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Dad Recreates Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley For Daughters

By Mike Julianelle
Image via YouTube/GeekWire

Dad goes full wizard with replication of beloved Potter landmark

A Seattle-area dad has two daughters who are obsessed with Harry Potter. So he did what any dad would do if he had major DIY skills, thousands of dollars, and a lot of free time: he built a replica of Diagon Alley from scratch in his driveway.

And I thought my Snape Halloween costume was good!

It took quitting his job, spending a small fortune, and working for weeks, but Jon Chambers’ driveway Diagon Alley was ready for trick or treaters on Halloween. And boy did they love it, with over 2500 people passing through the alley that night alone.

GeekWire interviewed the hero dad who doesn’t even need magic to make the rest of us muggles look terrible.

As Jon says in the video, he did it for selfish reasons. He was a Harry Potter fan before his daughters were born and he’d been looking for a reason to quit his job! Wow. That dude has some big brass snitches.

He also has a lot of experience doing stuff like this, having worked as creative director at mobile app company Ubermind and, until he bailed to make his daughters’ dreams come true, was director of design and a developer at OpenCar, the Kirkland, Wash.-based traffic analytics company.

The project was something of a group effort, with some 30 friends and family banding together to help Jon complete the Alley after he posted an update on Facebook about gathering supplies for it. He also does his own 3D printing at home because the closest thing we muggles have to magic is technology.

The project has attracted enough people – he posted a screenshot of two-day visitor tally on November 1, during which he raised $2500 dollars for charity – that Jon created a website with hours and information for anyone who wants to visit.

Diagon Alley isn’t going anywhere, as Chambers arranges for some Christmas-themed events – complete with a Dumbledore Santa – to help raise money for Pancreatic Cancer Research. Besides, I doubt his daughters will let him take it down anytime soon.

Not that Jon is interested in getting rid of it, or done making magic. He’s already considering another fun project. “I’ve thought it would be cool to do a Millennium Falcon. On the roof.”

Who needs the force when your dad is a creative Jedi?

Oregon Girl Hosts Carwash Fundraiser for Dad’s New Prosthetic Leg

By Devin Holdraker
Summer and Doug Bell
(Facebook/Echo Marie Bell KEZI 9 ABC News)

Summer Bell isn’t spending her summer just sitting around. The Creswell, Oregon girl is on a mission to raise money for a cause that’s near and dear to her heart.

Summer’s dad, Doug Bell, has had health difficulties since early childhood. According to the family, Doug has struggled with diabetes for many years — his kidneys failing back in 2017. Most recently, he was hospitalized due to a serious infection that cost him the bottom portion of his leg. Since being released, Doug has been unable to walk on his own and will now need a robotic prosthesis. The cost of a prosthetic leg ranges widely depending on several circumstances, but many can run $5,000-$15,000 or more. It’s a cost that would exceed the means of many families, but Summer isn’t wasting any time by waiting around.

Summer’s mom, Echo, has five other children to care for and is currently working two jobs herself, so the enterprising little lady decided to pitch-in by holding a community car wash in her hometown. Point S Tire & Auto Service agreed to host the event, which is now scheduled to take place this weekend.

Echo posted her daughter’s handmade sign in a Facebook post, sharing details of the event as well as her sentiments on the gesture. “I’m so proud of her. She’s such a caring little human,” adding “how did we get so lucky?”

In addition to the car wash, Summer and her mom have set up a GoFundMe page to help raise enough to eventually get Doug moving once again. A link to the page can be found here.

Would You Have Believed Any of These Fake Nintendo Facts?

By Jordan Stratton
#FakeNintendoFacts
(Twitter/swhammerhead)

In the early days of video gaming, rumors about hidden secrets and glitches were rampant. Seemingly every day, some kid on the playground would tout his knowledge about how to attain the rarest of items or beat a certain difficult boss in one hit. Of course, since the introduction of the internet, current rumors can quickly be debunked with a couple of taps on a smartphone.

But there was something special about these alternative game facts. They caused us to question the scope and possibilities a single game could provide, making these simple virtual worlds seem more complex, vibrant, and mysterious.

Thanks to @HashtagRoundup, folks over on Twitter have been reminiscing about this golden era with the hashtag #FakeNintendoFacts and while some of them are just plain ridiculous, others have the exact same flavor of the rumors we heard on the playground. Would you have fallen for any of these?

Take a look at the entire collection of tweets by clicking #FakeNintendoFacts.

