it was on to penalty kicks.  Kate took the first one, and buried it in the net “with emphasis” as they say.  It stayed 1-0 for Kate’s team through the third round of kickers and then the other team tied it up with their 4th kicker.  Our last kicker made her kick, and their 5th kicker missed. After a brief moment of shock, the girls erupted in celebration!!!

One of the other moms was kind enough to send me a video of Kate’s penalty kick, as well as some pictures of the girls with their trophies.  The video is a little jumpy at the beginning, but if you watch closely, you’ll see Kate doing a funny little arm punching thing just before she takes the kick.  She does this when she’s nervous and she says it helps calm her down.