day 4 Tuesday/birthday!

McKinley chose to go to Harry Potter World on her birthday specifically.

We headed straight to Ollivander's wand shop. They do a little wand ceremony for one person in each big group they take in. The wand chooses the wizard. 

Then they let you out into the wand shop where you can purchase one if you'd like. All four kids got the interactive wands that you can cast spells with around the park.

McKinley chose Hermione's.

Sawyer chose Ron's.

Hayden chose Snape's.

Josh chose Harry Potter's.

The train and conductor.

We ate lunch at the Three Broomsticks!

There are a couple of rides. Here we are in front of Hagrid's Hut as we wait to ride the Flight of the Hippogriff.

Here we are at the gates to Hogwarts castle. There was no line to wait in here. The first time we hurried through to the ride, The Forbidden Journey, and the second time we took our time and looked at all the fun stuff there is to see inside the castle. The talking paintings, the sorting hat, the Dark Arts classroom, and other cute things we missed rushing through the first time.

Here are a couple of us casting our spells around the park. 

We watched the school choir sing with their toads.

McKinley and I had to go to the entrance to get her a birthday button to wear. After she put it on, apparently every employee must say happy birthday to her. She loved it of course! At the entrance it tells you to 'please respect the spell limits. When we bought the wands the kids were told to not call the dark mark, and not cast any unforgivable curses.

There's a resting spot in the owlery. You can see the animatronic owls in the rafters as well as owl droppings on the floor below.

 Of course we got some butterbeer! Some of us chose regular and some chose frozen butterbeer.

We also watched the Goblet of Fire tournament performance, but the kids were done with my picture requests.

After we had spent all the time we wanted in the Harry Potter World section, we visited a few other spots in Universal. We rode the Depicable Me, Transformers, Jurassic Park, and the Mummy rides.

McKinley's other request for California was to go see the Hollywood sign. So on our way back to the hotel we drove by a viewing spot at the Griffin Observatory. It was very crowded and parking was $4, so we had her stick her head out the window while we drove slowly by the lookout spots. It was good enough.