why i love harry potter...

as june 21st has drawn near, i have become nostalgic. attending this final book release party and diving into the book will be a bitter sweet experience. for the last seven years i have lived knowing that harry has more to accomplish and that i get to be a part of it when it happens. so much has happened in my life since harry potter was first introduced to the world in 1997.

i came into the harry potter phenomenon a bit late. the first book i read in the series--book 2--i purchased in the phoenix airport while flying to cincinnati on my honeymoon...late August of 2000. at this sublime time in my life i began delving into the life of harry potter. as an era comes to a close, i can't help but feel that a chapter of my life ending with jk rowling's final installment. this post will attempt to reconcile my life and harry's--showing how his journey and mine have intermingled.

book one--harry potter and the philosopher's stone (26 june 1997)

as harry potter's journey through hogwarts began, i began a journey of my own. my entry into the mtc marked a milestone in my life and an initiation into the adult mormon religious experience. my entrance into the temple then the mtc was marked with excitement, elation, and trepidation. harry had similarly poignant experiences--discovering his wizard nature, entering hogwarts school, sorted into gryffindor house, learning of his parents true fate and facing voldemort. it was a big year for both of us.

my first area in the philippines...



dad's letter while in the mtc...



book three--harry potter and the chamber of secrets (2 july 1998)

the second book is harder to correlate with my life. harry interacts with ginny more in this book as she is possessed by tom riddle's diary. i had not yet met amy, but 1998 was a great year for her and her family...

they took a trip to niagra falls the summer book two came out and this picture of aj sums up how we all feel about the harry potter books.


i was a year into my time in the philippines and times were good...


book three--harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban (8 july 1999)

this was a difficult yet important year for harry. he was tormented by the animagus form of sirius (black dog) yet discovered him to be wrongly accused. sirius ultimately brought solace to harry's world as a surrogate father.

coming home from the philippines was difficult for me, but i soon met someone who would change my life.



before we met and during the summer the book three release she was blissfully traveling with her family in preparation for sending her brother to venezuela...

risenmay boys in the waters of florida. i have come to know and love these boys as family.


this trip to island park with her family cemented their kentucky country upbringing...



amy and matt have always been close friends. these pictures from that spring and summer belay this fact...


amy wasn't sure why i included this picture, but it's a great close-up of matt and paul r...

the end of this summer found me unable to keep my eye's off of amy...


by some stroke of magic inspiration? she decided to invite a boy she'd just met to the airport to see matty off...it was good she did as we were hitched before his return...


book four--harry potter and the goblet of fire (8 july 2000)

this was the first book that brought me to tears. harry wins the tri-wizard tournament and is transported by portkey to face voldemort. the priori incantem that springs to life from voldemort's malevolent spell brings harry face to face with his parents for the first time. his heightened emotions at that point mirrored the heightened emotions i would experience in a most memorable summer for me.

the summer began with a marriage proposal...


i was recently asked what i did for my bachelor's party and i didn't have a good answer. in rethinking the question though, my medical trip to the philippines just days after the engagement was a month long bachelor's party--all clean mormon fun.




lafe expresses what i felt as the wedding festivities drew to a close...!


this picture is a tribute to the frandsen thanksgiving celebrations that have mirrored several harry potter movie releases...



book five--harry potter and the order of the phoenix (21 june 2003)

harry took a hiatus and came back moody as ever. however, his life reached new heights as he fought off a dementor attack, started dumbledore's army, fought with death eaters and faced voldemort alone once again.

harry's hiatus mirrored my own. three years of blissful childless marriage were reigned in with the birth of our firstborn shmibbers. he has heightened our emotions and our ability to love in ways i didn't think i was capable.


and let's face it, harry potter has always been about family, friends and love...


notice goblet of fire at amy's feet...used to pass the time while feeding the shmibbers.


book six--harry potter and the half-blood prince (16 july 2005)

harry's time in his sixth year at hogwart's was overshadowed by death...the death of his godfather the previous year and the ultimate death of dumbledore. in the midst of these tragedies, he pushed forward in his quest for defeat of voldemort. bright spots in his life at this time included personal time with dumbledore throughout the year, an emotionally satisfying relationship with ginny and strengthened friendship with hermione and ron. this book in particular seemed to signal a transition from boy to man for harry as the book ends with him leaving school early in search of he who must not be named...

the books release found our family in transition. michael had grown from shmibber to shmichael and we had recently announced our pregnancy...(little did we expect that amy would be great with two children)


michael has not read any of the books, and i hope to read from book one with him this week. however, at the half-blood prince release party, he and i went to the gateway borders party complete with owls, potter glasses and lots of fun...


