I thought I'd share some of our hobbies along with some of our favourite links. Maybe you'll find something of interest for you or your family! And here are some hyperlinks to jump to each section:

Harry Potter
The Simpsons
Charmed
Lord of the Rings
Video Games
Electronic Gadgets

Harry Potter

Harry Potter is definitely a family interest, though in varying degrees. Alyssa is intensely interested in the books and they have led her directly to reading and writing and all sorts of other interesting paths. She enjoys the movies as well, though she has definite opinions on how the directors interpret the books! This interest has also led her into mythology, names, Latin, and divination (palm reading, numerology, astrology, dreams etc). Joseph and I really enjoy the books as well, particularly picking out all the wonderful connections and clues. Michael mostly enjoys the movies, and Rocco has listened to the audiobooks so he at least understands what we are always chatting about!

Here are a few links from around the internet:

JKRowling.com is JK's terrific site with lots of tidbits about her and the books, including hints about book 6, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.  When reading JK's biography Alyssa noted a few similarities between them!

Official Harry Potter site for the movies.

DarkMark gathers all sorts of HP info.

MuggleNet is a wonderful site with all the HP latest news.

Quick Quotes concentrates on any and all interviews, comments etc. from JK Rowling!

There are many, many more but these are usually the first ones we check out if we have any questions.

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The Simpsons

This is another family interest! Rocco will delight in telling the story of when we were just married and The Simpsons was a new show ... I swore if I had kids they would not watch it until they were at least 16! I've mellowed <grin>. There are so many cool connections and inferences in each and every show that we always have a great time. And it often brings up great discussion topics!  A while ago my sister-in-law asked me if The Simpsons was an educational show and I answered, "Absolutely!"

Here are a couple links from around the internet:

Official Simpsons site be sure to check out the episode guide!

The Simpsons Song Lyrics we visit here pretty regularly to get the lyrics for original songs and song parodies we hear on the show.

LardLad.com is a great site for Simpsons tidbits. Here you'll also find many links to other Simpsons sites.

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Charmed

This interest mostly involves Alyssa, Michael, and I, though Rocco often watches as well when he's around. The wiccan and mythological references are great connections and jumping off points for all of us.  And we love their very dry sense of humour!  "We love Leo!!!" is often heard throughout our house (first invented by Alyssa) ... though it is usually pronounced "We wuv Weo!!!" 

We have not enjoyed Season 8 as much this year, especially since they dumped Leo (though he'll be back for the final episode) and practically shoved a new character down our throats, and this is their last season, but it sure has sparked lots of conversation! Michael is still intent on collecting the DVD sets as the (finally!) come out but has decided not to watch any older shows until the current season finishes.

Here are a couple links from around the internet:

The Charmed Ones is chock full of up-to-date info about the show ... including scripts from upcoming shows!

Charmed Scripts we visit regularly to grab quotes, look things up, read fave shows etc.

The WB Charmed site has up-to-date info and trailer on the show airing each week.

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The Lord of the Rings

Ahhh ... this one is hard to tell. I once tried to read the books in high school but lost interest somewhere in The Two Towers when I found it hard to keep track of all the characters and their parentage! But I remember the night I watched the first movie upstairs in my room - nobody else was interested - and Joseph wandered in near the beginning. He and I were entranced - he just loved the whole epic quest thing! Then the second movie came out and we enjoyed that as well. However, as the release of the third movie approached I found myself in great anticipation. So much so that I dragged out my copy from high school and quickly read through The Return of the King so I would know if Frodo lived!

So on the first day of release my niece came over to stay with the kids while I went to the movie. Joseph wanted to come as well but he just couldn't wake up, so I told him he could go soon with Rocco. They went and enjoyed it as well. After the Christmas holidays Joseph and I decided to go see it again as the crowds thinned out, and then Alyssa decided to join us. She was completely blown away by it. She asked to go again the next day, so Joseph and I volunteered to accompany her. LOL! Rocco worked from home that afternoon. Then finally we took my Mom.

For my birthday in February I asked for and received the extended DVD versions of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers and we have really enjoyed the additional scenes. Alyssa asked me to make video tape copies of them for her so she could watch them in her room and she puts one or the other on most nights ... she has definitely seen them more times than I have!

I am just about finished reading all three books at a slower pace to pick up the details. I have checked out tons of books from the library about the making of the movie, a book of maps of the travels, The Magical Worlds of Lord of the Rings which goes into some of the mythology behind it and so on. And we are eagerly anticipating the release of The Return of the King extended version DVD during the Christmas season!

Here are a couple links from around the internet:

Official Lord of the Rings movies site and they deserved every one of their 11 Academy Awards!

Language in the LOTR movies we have also been interested in the Elvish languages in the books. Here are some translations from the movies.

Elven Phrases we got past the translations from the movies and Joseph and I were still interested so I printed out quite a few pages of translations of the general elven language created by JRR Tolkien and made a booklet that we both peruse from time to time.

The Hobbit Name Generator This one is just for fun! Put in your name and find out your hobbit equivalent.

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Video Games

Well, this is by far Joseph's biggest interest. It has led him in so many directions ... he just loves the power of an interactive, epic story! Can you tell he's an RPG fan?!

One of his favourite shows right now is X-Play, a show on Tech TV where they review video games. We all enjoy it and think Adam and Morgan are just a riot together!

Gamefaqs.com is where he often visits to read and post about his favourite games. They have walkthroughs, hints, codes & cheats, message boards, everything a gamer could want!

The kids and I all have our own Nintendo DSs now and it's great fun to share our Animal Crossing towns and Michael and I have been using the pictochat feature to great advantage!

Right now Joseph's loving Suikoden V and the release of Kingdom Hearts 2 - finally! And helping me when I get stuck in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

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Electronic Gadgets

This is by far Rocco's most intense interest and we are the lucky recipients! You could call us a pretty hi-tech family, at least in some areas. We have 7 computers (of greatly varying ages!) all networked together, some of which are wireless. We have a personal digital recorder which we put to terrific use (right now we have over 100 Simpsons episodes, 75-odd Digimon shows, The Nightmare Before Christmas movie, Uptown Girls movie, and a smattering of our other regular recordings: Good Eats, Jeff Corwin, Shaman King, Clean Sweep, X-Play, Fresh Gear and so on). Satellite is distributed throughout the house, and he recently picked up a DVD-ROM drive and is getting into that .. backing up all our DVDs etc.

For anyone interested in this kind of stuff he says one of his favourite places to start learning is message boards. He says there you have people that are actually doing this stuff and others asking "real life" questions ... sounds a lot like unschooling, doesn't it? <grin> Knowing that this is the way he learns best himself really helped him to quickly understand the philosophy behind unschooling!

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