Dave/Shelli Wedding
My nephew David (Kristy's oldest sister's eldest son) was married today. Kristy traveled down to Mesa in the early morning hours, attended the wedding and the wedding reception, then returned home in the evening. While in Mesa she was able to visit with her sisters Tamra, Karen, and Tonya, her brother Dan, her Dad (Richard) and Mom (Bertha), as well as Windsor and Tamra/Windsor's other children (Aaron, Ben, Andrew, and Kate). It was a whirlwind trip, but she is glad she went.

Here are the pictures she took, click to enlarge:

Allergy Blood Test Results
The allergy testing on my blood all came back negative... but my skin test was positive. My doctor said this could mean that my allergy is so new that if I avoided the foods my skin reacted to (almonds, hazelnuts, and walnuts), that I may be able to outgrow the negative reaction if I avoid those nuts completely for the next two years. Or it could be in two years when I retest, that both the skin and blood results will come back positive. The likelihood of outgrowing the allergy, at my age, is very slim I was told.

Book Review: Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
I began the 850+ page Book 5 of the Harry Potter series, Order of the Phoenix, during my down time at scout camp last weekend and finished it off tonight. I will not typically read the Harry Potter books when they are originally published, but instead wait and read them when the corresponding movie is released. The movie, Order of the Phoenix, opens tomorrow (but we probably won't get around to seeing it for a couple of weeks).

I was extremely unimpressed by the last of the Potter books, Goblet of Fire, thinking that Rowling had set the bar pretty low. Well, she has lowered the bar with Order of the Phoenix... it is, by far, the worst of the series. The entire premise of the book is just too far-fetched. The apparent unbelievability of Voldemort's return as told my Harry Potter, Dumbledore, et al could simply be solved with a little bit of the "veritaserum". Why none of these smart wizards ever figured that out is never explained. The fact that Professor Umbridge thought of using the truth-telling potion to trick Harry into divulging the location of Sirius just adds insult to injury. Um... hello? Why not just give young Mr. Potter the serum and have him relate the entire matter of Voldemort to the Daily Prophet and be done with it? We can't have that, as it would probably eliminate about 600 pages of worthless material from this colossal book. Argh.

The ending to the book is just pathetic. We find out that the Order of the Phoenix is going to great lengths to prevent Voldemort from getting something that Dumbledore explains can just be re-created by himself (on a whim) at any time. So if it so important that Voldemort does not get the "prophecy", why dontcha just destroy it now, and then maybe - I dunno - wait until Voldemort is finally thwarted, and then recreate the prophecy then? Meh. Never mind the fact that Voldemort was extending all this energy to try and get a "prophecy" which just would have told him that he must kill Harry Potter before Harry kills him?! Something Voldemort has been trying to do all along anyway! Um, gee... thanks for that Mrs. Rowling... what a compelling narrative for a book you have created. Wow. Just... wow.