7/21/07 Harry Potter Book 7 Party

We couldn't wait for the book to come out! We bought 2 advance copies to pick up in Santa Rosa, CA and signed up to attend the Barnes and Noble Party. The kids purchased t-shirts at Hot Topic. Sarah's said "Snape - Friend or Foe?" and Dave's was the Griffinder logo.

We arrived around 8:30 pm and waited until the books were officially being sold at 12:01. While we waited the kids read manga (Sarah - "Deathnote"; Dave - "Bleach") and I read the latest Stephanie Plum novel cover-to-cover.

We received Harry Potter glow-in-the-dark glasses and a graduation tassle with a tag "072707" which we hung in the RV.

Since we had preordered our books, we were in the third set of 300 people (there were more than 1400 people there) and we were up to the cash registers and out the door by 12:40.

Both children stayed up all night. Dave finished his after a brief cat nap and turned the book over to me. Both Sarah and I admonished him 50 times not to say ANYTHING about the book or its ending. When Sarah finished it at dawn on Monday, she couldn't wait to talk about it -- I had to send the two of them outside so I wouldn't overhear.

We were satisfied with the ending, but will miss our old friends...

7/15/07 Charles Schulz Museum

We couldn't believe our good luck -- while we were in Santa Rosa preordering our Harry Potter book, we saw a sign "Charles M. Schulz Museum."

We had a delightful afternoon!

7/8/07 San Simeon

While we were waiting for the RV to be checked out for the mystery creaking (the bolts for the steering column needed to be redone -- but it took two more months to figure that out -- sigh...), we went to San Simeon for the day.

It was too hot to leave Mayim in the car while we went to Hearst Castle, so Dave went swimming in the ocean and we had lunch in Cambria.

7/2007 Orange County

We really enjoyed our last summer in Orange County.

Cherished cousins came to visit from Chicago and we used them as an excuse to go sailing. The weather was beautiful!