book seven--harry potter and the deathly hallows (scheduled for 21 july 2007)

where will book seven find harry?

where will book seven find you?

sadly, book seven will mark the end of a beloved story for me. harry has seen me through years of change and i will always look with fondness on these years of my life...

thank you for reading to the end of this really long and excessively nostalgic post. if there are pictures you think i should have included from the last 10 summers, i probably agree with you. but i have very few pictures in our home from before the kiddos were born...

wildfire!...

we're headed to utah on thursday. however, raging in southern utah is the largest fire in the state's history...

reports of absolute, breathtaking panic...

road closures...

and a record setting fire abound.

the specter of making the drive makes your pulse quicken when looking at the top photo.

last july, our little family was driving up I-15 in southern utah for mom's b-day when lightening hit a patch of grass off to our left. we watched in awe as the fire spread at a breathtaking rate from the strike piont. minutes later firetrucks speeding from the north barreled past us in the oncoming lane.


we are excited to see everyone this week, but we'll just play our departure time by ear...

update: uncle ron says, "cut over to Panguitch right after Cedar City and drive up Highway 89"

we'll call udot the day of our drive for further advice. i assume the detour at cedar city would take us down highway 14 to 89 and we would then go north on 89 to I-70 and then head up highway 28 for a chance to pass through gunnison...?

malibu musings...

when's the last time you lounged around in a beach chair...


have you recently created a sand angel with great fervor...


when did you last run for you life...


have you tried rolling around in the sand with abandon in recent memory...


when were you last buried to your dismay...


come beach camping with us and our kids will show you a good time...really, you're all invited.

we're game...

we are trying to figure out how to spend our month in july.

july is an elective month for me and all of my responsibilities for the month can be fulfilled at a keyboard, on the internet or at a desk. there is no border within which i must be confined.

so, where should we go? what should we do?

i thought about going with all the relatives and friends possible to havasupai the first week of july...that would be sweet.


we are thinking about 4th of july at lake arrowhead. or we were thinking we could hang out with the peterson's at the beach.

i'd love to go to moab. if you aren't excited then this little reminder might do it for you:



we are planning on coming to utah and oregon? i was thinking it would be nice to stay in the dame's cabin up at that lake in central idaho...

we're also planning on july 24th in utah. michael is super excited about that...

to get a better idea of what to do in july 2007, i turned to julys of the past after which to pattern our current life:

july 2005.


july 2004.


july 2003.


we will definitely be at harry potter book and movie premiers this year.


july 2005.


july 2005.


july 2005.


we announced a presumed single pregnancy in july of 2005 (little did we know).


we are not pregnant:)

we look foward to seeing many of you:

Swimming and Father's Day...

While striving to solve the world's oil crisis, our readership has also been demanding pictures and videos of the kiddos. So here you go.



In the past couple of weeks, we have been making our way to the pool quite a bit. It has been the first times for the girls (I finally get to put them into those bathing suits I bought on sale 2 years ago...) and Michael is turning into a regular fish.


Bekah was first in the water, and had a bit of a concerned face at first. But she quickly acclimated to the chilly water, and got a huge kick out of kicking her legs.


Abby clutched onto Paul as she came into the water, and gave a bit of a hard time about getting into her float. But soon enough, she saw how much fun Michael and Bekah were having, and joined in the smiles and the laughter.


Michael has really surprised me in the water. Last summer, he would stay right on the steps of our neighborhood pool, venturing out in our arms every once in a while. He has gotten taller since then, and has discovered that he can touch the bottom in the 3 foot part. He regularly puts his head into the water. He loves walking and kicking in the water. When he has a little inter tube, he is really good at keeping his legs out and kicking. He begins swimming lessons today, and he is really excited.

Here is some video of our first time out this summer.





With our neighborhood pool so close, our YMCA pass, and Michael's swimming lessons... we are bound to be in the pool a LOT this summer. What a fun time!

Last week, we rented "High School Musical" (confession time, I know...) and let Michael watch the basketball scene. He ate it up in a big way, and it has become a part of his playtime routine. Here are a few moves.



In other news, yesterday was the big Father's Day holiday. We got to celebrate the fathers in our lives... especially the wonderful father of my children.


Michael was quite excited to give his dad special presents, songs, and meals. Here is some video of the night before Father's Day. He was getting ready for bed when duty called. He began spontaneously making up his own Father's Day songs about his dear old dad...





