Joseph's 9th Birthday at Universal Studios

Joseph had an eventful 9th birthday! We celebrated with homemade cake and a couple annual passes to Universal Studios! 

Joseph always has wicked bed head.

Celebrate with some balloons.

First attempt at a geode cake, leaked a little bit...
Joseph was really into rocks around this time.

Joseph was also really into Harry Potter and we always wanted to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter before we moved away, so it was the perfect time to go in on some passes to Universal. The kids really enjoyed their time!

Hogwarts coming into view.

Going to get some wands.

Hogsmead.

A wonderful performance for the Tri-Wizard Tournament!

Here are Durmstrang students!

There was a long line to get wands, but they do a little presentation and picked Elijah as the subject!
They did something similar to when Harry got his first wand. Elijah was given different wands and when he was given the last wand, it "chose" him! Everyone then got to go around the store to pick a wand. Elijah wanted to keep his chosen wand, and Joseph chose a "willow" wand. The wands were able to perform certain things around.

Elijah getting a wand!

The flying Weasley car.

The biggest ride is through the Hogwarts castle. What's nice is while you are waiting in line you get to watch all the paintings and different things that you might find at Hogwarts.

So excited!

The ride itself made me dizzy, but the whole part of this park was very well executed. After some butter beer we wandered to some other parts of the park.

Amazing animal show featuring animals from movies.

I'm pretty sure this exact owl was in Harry Potter at some point.

This is the part of Universal that we spend most of our time as it is the most little kid friendly. Thank you Silly Fun land!

Overall, I think it was worth it to get annual passes. It helps that we got a deal through the military. We have gone quite a few times since. Happy 9th Joseph!