Father Figures: My Motivation

By Mike Julianelle

“I had a lot of preconceived notions about what type of type of dad I thought I’d be if I were ever to have a son, all those notions went right out the window the second you opened your eyes at me for the first time.

Everything I thought I knew and would be a professional at as a dad gave way to the emotion and pure joy I felt just watching you do even the smallest of things in life .

I used to say one day my son is going to be a football player like I was and score a bunch of touchdowns, he’s going to be tough and relentless and make me so proud. Looking back now as the father I am today, I finally get the silliness of that old cliche. The reality is my son makes me proud by finishing his juice box, sharing with his friends, being polite to a waitress or simply tying his shoes correctly.

I understand now that regardless of what this little man chooses to do in life, whether it’s playing a flute or winning the world’s strongest man competition someday, I’m going to be right there in the front row overflowing with pride and happiness for my boy.

As a father I get it now, more focus on raising young men of value and love is needed more than ever in today’s world and my son is 100% joining those ranks. Accolades and trophies come and go, but kindness, compassion, and a good heart will stay with him forever. Embrace this world with an open heart and a thirst for adventure my son, never stop dreaming, and thank you for making me feel like the luckiest man alive each and every day.

Watching you grow and learn and enjoy life the way you do has been nothing short of amazing and I’ve already learned more by raising you in 8 short years then I did my entire previous 30. You are my motivation and reason for everything in life and without you I wouldn’t be even half the man I am today.”

– Adam Gauthier

Want to share a story about fatherhood? Email fatherfigures@thedad.com

Check out the previous editions of Father Figures here.

Teen Allegedly Tweets From Smart Fridge After Devices Get Confiscated

By Mike Julianelle
Teen Allegedly Tweets From Fridge
(Twitter/thankunext327 LG)

Raising a teenager is universally understood to be the hardest part of parenting, for good reason. Babies change your lives and disrupt your sleep, toddlers are chaos machines, elementary school kids are challenging but at least they’re still cute.

Teenagers are independent and rebellious, smart and self-conscious, lazy and sarcastic, and they know everything! (Insert sarcasm font.) Every kid is different, of course, but as your kids get older and more fully-formed, keeping a handle on them gets harder and harder. Especially when they’re so damn resourceful!

Never has then been more apparent than in the case of a Twitter account named Dorothy, @thankunext327, an Ariana Grande stan who recently found herself in conflict with her mother. Dorothy is 15 years old, and apparently, like many 15-year-olds these days, is quite reliant on her phone and social media. So much so that when her mother confiscated her phone and other electronics, she couldn’t let that stand. She needed to tweet!

First, her mother took her phone.


Then, after realizing her clever teen was also able to tweet from her Nintendo DS, she took that away too.


Then she used her Wii because this teen can’t stop won’t stop tweeting.


The teen’s saga went viral, with the hashtag #FreeDorothy cementing her status as a legend…

…and that was before she found yet one more way to manipulate 2019 technology to get what she wanted after her mom took everything away again. Her smart fridge.

At this point, you almost expect her mom to reply with a gif of Ron Burgundy telling his dog he’s not even mad, just disappointed. Except, despite LG – the maker of her fridge – confirming to the Guardian that some of their models have social media capabilities, the teen’s story was starting to seem fishy.

The paper consulted Igor Brigadir, a computer researcher at University College Dublin, who combed through metadata and confirmed that while the Nintendo tweets were legit, the fridge tweet was not. “The LG fridge was definitely manually created,” he said.

Also manually created? The thousands of new followers Dorothy’s Twitter account gained over the course of her viral escapade. Whether she actually tweeted from her fridge or not, she definitely got the attention she was looking for!

Pitcher Strikes out Friend and Skips Celebration to Console Him

By Jordan Stratton
Koehn Consoles Kocon After Strike Out
(Twitter/Cut4)

As kids get older, sporting events seem to get more and more intense. With such fierce competition driving passions higher and higher, sportsmanship can often be the first casualty. Fortunately, this isn’t’ always the case though, as two high school baseball players in Minnesota exemplified after the climax of their game.

Not exactly a nail-biter, Mounds View led Totino-Grace, 17-10, in a matchup that would decide who would participate in the upcoming state championship. With two outs, Totino-Grace’s Jack Kocon walked to the plate hoping to make something happen in his team’s final moments.

Here are a couple of different views of the play:


With a pitch-perfect outside corner fastball, Koehn knocked out both Kocon and his team from contention. Hearing the call, Kocon began a defeated walk back to the dugout when Koehn whizzed passed his celebrating catcher to embrace his opponent and friend.