We were there for quite a while. You know I have honestly never been able to understand those who take a long time on the toilet. My motto has always been "in and out." No need for reading material... it just doesn't take that long, you know? But I guess this is one of the many ways that Michael is taking after his father. I guess there will always be ways in which I will never understand my spouse... or son.

tank half full or half empty...

i've been thinking about oil lately. my attitude towards oil and energy was probably informed by my youth in spanish fork--lots of sweet trucks with big tires (low gas mileage) and wide open spaces on which to enjoy trucks and other engine based toys. i suppose i subconsciously felt that if God was worried about mother earth's health i would have heard something from a priesthood leader about conservation of energy. in most of utah there just aren't enough people for a critical mass of pollution to build up and visibly show the effects of carbon emissions on air quality...

currently, i believe that the majority of environmentalists use biased and alarmist data to further their positions. it does them a disservice because reasonable people tend to dismiss their claims on this assumption.

recently my favorite author :) wrote a treatise regarding conservation, and it struck close to home...for those of you who don't share my love of his writings, i will save you time and share the poignant points:

"...Back when I was in college, I was reading estimates that we'd be out of oil before the end of the 20th century..."

"...What is obvious is that we have used up almost all the easy oil and the "vast reserves" remaining in shale and other such marginal deposits are very expensive to extract.

How short-sighted do we have to be? We have been burning oil for only a century and we've nearly used up all the easy, high-quality stuff. What if we last another hundred years before it's all gone...?

Do you know what that means? Six thousand years of recorded human history, and in only two hundred years we wipe out a precious resource that can never be replaced..."


"...But we're just as dumb....because we still have plenty of time to change, and we're just not willing to do it.

Why? Because we still center our lives around the automobile.

It's so sad -- a real crisis is staring us in the face and hardly anybody is talking about it, because the phantasm of global warming is getting all the press..."

"...That's why I said we have to change our social expectations. We have to make it a mark of shame to be stuck in a neighborhood where the lots are so huge that you can't walk in order to get anywhere.

It's already a huge inconvenience and expense. I daresay most readers of this column spend most of their gas money and transportation time on two things: Shopping and commuting. And how much of that is spent just getting out of your neighborhood..."


"...Because of the rate we're burning oil, our kids, or maybe grandkids, won't have any.

So they'll have to live in smaller neighborhoods. They'll have to walk or take public transportation.

The difference is, it will have come on them as a disaster, an economic collapse, and they really will be poor..."

now i don't agree with all his assumptions and accusations (and he isn't without blame as he commutes 2 1/2 hours twice a week to teach at southern virginia university in his ford 500.)

however, we need to find economical ways to find new sources of energy. i am optimistic that turning the capitalistic market loose on the race for economically, profitable technologies will yield results. in the meantime, al gore may be hypocritical and wrong on most issues, but his crusade may be what saves our nation (and it will probably save it in ways and for reasons he will never understand...)

what are your thoughts? are these ideas new to you? distasteful? dangerous? sound? do you look into a child's eyes and fear for their future?

A Little Review...

Most of last week was spent with pretty miserably sick kiddos. Here is a picture of my "triplets" feeling nice and pampered watching "Cars."



(Michael insisted on the sippy cup.)

By the end of the week, we were mostly on the mend, and Paul was at an ACEP conference in Newport Beach. Friday was the Father-and-Sons Camp Out, and he was feeling really sad about missing it, as he wouldn't be back until Saturday evening. Well, Friday night he realized that there weren't many good lectures on Saturday, so he decided to pack his bags and come home. He got home at 11pm, packed up the tent and sleeping bags, and woke up a slumbering Son. Michael was pleasantly surprised about his awakening, and happily climbed into the car to go.



There were still a few late-nighters sitting around the campfire when they arrived. By all reports, the Camp Out was a beaming success. Way to go, daddy!

On Monday, we re-instated preschool (we haven't been meeting for the past 1.5 months). Our good friends, the Rowleys, have moved this week (sob, sob), which took away 2 of the 4 kids from the group. So for now it is just Michael and his friend Mika, and I will be teaching every other week until we find another well-suited kid/mom to join our group.

On Tuesday, we took what might be our last Disneyland trip for quite some time. Our year pass has almost expired (can you believe we've been here that long??), and most of the days now are blocked out as the vacation season picks up.



This picture is especially for Libby. We found the wall!

Now we must endure the rest of June. Paul just started his Orthopedics rotation at Riverside... early mornings, late nights, almost no days off... and a commute to boot. But June is already almost halfway over, right???? We're all looking forward to July.

Happy Birthdays Matt & Angela...

Happy Birthday to Matt and Angela... 5 days apart... so cute!



Thanks for all the fun times. We look up to you in so many ways, and are glad to be in this family adventure together! We love you and your family!!