As every good Harry Potter fan knows, Harry's birthday is July 31. We spent a surprising amount of time this year celebrating that birthday of a fictional character. 

Over the weekend, we went to the Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary Museum for their annual Harry Potter tour, which they do in honor of Harry's birthday. This 18th century apothecary is the perfect setting for Harry Potter. The apothecary supplies include such things as mandrake root and dragon's blood, which should sound familiar to Harry Potter fans. Though perhaps slightly anachronistic, I appreciated the hosts' use of iPads to illustrate their talks, with pictures of movie scenes as well as scenes from nature. 

Meg was very quick with answers to questions and amazed me with her knowledge of even the minutest details of the Harry Potter books. Clare, however, was not to be left out. She came through with some impressive answers of her own. 

The girls also enjoyed the photo opportunity in front of the Mirror of Erised. Meg acted out catching the golden snitch as well as vomiting up the golden snitch (referencing when Harry caught it in his mouth).

Clare and Anne just went for cuteness in their photos. 

After our tour, we headed down the street to Dolci Gelati for butter beer ice cream. 

The apothecary tour and butter beer ice cream was a wonderful outing, but it was not the end of our Harry Potter birthday celebrations. On Harry's actual birthday, we hosted a birthday party at our house and invited all of our friends who are Harry Potter fans. We were thrilled that 40 of our friends were able to join us on a Tuesday afternoon. 

The girls and I had a blast decorating and preparing food for the occasion. There were so many great ideas available on Pinterest. 

I purchased a pack of brown envelopes and hand addressed to Mr. H. Potter, Cupboard under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey. After adding a red wax seal, I taped them to string and attempted to make it appear that the envelopes were flying out of the fireplace. 

We provided our guests with both butter beer and pumpkin juice as beverages. We used this recipe for butter beer and this recipe for pumpkin juice. Both of these recipes were very manageable for a large group. 

Next we set up a potions station. I searched for awhile to find a magical-type science experiment that would work for our group. I finally located this fun vinegar/baking soda based idea that came complete with Slytherin potions printable. I anticipated doing this "potion" several times with smaller groups, but the party just didn't move like that. We only did the potion once with lots of people around. While the potion worked well, in hindsight I would have just set up a potions table that the kids could have experimented with as they wanted. Meg, Clare and Anne did this after the party and had such a fun time. 

We provided lots of games that we hoped kids (and adults) could play as they wanted. Once again, Pinterest was invaluable in locating these games. We set up Harry Potter "would you rather." For example, would you rather spend the summer with the Dursleys or Doloros Umbridge (yikes, that's a hard one). You can find the printable for this game here. We also had the polyjuice game, in which a Harry Potter character name is taped onto a players back and the player has to ask yes or no questions to determine who they are. You can find that game here. Also at that site, you can find a fun chart that allows party-goers to come up with their wizard name. Finally, we had a Horcrux Hunt, in which I placed each of the Horcrux items from the Harry Potter stories in places related to where they were found in the stories. That idea came from Heape of Love. 

We set up a photo booth of sorts, which allowed kids to become Sirius Black when he escaped from Azkaban. That printable can be found here. 

For sorting we had a stool and a sorting hat, but we relied on an origami "fortune teller" to do the sorting. This sorting printable can be purchased at teacherspayteachers.com and the instructions are found here. 

Finally, I will leave you with a slide show of our Harry Potter inspired food and random decorations. We had so much fun. 

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​At some point this past week, Meg became obsessed with Richard III. Some show she watched mentioned that the bones of Richard III had been recently found in a parking lot. She mentioned that to me and I told her I had watched a great documentary that followed the archaeologists as they found the bones. She then watched that documentary and decided that she was going to be a historian and archaeologist. 

When the girls happen upon an interest such as this, I like to jump on it while the interest is still there. I remembered reading that our city of Alexandria, Virginia, has an archaeological site and that they host family days and workshops. The family days for the year were booked, but I found an open workshop for this weekend. 

Meg and I spent Saturday afternoon at Shuter's Hill, which overlooks Old Town Alexandria. An large plantation house once sat on the site and a Civil War fort was located close by. The workshop began with city archaeologist discussing the history of the site as well as the geophysical surveys that have been conducted. The archaeologists are trying to piece together the layout of the property during the 18th Century. 

