Lorainia Riverrider

My favorite Christmas movie is the animated "The Year Without a Santa Claus." It was first released in 1974. It has been my favorite since I was small. I can kind of relate to when Heat Miser would not let in snow in the south. Where I live it does not snow very often. Maybe once every few years. Sometimes we only get a light dusting, but every once in a while we will get a few inches. When we do get snow, I like to think it Heat Miser and Snow Miser making an agreement. In the mover, Heat Miser lets it snow in the south in exchange for making the North Pole 100 Degrees.

I have a large family, four sisters and a brother. My favorite tradition that we do for Christmas is making presents. Because we have such a large family, my parents could not afford for all us kids to but each other gifts when we were younger, so they started a tradition of us making each of our siblings something. The things we make range from toys, candy and treats, painting or drawings. My brother even made me a wooden jewelry box one time. We all keep it a secret what we are making for the others until we exchange the gifts on Christmas morning.

We have had a mix of real and artificial trees over the years. This year we went with artificial, but it has pinecones and berries throughout it so it does sort of have a feel of a real tree minus the great smell if a real tree. We decorate it with white lights and add all the ornaments my parents have saved throughout the years. This year the tree is 7 and a half feet tall so the ornaments fit well, but in the past when we have had smaller trees, you cannot see the tree because of all of the ornaments.

My first encounter with Professor Snape happened while reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I was terrified of him. I was afraid for Harry and his friends to get in any trouble around Snape. Then I was just aggravated with him because it seemed like he was always getting Harry into trouble even if it was not Harry's fault. I remember thinking, "Man, he is strict, I am glad none of my teachers as are mean as Professor Snape." By the last book, however, I had come to love Professor Snape. I was very sad when died during the Battle of Hogwarts.

These are my dogs. Speck is at the top and Bentley is at the bottom.

I currently have two dogs. They are both boys. One is a German Shepherd named Bentley. He is typical German Shepherd colors of tan and black. He is three years old and weighs about 75 pounds. My other dog is a Chihuahua named Speck. His has white fur with black spots. He sort of looks like a mini dalmatian. He is five years old and weighs about 4 and a half pounds. Even with their size difference, my dogs get along with each other usually. The Chihuahua enjoys playing with our pet ducks even though they are a bit bigger than him.

I love to watch thunderstorms. Where my house is located, I can watch thunderstorms form from about fifty miles (or 80.47 KM) away. From the time they form until they reach my house takes anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes depending on the speed of the storm. Sometimes the storms can be rough and I don't particularly like those. But when they are calmer, I sometimes sit on the front porch and watch them as they come through my area. Usually the storms either come directly over my house or they turn north just before arriving and go toward the river.

While I have never seen large water falls in very well known places, I have seen many small ones around my local national forest. The national forest has many old rock formation and in several places water continuously runs down the rock faces. In one certain spot, even when it hasn't rained, there is a fairly decent water fall. The water comes down rather quickly and there is space to get behind the fall. When we were younger, my siblings and I would stand under the fall and pretend to take showers. The fall has some of the coldest water running down it that I have ever felt.

Where I live, we do not have much snow. It did however, snow about an inch or so yesterday but it melted by early afternoon. For me it is a treat when it snows enough to play in. Also because it doesn't snow much here when it does even just a tiny bit they close all the schools and roads. I would like to have a big snow at least once like I hear others talking about. Where we have enough to sled in and shovel. Sometimes we do get enough to build a snowman or have a snowball fight.

In case my name doesn't give it away, I love water. I like swimming and playing in just about any kind of water as long as it is pretty clear. I do not have an ocean very close by, but I do have many lakes and rivers. We also have two ponds on our farm. One is for the animals to drink from and play in and one is for fishing. Although I have swam in both of them. There is a national forest close by and as a tradition my family (cousins aunts uncles grandparent) go there every year at the middle of May and go swimming in the stream there. It is usually still very cold, but that is part of the fun. I also like playing in the rain in the spring.

Blueberry muffins are my favorite! Hello! My name is Lorainia Riverrider. I am a first year, and I am in Gryffindor. I think that it is neat that we can visit other house Common Rooms. In real life I am Majorly shy, but at HOL I am attempting to step out of my comfort zone and speak on some of the forums.