Vegas: Harry Potter Party at Mae's

Have you ever dreamt of being a wizard, and sat eagerly by the door or the mailbox awaiting your Hogwarts letter only to be disappointed by cruel muggle reality? Never fear, my dears, because you, too, can live out your dreams of being a wizard, Harry! While you might not be doing it with our close friend Mae at her amazing party, you can recreate the experience in your own home with enough time and dedication.  😉 For weeks leading up to this party Mae dedicated hours to creating hand-made wands for each party goer to select upon their arrival and sorting into their appropriate house with the help of any friends willing to lend their time and efforts to the project. Both Antho and I put in some time making wands! It was a lot of fun and definitely something we'd like to do again. We were also both sorted into Ravenclaw on Pottermore, the official hub of all things Harry Potter on the internet. Ravenclaw is a house associated with cleverness, wit, creativity, talent and originality. Ravenclaws are smart and capable individuals who go about life to the beat of their own quirky drum, characterised by Luna Lovegood, Rowena Ravenclaw, Cho Chang, Sybill Trelawney, and unfortunately Gilderoy Lockhart (who used his wits and talent to rise to  his ill-begotten success).  While Gryffindor tends to get all the glory, Slytherin are known sassy sneaky snakes, Ravenclaws are working diligently behind the scenes pursuing our own, often times odd, passions. We don't need all the aplomb and praise so long as we can go after the things we're fervent about. 

I'm definitely a Ravenclaw. How about you? Have you ever been sorted? We happened to find an official Harry Potter Sorting hat while out at the Linq promenade and snagged it up for Mae's party as we wanted our beloved friend to have the best of the best available for her special birthday shindig, ya dig? When fate smiles upon you and bestows the appropriate gift at the appropriate time, you really should listen to your intuition and just roll with it. Is that a rather Sybill Trelawney sort of thing to say? Perhaps. Maybe I would have done well in fortune telling...

Now, gaze into the flames and tell me what you see, students.

What does your future portend? 

Vegas: Feast of Thrones at Mae's

We find ourselves extremely fortunate in that over the years we somehow became counted among the inner circle of our good friend Mae's close inner circle of personal friends. This includes a bounty of benefits, such as having the wonderful and thoughtful Mae as our friend, along with invites to the various festivities and events she hosts throughout the year. Not only is she an incredible human being in and of herself, but the amount of energy and attention to detail that she puts into every gathering hosted at her home is incredible! She really goes above and beyond to try to create the perfect evening and entertainment experience for all involved and it really shows! We've been going to her parties for years, first as friends of a friend, but she's such a chill and kind-hearted person that it's hard not to be her friend. Every time we make our way to her fabulous nerd-cave we find a new and exciting event in the works, too, which boggles my mind given the amount of energy and preparation involved for each one. It's always a good time, and the food has been outstanding, especially on the more intimate gatherings where more care and expense can go into the preparation. On this evening we were celebrating the season finale of Game of Thrones, which dates this post a bit, but at least it's finally here! 

Antho and I are a bit behind with the show as it took me ages to convince him to start watching it- and somewhere around season 5 or 6 we got distracted and left off.  Maybe it was all the death... or the CW's Flash probably came back on air and we got so caught up in our beloved Speedster, his melodrama and Team Flash's antics that we couldn't bring ourselves back to the death and tragedies of Westeros. Still, the season finale was certainly a spectacle to behold and we had a lot of fun! The food was absolutely fantastic and I ate an enormous amount. There were cheeses galore with sweet bursts of fruit to pop through the creamy richness, bacon wrapped dates stuffed with cheese, tender fluffy little roastie potatoes with crackly skins, sweet honey baked ham, umami stuffed mushrooms and so much more, all of it absolutely delectable. I was talking about this meal and event for weeks! This is typically the case for any of the events we attend at Mae's, to be fair. 😉

Photos continue below!