After making our own attempts at analyzing the geophysical maps, we were tasked with sifting through dirt. I truly did not expect to find anything except rocks, but we were successful. Meg found glazed brick and broken pieces of olive glass. I found the remnants of an old nail that had oxidized. We had a great time and the staff was very willing to talk with us and guide us in sorting through the dirt. It was such a fun experience.

Our archaeological dig came after I spent the morning at the National Gallery of Art with Clare and Anne. Clare has finally reached the minimum age for their summer learning program, now called Art Investigators. Meg and Clare loved this program when it was called Stories in Art and you can read about that here. While the name of the program has changed, the basic set up has remained the same. Children are taken to a famous piece of art in the gallery and shown how to truly look at a painting. The educators are wonderful about listening to each child's observations as well as guiding the observations. After the children have looked at the painting, the children move to another gallery where they read a story that is somehow related to the painting. Finally, the children are moved to one of the garden courts in the gallery where they do a craft project. 

This year the focus has been French art. We missed the first two weeks due to illness, which meant we missed two of my favorite artists, Van Gogh and Mary Cassatt. This weekend's program was on Constant Troyon's painting The Approaching Storm. After discussing things the children observed in the painting, the instructor guided the kids to discuss what clues in the painting reveal that a storm is approaching. The book for this week's lesson was Sky Color by Peter H. Reynolds. Sky Color is a charming story about a girl who must paint the sky on a mural, but she has run out of the color blue. As she thinks about her dilemma through sunset and night, she observes many different colors other than blue in the sky. 

The craft was brilliant. The children were given a page where part of The Approaching Storm was printed in full, while part was only outlined (see the picture below). This picture had been scanned onto Crayola Color Wonder paper and the kids used Crayola Color Wonder paint to fill in the color. As I am sure most of you know, the Color Wonder line is a mess free craft solution. Color Wonder markers and paint only show up on Color Wonder paper. We mothers were all ready to purchase these fine art versions of a Color Wonder coloring book, but unfortunately they were just produced for this event. I would love to be able to buy my kids a Color Wonder book of french art rather than just Frozen and Paw Patrol. 

I have noticed (to my amusement) that the crafts have become less messy since the first year we participated in Stories in Art. That year the girls worked with terracotta colored clay in the middle of the National Gallery of Art. Since then, the crafts have been more tame. 

I cannot recommend the Art Investigators (formerly, Stories in Art) program enough. If you are in the D.C. area, take your kids to this amazing and entirely free educational program. Where else can teachers use priceless works of art as simple teaching aids for your kids? It truly is a wonderful program.

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While re-reading Rilla of Ingleside this summer, I realized what an incredible contribution this book is. The book focuses on the Canadian home front during World War I. L.M. Montgomery wrote the book just after the conclusion of the Great War and I suspect she must have used her own personal journals or something similar as she wrote. She would line up the dates of Rilla's journal with news of the war that had just reached Prince Edward Island. This book highlights the unique position Canada was in during this war.

Canada was similar to the United States in that the war was very far away. Rilla of Ingleside highlights this fact with by having characters amazed at the geography they have learned and confused about how to pronounce certain European location names. But the similarities between Canada and the U.S. end there. While the U.S. waited to enter the war until 1917, Canada was sending her sons to war in 1914 when Great Britain entered the war. In those long years of war, Canadians waited in frustration for the U.S. to join them in the fight while they waited to hear from their sons who had been away so very long. The character Susan is repeatedly annoyed by Woodrow Wilson's writing of notes in response to an outrage rather than declaring war. 

In Rilla of Ingleside, Montgomery explores so many various responses to the war. Anne and Gilbert's oldest son is anxious to sign up to fight. Their second son worries about killing other men as well as enduring long lasting pain. He faces criticism for being a coward as well as the notorious white feather. The town includes a pacifist as well as those who believe England's Navy can do no wrong. 

Montgomery's focus on Rilla is brilliant. Rilla is 15 when the war begins. She is unfocused and a little selfish. The war changes her. She becomes the foster mother to a war baby. During the time period she should be going to dances and courting, all the males her age have gone off to war. She must mourn those who don't return from the war. 

