The Weapon We Have Is Love

I'm finally sitting down with something to blog about. The last 4ish months I have been really busy planning an event that FINALLY took place this past weekend in Potosi,MO (about 2 hours outside St. Louis). The event was called Wrockstock Spooktacular and it was a benefit for The Harry Potter Alliance (http://thehpalliance.org/) I can't figure out how to do the hyperlinks right now as it's been awhile since I've used this and it's sort of late so I can't call Misti. The HP Alliance is a group that uses the imagery from Harry Potter to draw parallels in todays world relating to social justice issues like poverty,the genocide in Darfu,AIDS, and the environment. One of my best friends Abby had the brilliant idea some months ago to put on a weekend camp with wizard wrock bands (bands that sing about Harry Potter) and raise money for the HPA. Being in Abby's core group of friends I naturally hopped right on board with the planning. This was possibly the best experience of my life. Not only did we have a blast goofing of to wrock music but I made some amazing friends and helped with a good cause. I got to know the creator of The Harry Potter Alliance -Andrew- pretty well. I picked him up from the airport in St. Louis (along with some others that I'll mention later) and we ended up being bunkmates in the cabin at camp. Along with Andrew I picked up Maria, Tonks, and Cori-none of whom I knew before the even- and we all became fast friends. It was a 2 hour drive to the camp and 2 hours back to the airport so we had plenty of time to become chummy. They all (minus Maria who lives in Philly) live in Boston so I am going up there the second weekend of December for The Yule Balls (2 more Harry Potter events). I know you guys all think I'm insane for being so into Harry Potter but I have made some amazing friends through this "scene" that I will never forget. Naturally- I have a ton of photos so I'm going to post a few here:

This is a band called The Remus Lupins. They are one of my favorite Wizard Wrock bands and I've seen them play a few times. They always put on a really good show.


This is my new friend and bunkmate Andrew-the creator/founder of The Harry Potter Alliance. He colored his hair pink for some crazy reason (it was costume night) and he was wearing my tie. At least I got it back.


This is a band called Draco and the Malfoys. They act like Slytherins on stage but are possibly the nicest guys out there.


There's a band called Harry and the Potters who basically started the whole wizard wrock scene. They didn't play but one of the members was there. They are famous for closing their shows with a song called "The Weapon" which is about love and how it is the weapon we can use to defeat the evils in this world. Its the main theme of the Harry Potter series. The last night the last band had all the wizard wrockers there (even if they hadn't played) get on stage and see it. It was the most amazing of sites.


These are two more of my cabinmates Ty and Shawn O. They have a band called Tom Riddle and Friends and they are hilarious.


This is me and my goblin sidekick-Maria. We were in charge of getting all the behind the scenes stuff set up for the event. Maria and I (and her fiance Nathan) had quite a good time goofing off around camp.


This is Andrew,Tonks, and I when Andrew was getting ready to fly back to Boston. There were 5 of us in our little traveling crew that we like to now call "A-Slack's Traveling Crew" but only Tonks and I got to see Andrew off.


Here are a few pretty shots I got around camp. The leaves had started to change (unlike in GA at the time) and I loved taking photos of them.




Last but not least here is a video of the finale of the song "The Weapon". I guess I have made up for the lack of blogs with the length of this one. I'll try and keep it up better..if not- I'll at least blog when I get back from Boston next month :)

I'm not missing.

I know I haven't blogged in forever but I haven't had any photos to post lately! I am going to St.Louis this weekend for a Harry Potter thing and will have plenty of photos to share when I return. Stay tuned!

More of me...

Sorry it has taken me so long to update. I'm not very good at blogging because most of the time there's nothing too exciting going on. A few weeks ago the family and I went to Missouri to visit everyone. It was loads of fun and I'd really like to go back more often. We went to Ha Ha Tonka (a castle ruin) and I got some really neat shots. Here are some photos I took while we were in Missouri.

Tux, Hans, and then one of me and Hans. I love these dogs!




This was Grandpa Cole's barn when he was a kid. It was so neat to go around and see where he grew up. We even got to go inside an old school house!


These next few are from Ha Ha Tonka. It's a castle up on a mountain that burned down in the 40's. It was a really neat site to see.





This is my favorite of all the ones I took that day:


Enjoy the photos. Hopefully I'll have more up soon.

Phoenix Rising in New Orleans!

I hadn't blogged about it yet because I've been so busy but this past weekend I went to New Orleans for a Harry Potter convention. Please hold back the jokes! ha. I know I'm a dork and I don't need to be reminded about that :) I took a ton of pictures but this thing only lets met blog four of them through blogger and I don't feel like uploading them all into photobucket right now. So, right now you will have to settle for a few. I flew in Friday morning and met up with some friends for bienets ( I have no clue of how to spell that) at Cafe Du Monde. It was so tasty! That night there was a Wizard Rock concert on Bourbon Street and Mtv was there covering the convention! I wonder if they got any footage of me bustin' a move. Probably not because I didn't do any dancing. Saturday just hung out with friends and that night my friends @ Spinnerscast and Spellcast put on a live podcast. That was loads of fun. I ended up having to take an EARLY flight out Sunday morning and had the craziest cab driver ever. He was pretty entertaining. I had a what I thought would be 3 hour layover in Cincinnati but ended up being stuck there for 10 hours!!! That's what I get for flying standby. Don't know that I will ever do that again. I didn't get settled back at my apartment til' 11:30 that night. Ugh. Well, here are some photos!

