Staycation 2019: Partying Potter Style

For a lot of people 2019 has been a hard year and it has only just started! I'm there and I feel y'all. One of the ways that I cope with stress and the grind of day to day is planning vacations and weekends out. It helps me get through the stressful day to day if I have something to look forward to and I love to create fun memories with my family.
One of the things I had really been looking forward to was having my parents and nephew visit. It was my nephew Ian's first trip away from his parents, it also happened to be my dad's birthday. We did some serious celebrating. It involved butterbeer, a velociraptor, and minions. Many minions. We went to Universal Studios!

Laszlo, Ian, and Paul, all of them Potters.

We made sure all the kids were suitably outfitted for Hogsmeade, and then we headed off into the traffic to get ourselves up to Hollywood. Ian, age 11, has read all the Harry Potter books and is quite a fan.

Behold: an uncrowded week day in February at a theme park!

We got pulled out of the crowd to participate in the special effects show, which was pretty funny, but all the better because we were given the best seats in the house to watch the rest of the show.

Here we are enjoying the studio tour

 Paul's favorite part was eating a giant donut from Lard Lad's (It had to be split 7 ways at that was more than enough donut for everyone.)
Laszlo's favorite was either the studio tour or Super Silly Fun Land. It's hard to tell with him being a generally cheerful child.
Ian's favorite was everything Harry Potter. He says he would like to live at Harry Potter World.
I'm not sure what my favorite is, but I'll tell you what it isn't: the drive home! Yay LA traffic!

Obviously not meeting the Po was not an option for my Dad.

A vespa for every kid.

We all fit on the motorcycle!

From a different visit, but I'm not going to post them all separately.
Ain't nobody got time for that!

After two days at Universal, we took it easy on Saturday and tried to sleep in. We picnicked at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium and visited the beach. We found some shells and rocks and got our shoes wet.

Great picture of Laszlo, but I was smiling, posing, not realizing my head was
cut out of the picture.

Ian showing off the lobster shells we found on the beach.

I learned this week that my nephew Ian looks more like my sons than I do. Ian learned that Hollywood is in California. Paul finally learned Ian's name after several days of calling him "that kid." I also learned that Universal Studios will give you a great "Happy Birthday" button and write your name and age on it, but if you're too old they will forego the age part. I'm not sure what the lower limit on that is, but it is less than 69. Happy Birthday, old man!