Rilla of Ingleside is truly a historically valuable book. Written so close to the end of the World War I, it captures what life was like on the home front. I have recently found myself more interested in books that focus on people and villages that are surrounded by the actual battles. It was nice to be reminded of the struggles of those who sent the sons to a war that was so far away, to fight in places they had never heard of. 

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Summer camps have begun. This week Clare is spending mornings at dance camp, which allows me a little prep time for any activities we want to do in the afternoon. Today, during camp, we went to Walmart to collect supplies for making slime and World Market to buy provisions for a Shakespeare tea party. 

Meg has been asking to make slime all summer. We never seem to have all the ingredients we need, so I promised her we would buy the needed ingredients (which includes Borax?!?!​) so we could make it. I decided to use the recipe for fluffy slime. Here are some pictures of our results. 

Following our slime experiment, we had our first Shakespeare tea party. Just before school was out, I purchased How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare. This book, written by Ken Ludwig, provides step-by-step guidance to help your children memorize carefully chosen passages from Shakespeare. I was skeptical as to whether I could convince my kids to go along with this plan. I decided also to purchase the beautiful Usborne Illustrated Stories from Shakespeare. I simply placed this book out where Meg and Clare would find it and before I knew it, they were both engrossed in Shakespeare stories. Clare said to me, "What I really like are the parts in the book that are quotes from Shakespeare's plays." She put on her Renaissance princess costume and began memorizing the quoted sections from Romeo and Juliet entirely on her own. This experience convinced me we could memorize a few passages from Shakespeare together.

I decided to combine our Shakespeare experience with the increasingly popular trend of Poetry Teatime. Poetry teatime is what it sounds like. A family prepares a lovely tea and reads poetry. My kids love tea parties, so I thought this was a great way to introduce a Shakespeare passage. 

We prepared chamomile and lavender tea that we bought at the lavender farm. The girls set out McVitie's Milk Chocolate Digestives and Walker's Scottie Dog Shortbread cookies. We then began working on the first passage, which is from A Midsummer Night's Dream. The passage begins, "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, [w]here oxlips and the nodding violet grows, [q]uite overcanopied with luscious woodbine, [w]ith sweet muskroses, and with eglantine." 

This passage paints a beautiful picture of where Titania, queen of the fairies, is sleeping. I, however, knew the girls would not be able to automatically visualize each of the flowers referenced in the quote. So, I put together pictures of each of the flowers so the girls could imagine the scene for themselves. Meg and Clare loved the visualization that Shakespeare himself provided, such as the wild thyme blowing and the violets nodding.

Meg began the memorization with us, but eventually decided to return to her slime. That is fine. This was totally a no pressure project. Clare stuck with it and memorized the passage quite well. Four-year-old Anne was enjoying the tea party with us. At first, I didn't think the passage was resonating with her at all. But then, as Clare struggled with a line, Anne jumped in with the words. Clearly she was listening the whole time and absorbing it in her own way. 

We have a few scone mixes put away for future tea parties. I've told the girls they are welcome to dress in any Shakespearean-type costume they would like for our tea parties. Clare suggested we make masks for certain characters. Anne made quite a creative Puck costume today during our tea and I regret not getting a picture of it. She cut it out of purple bags and had rather crazy pieces all over her. Our first Shakespeare tea was a success and I see quite a few similar teas in our future. 

Two years ago, my children were watching with their friends a fairy tale based cartoon geared towards their age group. I later heard from my Kindergartner at the time that a female character turned out to be prince charming and that female character kissed the female princess. A debate then arose between my first grader and Kindergartner as to whether the kiss was romantic. I sat in parental shock--angry at myself that I hadn't watched the cartoon with them, while at the same time rationalizing that I had checked that the cartoon was age-appropriate. After the incident, I finally found one comment buried in parent comments on Common Sense Media that an episode of the cartoon suggested homosexual behavior. Let me be clear, a cartoon geared to kids ages 5 to 7 had an episode that included homosexual behavior and only one parent mentioned it might be a problem. This is NOT okay! 

I am a Catholic and I believe homosexual acts are sinful. That being said, I know parents, who are not opposed to homosexuality, but who are concerned about this infiltration of gay activism into children's programming and literature because they quite correctly believe that age 5 to 7 is a bit too early to be having these discussions with our kids. But things are even worse than that. This is not the 1980s when sitcoms featuring tough topics were prefaced with "a very special episode" language that prepared parents to talk with children. Oh no. I am quite convinced that the makers of these cartoons and books would prefer we parents don't know that our children are being introduced to gay characters. They don't want us to highlight it or have serious discussions with our kids. They want our kids to simply accept these characters as the norm. 

