Days 3 & 4: Let the crafting begin
Creating the house took two days. One to craft the clay and allow it to dry and one to paint and decorate the homes.
Cinco and The Princess dove right in and started making their clay creations. The Princess opted for a castle decked out in gold and a series of small boxes. She purchased several boxes in different shapes –hearts, square circle– at the Dollar Store and painted them to the homes of “The Nobility”. As she explained, you really can not be a fairy King and Queen with a few nobles to boss around.
Meanwhile, Cinco made a small collection of mini-clay fairy houses. He even went so far as to craft a small clay dog house– I’m sure fairies have dogs too, right?
Cinco also insisted that I learn how to make a fairy hut and gave me through instructions on creating a house. I also used a bit of my left over clay for some small logs to set outside the house.
I, on the other hand, decided to stand by the traditional recycled fairy house. I started with a milk carton and had a vision of decorating it in wooden shingles for the roof and stone pebbles for the walls. That was a hot mess. The shingles looked horrible and the pebbles kept falling off the carton NO MATTER how much hot glue I used.
On my second attempt at the recycled house, I just used paint. I added a few embellishments, like a flower roof and made a nice garden to go with the house and called it a day.
And, after a massive clean up effort boths day, we all ended up in the pool until dinner time. Better than a shower to get all that paint off, right?
The ride was amazing. Half the fun is walking through the Hogwarts castle and looking at the all the details that are brought to life from the movie. For example, the talking sorting hat. I LOVED the moving and talking painting that were hung throughout the castle. The best of course was the famous fat lady. 
After the rides, Queen Gram spoiled the kids by purchasing each one of them a wand at Olivander’s Wand Shop. After that we he had to walk the park and practice our magic with the newly acquired wands. Universal created stations around Harry Potter World where the wands are interactive and the kids stopped boiling cauldrons, made plates of tea cake spin and performed several other “charms”.
Once we had our fill it was time to do the Minion ride. But before we got in line for the ride, Cinco and The Princess wanted to try their luck and/or skill at carnival game. Now, I hate carnival games. These things are money sucking, time wasters at any amusement park and NO ONE should ever play them as far as I am concerned. But the kids had their spending money from their allowance and wanted to go for it. They each decided to spend $5 on the game. And, THEY ACTUALLY BOTH WON and WON BIG toys not the wimpy little ones.
After all that it was only 1:30 in the afternoon. We grabbed lunch and mom decided it was time for a nap. Of course, I was the only one who actually took a nap. The kids played in their rooms and watched a movie.
. I also cheated and purchased the digital version of the movie 
book 2 and loaded on to the kid’s kindles.
and 
..
.
while all of us listened to the audio version as we drove around town doing chores and driving to and from places like the Eiffel Tower.
A Good Night for Ghosts by Mary Pope Osborne. It is from the Magic Tree House series, a great early chapter book. Although Cinco finds the reading rather easy, I like having them read the book together. The take turns each reading a chapter. Best of all, the Magic Tree House webite offer lesson plans that support each book. We did the one for 
Things started out well enough. Good Food for starters. We had to introduce Cinco and The Princess to the world famous Bienets at Cafe Du Mond. Yum…
off for a riverboat cruise on the Natchez. It is one of the last actual steamboats operating in the US. Other boats look like a steamboat, but they are electrical like the Creole Queen.
After dinner at Pat O’Brien’s, we took the children to hear a little jazz preformed by the Preservation Hall Jazz band. The set only lasts 45 minutes but it’s worth every second. We reserved advance tickets in the 2nd row
The Booky Mom 