The Final Chapter....

After much hype, waiting, anticipating, cajoling, begging, gnashing of teeth, disappointment of early spoilers.....

It is over.......

*Phew*.....finally. We didn't take any chances in our house, Daddy bought several copies of the book. One for me to read, one for him to read and one to give away.

I won't give anything away, but let's just say I was stunned, shocked, saddened and relieved. The story is finally complete.

And it was AWESOME!!! Ms. Rowling....you are brilliant! And we'll miss waiting for your wonderful stories....We hope you keep writing more, even though we know they won't be about Harry and Hogwarts.

~~Mama

Translatio Imperii!!

It has been a bit since I've put my perspective out on the blog, and now when I do I end up using Latin. So why use the dead language and even more pertinent... What does it mean!!!
Well, I used Latin for a few reasons,: 1.) It sounded cool ; 2.) It grabs attention and 3.) I wanted to make this announcement sound much more formal.

Now to what it means. Translatio Imperii is "transfer of rule", or the succession of a great power in favor of another.

Of course, now I've explained why, and what the phrase means, but not the most important question. Why is this phrase even significant?

Now for all of you that are not from the East Coast, this is not going to be quite as awe inspiring as those that knew me growing up.

For those of you that know my history with the game of RISK, this is why I am making such a formality and using Latin.

My son has handily defeated me in only his second attempt of playing RISK.


He hit me with 2 RISK trade-ins in a row at 30 and 35 armies a piece. If that weren't bad enough it also doesn't hurt that he inherited this weird ability to roll lots of 6's. :-)

All hail the new Pax Zawroticana!

~~Daddy

Hot Fun

...it's summertime!
Jeez-Louise! I can't believe how fast time goes. Here it is already July and I feel like I just put away all the Winter Holiday decorations. Pretty soon....(like next weekend!), they (those at the Mall) will be putting out the Hallows decorations.

Tonight it is a gorgeous night. The day was sizzling !HOT! But, it's summer in Southern California. So, I know I can't expect anything less. I am on my patio in my lounge chair (with the laptop and a wireless connection....got to LOVE technology!) sipping a cool drink, watching bats fly through the yard as the sun goes down and all those yummy bugs come out of the caves they have been hiding in all day. But "bugs" around here isn't at all like in New England. It's way too dry here for mos-qui-toes.

The summer has been going for a couple of weeks now. Our "year" activities with the other homeschool group finally wound down. Girl began a dance class and Boy is taking a rock climbing class (indoors with A/C--thank the gods!). They are both on the same day, so there is minimum running around for this mom.

The biggest issue right now is our park day for the "elf" group. For three weeks now we have trucked on out to our usual, quiet, wide open spot and if none of us had a calendar we would have all known it was summer anyway. Our park was completely crowded! Here is N's reaction to all the kids in the park now:


Actually, this was taken after everyone had cleared out. But it's a very funny picture so I have included it.

That's all the news for now. We are missing everyone.


~~Mama