This summer I have been actively seeking out new, fun books for Meg. In the past week, I have previewed three middle-grade books that include gay characters or endorse a gay political agenda of some kind. One of the books I have only researched and have not read. I began researching the Flashback Four series by Dan Gutman. The series had recently been recommended to me and I thought Meg would love the historic emphasis of the books. As I worked my way through parent comments, I found one parent who mentioned the Titanic book from the series includes a discussion of gay marriage. This parent stated she had no problem with this issue being discussed among adults, but questioned why the topic was being introduced to her child in a book about the Titanic. She was not prepared for her child's questions about gay marriage, because it never occurred to her that he would encounter it in a book that was in no way related to the topic. I, for one, am glad her son mentioned his questions to her. So many of our children would simply read it, internalize it and never ask their questions. Then we as parents lose our ability to guide our children. 

A few weeks ago, I excitedly ordered the first book in a middle grade mystery series that I had heard wonderful things about. The Wells and Wong Mysteries are set in the 1930s and are heavily influenced by the golden age of British mysteries. Meg loves mysteries (as do I) and I nearly handed the book to her to read first. But, then I decided to read it myself. I am so glad I did. Almost immediately, the book referenced teachers who had split after a homosexual relationship. As the book progresses, the girl school detectives are thrown out of a cupboard by an older girl. Wells states, "She only wants us out of there so she and Belinda Vance can canoodle in there. Betsy North says she caught them at it last week." It is not okay to put this type of content into a middle grade novel. Moreover, if the book does contain this type of content, there should be alerts to parents everywhere so we are prepared to discuss the topic with our children. Instead, the homosexual content of this book is kept fairly quiet in its numerous reviews. 

The third book I previewed this week was The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. This book is a Newberry Honor book and is widely loved and recommended. Undoubtedly it is a beautifully written book that addresses hard topics like disability and abuse as well as war time bombings. That being said, the book also semi-subtly indicates that the woman who takes in the children during the evacuation of London is a lesbian who is grieving the death of her partner and has been rejected by her vicar father. The true problem with this element of the story is that homosexuality is equated with the disabilities addressed in the book. The protagonist's mother views the protagonist's club foot as a sign of the devil. Clearly it is not. Her brother's left-handedness is viewed as the sign of the devil by a teacher. Clearly it is not. Susan's homosexual relationship is viewed as sin by her father. Aren't we to deduce that such thinking is backwards  and uneducated?

Many people argue that children will miss the homosexual elements of this book. I suspect that is wishful thinking by those who otherwise love this book. Perhaps some children will miss the homosexual themes, but many will not. Recently, my four-year-old asked me if a family can have two mothers after seeing two women with children at a bakery. If she can pick up on such things, I'm pretty sure my eight and nine-year old would understand that Susan is gay. 

Moreover, even if children don't understand the homosexual themes now, they will at some point. If a Catholic school or teacher recommends this book to them, there is a strong chance the student will come to believe that the school or individual also believes that viewing homosexuality as a sin is as backwards as viewing a clubfoot as the devil's mark. We as adults have the sophistication to appreciate a book while not agreeing with all of its contents. I can honestly say I liked The War that Saved My Life, while I disagreed with this element. Children do not have that sophistication as readers. If we recommend a book to them, they assume we are recommending its contents in their entirety. At a minimum, parents should be notified of the contents of this book so they can be prepared to talk about this topic with their children. Everyone pretending the kids won't get it will only empower this tendency to sneak homosexuality into middle grade books. 

Why do I keep emphasizing the need for parents to talk with their children when their children are introduced to a homosexual character? Quite simply, middle grade children are soon to enter puberty. They will be facing enormous amounts of confusion under normal circumstances. It is not uncommon for children to question their own sexuality during this time and I strongly suspect that being inundated with so many homosexual characters will only increase this tendency. Some kids may honestly struggle with questions about their sexuality, but for most this questioning will simply be a phase or fear during puberty. It is important that parents have an open-line of communication with their children about homosexuality and that cannot occur when parents are not even aware that their children have been introduced to the concept of homosexuality.