This is a cathedral in the French Quarter. I wish I had had time to get a closer shot.



Just a neat building.


Paige and I at Cafe Du Monde. YUM!


A shot of Bourbon St by night.


I'll try and post more pictures later.

Chirp chirp

Chirp. A friendly bird came by to say hello.

Updates and weddings

I have been begged to update about the ducks. Last weekend I wrote a long update blog about the ducks and other goings on but it didn't save so I got frustrated and didn't re-blog. It seems the ducklings might have gone off to the great farm in the sky. They started as 8. A few days passed and then it was 6. A few more days went by and there were only 4. About a week into it there were none walking around anymore. I have no idea if they died or if they just moved to the bigger pond. I went over to the big pond the other day and didn't see them so I fear for the worst. Hopefully the ducks will have more ducklings.

In other news: one of my close friends got married this past weekend! He, Jeremy, married a lovely girl named Hope whom I think is pretty amazing. The first time I met her we really clicked and I feel like I've known her this whole time. They got married at The Historic Dunaway Gardens in Newnan. It was so beautiful!! And thanks to Nathan's dad I got a full history of the place. Turns out it used to be an acting camp and celebrities frequented it in the 1930's. Walt Disney and his brother used to dine there when in town. I of course got a few pictures of the ceremony and the beautiful bride and handsome groom.

I really like this first picture because it seems the background is blurred like a Monet painting but the flower girl's face is in focus. It is very medieval looking to me.


Hope's dress was absolutely gorgeous! Possibly my dream wedding dress. She looked so beautiful! They are such a happy couple.


Here's the happy couple. Jeremy sort of blends in with Ben's dad's suit. Haha!


The communion prayer. I lucked out with this great pic. I had a hard time getting focus from a distance.


The weather could not have been more perfect. We had a grand old time at the reception hanging out with old friends (i.e. Nathan and his wife Courtney). The band was fun and played some great tunes and Ben kept burning himself with the sparkles at the procession. I am officially the last single one of the group. I don't really know how to react to that. Social gatherings will be a little odd from now on I guess.

They have arrived!!

When I got home from work yesterday there was a pleasant surprise waiting for me on the sidewalk. The ducklings have hatched!!! They are so cute. They follow mummy around everywhere. She is teaching them all sorts of things. She spends alot of time trying to get them to climb out of the water on to the bank...the aren't quite big enough for that though. Sometimes they make it with a flying leap though. They'll learn. When they are't swimming or walking around she puts out her wings and they sleep under them. It's so cute. I'll keep posting pictures as they grow bigger. These ducks are going to take over!! Oh....and I got a Flikr account so everyone can see all my photoraphy. I can't always post all my pictures on here...so keep an eye out @ www.flickr.com/photos/haleythehero .

Finally....again.

I had to make the last blog into 2 blogs because I was having so major issues with sizing of the photos. Also, I cannot figure out how to blog more than 4 photos with Picasa. Maybe Misti can help me with that. Here are more photos:

Yesterday I took some picture of Crookshanks. He's the "stray" cat that I feed. He's a cutie.



These are just some random shots I got throughout the week.

Finally...

I finally have some new photos to post. Mom has been asking me to blog again-but I like to have photos to include. This past weekend I went to Chattanooga to hang out with Nick and Bethany and to see our friends J-Roddy Walston and the Business play. Before the show we went out for Greek food at The Acropolis. It was really good and I took a few photos.

This is what I got- Pastitso (or something like that). It's like a Greek lasagna.


Here's Bethany eating my Avgolemono (sp??) soup and Nick in the background watching the game. It was Final Four weekend. I didn't like the soup much but it was ok because Nick said it didn't taste much like the real this his Papou makes.


A few days before Misti and Jonathan were at Mom and Dads and we took him to the park. He's getting so big! I think he really likes to swing.

Spring is here!

Dad and I went to the St. Patrick's Day parade downtown Saturday. My picture's aren't that exciting though. My favorite part of the parade was probably the Irish dogs that came through with shamrock bandana's and other cute outfits. The Irish folk dancer's were cool too. Dad and I were pretty surprised at just how many Irish schools of dance there are in the Atlanta area. This first picture is from the subway escalator- it is the steepest one I have ever seen. I got so dizzy going up and almost couldn't take a photo on the way down. This is probably my favorite picture of the day.


This is a neat statue @ Underground Atlanta. At the end of the parade there was a St. Patrick's Day festival there and dad and I walked around a bit.


Yesterday when I got off work I noticed that alot of the tree's outside my apartment were in bloom. I decided to grab the ole' camera and take a few shots. These are a few of the photos I got. The hour right after sunrise and right before sunset is called "golden hour". It is the best lighting for outdoor photography so I was lucky to catch it.