It’s something you don’t see every day, but Koehn and Kocon have a history when it comes to baseball. Apparently, the two grew up playing together in the Shoreview Area Baseball League and have maintained a close relationship ever since.

“I knew the game was going to keep going or it was going to end right there,” Koehn told sports website ‘Bring Me The News’. “I knew I had to say something. Our friendship is more important than just the silly outcome of a game. I had to make sure he knew that before we celebrated. It was more instinct, it just felt right.”

These boys perfectly exemplified what parents and coaches talk about when they emphasize sportsmanship, and even though one of their seasons ended that night, just about everyone is clamoring for more of what they both showed on that field.

The 10 Best Comments of the Week 8/18

By Jimmy Applegath
Best Comments of the Week

Every week we pan for comedy gold in the comments section of our Facebook posts. If your comment cracks us up (or warms our hearts) we’ll showcase it here!

Here’s this week’s roundup of the 10 Best Comments of the Week:

1. Personal Growth

2. Back to Fooled

3. Toto-ally

4. New Me

5. Cold

6. Stacked

7. RIP RW

8. Leg Day

9. Naptime is a Pain

10. Trained

Check out the previous edition of The Best Comments of the Week here.

Flight Becomes Private Jet for Lucky Passenger but It Never Takes Off

By Mark Chalifoux
Vincent Peone's Private Jet Experience
(Twitter/vincentpeone)

Flying can be a chore. No one is exactly sure how early you have to get to their airport anymore, so you either arrive three hours before your flight with nothing to do but wander around an overpriced mall, or you arrive 20 minutes before your flight and have to sprint through security like you’re in a John Hughes movie.

Throw kids or connections into the mix, and it can be hell. The one small joy you hold onto is that no one will sit in the seat next to you, and you can have a reasonable amount of space, a far upgrade from being forced to fit into a seat built for a skeleton. One man got to live the most extreme version of that in a Delta flight last week, as there was no one else seated in his row. Or the row in front of him. Or any of the rows, actually, as he was THE ONLY PASSENGER ON THE PLANE.

The short flight from Aspen to Salt Lake City was rescheduled and, amazingly, New York-based director Vincent Peone was the only passenger. The Delta staff had to pile on sandbags just to help even out the weight.

It’s rare to hear a great flying story these days, and this is right up there. The Delta staff still went through all the motions and announcements for their one passenger, and he thoroughly enjoyed the private plane experience he lucked into.

“It was an altogether very fun experience with a couple of tequila sodas involved when I finally sat down,” he told the Washington Post.

A flight attendant told Peone the airline probably spent $30,000 just to send him to Salt Lake City. Hearing stories like this is important because it’s nice to know it can randomly happen. It’s important to have this aspiration every time you go through security, even if your hopes get viciously dashed the second you get to the gate of your oversold flight.

And then there was a sad update to this story, the plane had mechanical problems and it never took flight:

Grandma Texts Baby Announcement to Stranger, He Brings Baby Gifts

By Devin Holdraker
Dennis and his brother Deorick
(Facebook/Yung Rich)

Getting pulled into a group text message is hardly the highlight of anyone’s day. That is unless it’s close family and friends sharing great news with their loved ones. Welcoming a new addition is likely the one instance where most folks are glad to be notified.

So when new parents Lindsey and Mark Lashley welcomed their son Cason into the world, Mark’s mom Teresa, like any new grandmother, was excited to share the big news. However unbeknownst to grandma, one of her contacts had changed their phone number. Instead of Mark’s cousin, grandma was inadvertently texting updates to the number’s new owner, a total stranger named Dennis Williams.

(Yung Rich)

Teresa, who subsequently sent several updates and photos to the group, didn’t realize she had included the stranger until Dennis and his brother, Deorick, showed up at the couples hospital room bearing gifts for the newborn. The exchange and resulting visit were shared by Williams in a post that has since been shared over 200k times.

(Yung Rich)

Mark told the Daily Mail that his mother didn’t realize at the time that she was inviting a stranger up to the couple’s room. “It was different. I mean, my friend just walked in and said: ‘There are some more people coming down the hallway,’ and we didn’t know who they were and they said, ‘Oh, we’re the ones who got the random text message.’

While Mark admits he likely wouldn’t have invited strangers to see their newborn, both he and his wife for grateful for the gifts and well wishes. “I don’t think we would have randomly invited them over but we appreciate it and the gifts. You don’t hear about much compassion in the news anymore.”

With the recent “number neighbor” posts going viral on Twitter, this story is an early example of how perfect strangers can create some damn fine shareable content.