On a side note, both the Wells & Wong Mysteries and The War that Saved My Life play on a rewriting of history that I find very annoying. I first noticed in the recent BBC Marple  series the suggestion that women living together in the early Twentieth Century were all actually lesbians. Women greatly outnumbered men during that time in Britain and they often shared homes for economy. Suggesting those relationships were sexual is a ridiculous rewriting of history that is attempting to suggest that homosexuality has always been more widespread than it actually is. The message is working by the way. According to a Gallup Poll, Americans believe 23 percent people are gay. The reality is that only 3.8 percent are gay. 

We as parents and educators need to take a stand here. It is not okay that our children are being politicized in this way. It is not okay that publishers are sneaking these topics and characters into books without proper warning to parents. We, as parents, may need to create better resources for reviewing literature and television programming for our children (if you know of some that already exist, please pass it along in the comments). We may need to rely on classics for our children and encourage the production of more appropriate children's literature in the future. For now, I am taking a stand and saying the current state of children's literature and programming is not okay. 

We didn't initially have much on the schedule this week. The weather was to be hot, but not unbearable. We knew our next few weeks were going to be filled with summer camps and preparing for vacation. This was a great week for some simple summer fun.

When I asked the girls on Monday morning what they wanted to do, they unanimously decided on mini-golf. I'm not sure I would have chosen mini-golf, but if the girls agree on something unanimously, it is best to go along with it. 

We chose a course in Manassas called The Magic Putting Place mostly because it had a castle on its course. The course was smaller than I expected, but it was very well designed and made the most of the space. It had the all the holes you would expect. There were bridges to cross, holes that dropped to a second level and holes that seemed straightforward but with a slight hill that made putting more challenging. It is a beautiful course with running water, trees and, of course, that castle.

Anne relied on her surefire tactic of placing the ball directly beside the hole before putting. Meg surprised everyone with several holes in one. Meg's success caused Clare to tear up in frustration a few times, but she pulled herself together and kept playing a solid game of mini golf. 

After mini golf, we ate lunch at the local Cracker Barrel, which is one of favorite eating spots. Four-year-old Anne took the opportunity to shop the Cracker Barrel store with her new wallet. Anne recently insisted she needed a wallet so she could buy things like her sisters do. She picked an impressive looking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wallet and carefully filled it with the money she had previously placed in her piggy bank. At the Cracker Barrel store, she found a robot claw. She went to the register and paid for it with her own money. She was so excited to receive her own bag and her own receipt. She kept saying, "I can't believe I have my own receipt." 

On Tuesday, we did something we never do: we spent the day at the pool. Due to our family's fair skin, I typically don't take the kids to the pool until after 3 p.m. I, however, decided that the girls should have the experience of a day at the pool. We stopped by the grocery store and pick up some simple items for lunch as well as lots of water. We then headed to the pool where we would swim for 45 minutes and then eat during the life guard break time. We stayed through most of the afternoon. While I applied and re-applied a lot of sunblock, both Meg and I ended up with sunburn. Anne's cheeks were a little pink just under her eyes (clearly, I missed that area with sunblock). Clare, who has the fairest skin of all of us, managed to avoid any sunburn at all. 

On Wednesday, I took the girls to Six Flags America. Our school participates in the Six Flags Read to Succeed program. Meg and Clare received Six Flags tickets for reading the required hours. I received a Six Flags ticket because I am the reading incentives coordinator for our school. Meg had been insistent all summer that we use the tickets and I knew we would need to go this week if we were going to use them. 

One of the smartest decisions I made was to ask a teenage friend to join us. She is the oldest child in a family of five kids and she knows my kids well because her younger siblings are among my kids' closest friends. She was fantastic. She knew the park well. She would volunteer to take Anne on one ride, while I took Meg and Clare on another ride. And then we would switch things around and she would take Meg and Clare on a serious roller coaster, while I watched Anne ride the mini teacups. 

After a morning of riding rides in the hot sun, we headed to the water park after lunch. The girls loved being sprayed and splashed. The loved sliding and swimming. Anne's very favorite spot was the lazy river, in which she could sit in an inflatable and float around and around. Once again, my mother's helper came in handy because she stayed with Anne in the lazy river while I took Meg and Clare to the pool. The girls had so much fun. 

