Calgary Expo Day 1: Amazeballs

So I attended my first "comic-con" this past weekend and I'm still reeling. While the event ran over four days, I could only make three of those days. Here's a rundown of my amazing weekend:

Friday

Selfie of us in line!

I arrived in Calgary around 11, picked up my BFF Christal and we were off!
We secured parking a couple blocks away and walked over to Stampede Park. There was a ridiculously long path to wind through to line up. (Side Note: I'm not entirely convinced the organizers created this for their own amusement..)

At the HP panel

Once we were in, we trolled around for a bit, then wasted about 30 mins waiting get pay for Sean Astin's autograph. When he failed to show, we bailed and headed off to our first panel: Harry Potter and the Panel of Discussion. This turned out to be a fun one where the girl heading it up prompted the audience with controversial theories in HP, then let the audience voice their opinions.

"My Preeecious."

We checked out a few of the booths and were able to meet the refreshingly down-to-earth Jodi McIsaac. She was a total peach:) She was excited that I had sought out her book and signed it for me while we chatted. (Canadian setting for a Celtic fantasy=excellent reading + happy Kelly!)

Sean is clearly riveted by my presence.

Then I went back to the Sean Astin line where he had now shown up, but they weren't allowing anyone else to jump in line. I meandered for a bit (almost an hour), checking out some of the booths, then finally hopped into line. Got some reading done while I waited in line for an hour and a half, then finally paid my money and had my 60 seconds with Samwise. He was lovely to meet, even said my kids' names in Agent Oso's voice:)

He wrote "Nice!" and
drew a happy face:)

I had him sign my Samwise figurine, and he chuckled when I told him I limit how much I let my kids press the button so they don't wear out the battery. Chris was able to snap some shots of us chatting, which was great. (Side Note: I spent a good portion of this day watching celebrities and "regular folk" and I am still totally fascinated by our culture's obsession. I mean, I forked over more than 3 hours of salary, not to mention almost 3 hours of time, just to get a signature from a man who makes millions of dollars doing what he loves. I am still trying to understand it.)

My Astin excursion took most of our afternoon, so we ended up missing a few panels we wanted to see, and ended up too late to see the last one on our list.
Instead, we saw some other incredible booths, and many costumes that were incredibly well-done:

Billy Boyd

Oh, Han!

Life-size Azog, the Pale-Orc

"Honey, where are my pants?"

I actually didn't even think
that there would be Disney
characters there...and there
were a lot!

This costume
was super
detailed!
From Halo, I think?

Tryin' on Christal's goggles!

I can't imagine
how long it took
to get all this on!
She looked
amazing as
Darth Talon.

The detail on this too was incredible.
Lights, sounds, everything.

Mandoshowan from The 5th Element.

We got back to Christal's late and both crashed pretty hard. We're both moms, so having a whole night of sleep without our kids was sooooo sweet. But it was short-lived... day 2 was only hours away...

Spring Break

So, the 2-week spring break was nice time off for my kids, but it was just more guilt for me, as it meant more opportunities for my kids to beg me to stay home with them:(

We did have a couple days together on my days off and we visited Hell-I mean, Chuck-E-Cheese. It was okay because it was with good friends, but man, I hate that place. *sigh* What we do for our children.

We were also able to see the LEGO movie (again) which was fun for the kids, but most exciting for the hubby who I'm pretty sure will be camped out at Walmart the night before the DVD is released.

In a Benny costume.
Clutching his money and shouting, "Spaceship! SPACESHIP!"

We concluded out spring break with jumping on the bandwagon and buying our kids a friggin' Rainbow Loom. I can't believe it. Working at Michaels, I see first-hand the psychotic, obsessive spell these stupid things cast over kids and by extension, their parents. I don't dispute the creativity involved in some of the creations a person can make, and I know my kids just want to feel included, but I hate conforming. Ugh.

Anyhow, enjoy the sun,
Kel

The Giver

So I just saw the first trailer for The Giver film based on Lois Lowry's internationally-acclaimed book.
I'm a torn-up mess right now.
First off, you must understand the role this book had in my life:
I grew up in a house full of books with a father who was constantly urging me to read books beyond the usual Sweet Valley chapter book I was devouring at the time. And sometimes I did read the books he recommended, but I didn't always understand them. I was perfectly content in my ignorant world of aesthetically-immaculate blond, Californian twins.
Skill-wise, I was capable of reading anything--I was very a good reader. But mentally, I wasn't ready for more. I couldn't properly understand more complex books yet.
In Grade 7, I was terribly bullied. I went through months of physical abuse from older boys, and verbal abuse from female peers. This partially assisted in an eventual alcoholism and depression in my teen years.On an especially difficult day in grade 7, I hid in an empty spare room during recess to avoid my tormentors, and cracked open a book I had snatched from the school library based on it's title.
The Giver sounded like something I could use.
I remember huddling in the corner of the room, devouring this book.
It was like the clouds had parted and the sun had begun to shine. I was seeing the bright, red apple with Jonas in a monochrome world.

The trailer looks amazing, don't get me wrong, but it is difficult to see someone else's interpretation of a book that means so much to me.
What do you think?