Seven years ago, we met my parents, along with my sister and her family, in Cape Cod. Meg was 2 1/2. Clare was just over a year old. Anne had not been born. While there, we spent one day on Martha’s Vineyard and travelled around the island on a bus.

Meg adored that bus. It made her so happy. As we ended our day at a children’s bookshop in Vineyard Haven (that sadly has since closed), my sister bought Meg an amazing pop up book version of The Wheels on the Bus by Paul O. Zelinsky, so she could remember her love of the Martha’s Vineyard bus.

That book has been a constant in our family from the moment my sister read it to Meg on the return ferry ride (I still remember an exhausted Clare screaming on the ferry as they read, “The babies on the bus cry ‘Wah, wah, wah.’”) to this very day. Initially Meg and I would read it during Clare’s nap time so Clare wouldn’t rip the book. Once Clare was old enough to be trusted, she joined in on the fun. When Anne came along, she fell in love with the book early, because The Wheels on the Bus was one of her favorite songs. Over the years, I kept thinking she would outgrow the book, but every few months she would pull it out and it would become our bedtime reading for weeks. Each night we read the book four, five or eight times.

Recently, Anne began yet another Wheels on the Bus phase. Our original book, however, was in sad shape. I realized that Anne had no memory of when the bus had wheels that would spin or when there was a rider who went out and in. While I will always treasure our old copy and all the memories it holds, I decided Anne needed a new copy of Paul O. Zelinsky’s The Wheels on the Bus.

Just before bedtime I handed Anne the new book. She initially thought it was the old copy. I told her, “This one has wheels that move.” I wish I had taken a picture of her face at that moment. Her eyes became huge circles of excitement. She insisted we immediately read the book.

Clare joined us for bedtime reading so she could see the parts of the book that she too had forgotten existed. When I read, “The mommies on the bus say, ‘Shh, shh, shh,’” Clare told me that I was to put my finger over my mouth as I read because that’s what I always did when I read it to her before nap time so many years ago.

It it is amazing that a single book holds so many memories for each of my girls...and for me. I know we will continue to treasure it for years to come. Anne will not outgrow it any time soon, considering her older sisters still seem to enjoy it.

Fourth of July week is apparently my week for putting together bookcases. Six years ago I bought four brown/black giant Billy Bookcases from Ikea and spent the Fourth of July putting them together. Those bookshelves have made it through two moves and one has been spray-painted Barbie pink for Clare’s room.

We began this Fourth of July week with a trip to Ikea to purchase a big Billy bookcase for Meg’s room because her books no longer fit on her smaller bookcase. We also decided to replace Clare’s smaller bookcase because the back repeated fell off of it.

Perhaps, not surprisingly, these new purchases led to changing around furniture to make each girl’s room work better for her. Meg decided she wanted her desk against one of her windows so she could see outside while sitting at her desk. Clare thought that was a great idea for her desk as well because she likes to paint at her desk and she could look outside for inspiration. Moving Clare’s desk allowed us to put her bookshelf iin a more accessible place. Immediately Clare began alphabetizing all of her books, because she is inherently a librarian.

The girls are very happy with how their rooms turned out. They want to add bean bag chairs, because all 8 and 9 year old girls want bean bag chairs. As an added touch, we placed flowers around Clare’s mirror. I came up with this idea while at the Sleeping Beauty puppet show. The set had rose garlands placed over white and I knew it would be perfect for Clare. She loves it and it does go well with her princess canopy, which was a birthday present this year.

I improved both Meg and Clare’s bed this week as well. I felt sorry for them. Anne has an incredibly comfortable pillowtop mattress. My husband and I just bought our first new bed of our marriage (king-sized and incredibly comfortable). Meg and Clare still have their old bunk bed mattresses that felt like cement. I wanted to hold off on new mattresses for them until they are older in case they decide on larger beds. So I replaced the slats on their bed frames (a few were broken) and added a second mattress pad). What an improvement these small changes made!

We knew we wanted to make Meg and Clare’s bedrooms more functional this summer. Meg’s homework will increase this coming school year and Clare needs a quiet place to work on her various projects. We managed to accomplish this goal over about three days and the girls are very happy with the results.