Uggggggggh I’m back at work today and feel like a zombie. Came back to a TON of stuff too so double Uggggggggh.
BUT! It’s time for this year’s Dragon Con recap.
So Chase had originally planned to be doing a scooter trip that weekend, so we were both going to be out of town – but Hurricane Harvey put a stop to his trip, so he stayed home all weekend. That was weird, but at least I didn’t have to worry about him out on the scooter or about Luna at home alone.
Thursday night I finished up my few last minute little things, finished packing, and watched Project Runway. Mostly just avoided looking at social media because I wanted to be there soooo bad. I mean Thursday night is my fav night most years.
Friday morning I was up at 5:30, got dressed, packing up my cooler, and Ash showed up right around 6AM.
We’d been really worried about weather, since Thursday was an absolute monsoon and initially it was supposed to still be going on Friday morning. But it moved through faster than predicted, so we were able to load the car without running through rain. Then it only spit rain on us a couple of times on the drive down.
(Chase standing in the doorway watching us leave, poor baby)
Drive in actually went pretty fast. I bought a box of donuts so we ate those and only stopped for gas.
Ash played Hamilton for me so I can say I’ve finally listened to that. Yay! I liked it!
So now the biggest hurdles of the weekend:
1) Atlanta traffic. We got stuck in stop-n-go traffic for about 10 minutes, but overall it wasn’t terrible. There was no traffic around the hotels and we were able to get to the parking garage no problem. Yay!
2) Parking Panda. We prepaid for our weekend parking at Suntrust, and last year we couldn’t get either our printed receipt to scan, or the code on our phone to work. Ended up with a long line of angry drivers behind us for holding everything up. We had to call the number on the receipt and that person over the phone was able to get us in. This year they had an attendant at the scanner, who got the one on the phone to work no problem. We got a parking space right near the exit. Yay!
3) Getting all my crap into the hotel. We borrowed dad’s mini-cart again, we used it at visioncon and it was great. I had the bin, my duffel bag, the cooler, my makeup case, wig box, and two garment bags on it. It worked pretty well if you were on even ground… not so much going downhill, over curbs and grates, trying to cross traffic… LOL. It was hair-raising getting it to the front entrance of the Marriott. I almost made it. Hit a bump right before I got to the door and the whole thing tipped over. A bellman ran over and helped me pick it up, and drove it inside for me. BLESS HIM!
4) Getting keys from Cat. She was going to leave our room keys in the guest trans office for us. I left Ash in the lobby with the cart and went to find them. They weren’t there, someone called Cat for me and she rode around in one of her vans to hand them off! Saw Baymax while waiting.
5) Getting an elevator on Friday morning with a cart full of crap. I was fully prepared to leave Ash with the cart while I rode up and down taking one or two things at a time due to not having space on the elevator. But the Elevator Gods were with us that day and we got a nearly empty elevator in under 10 minutes. WHOA!
I threw on Dolores… not the easiest thing to “throw on” but it was the one that seemed easiest to walk around in, easiest to shop in, and also the one I was least excited about wearing so I wanted to get it out of the way.
“Least excited” about it because I hate how the wig looks on me but I did really want to wear it. I need to get a new wig and fix my neckline at the back.
We hiked down to the Sheraton to get our badges and since they had food trucks set up, we decided to eat there. It was something like Nana’s Chickens and Waffles? Whatever it was, it was GOOD. Probably the best thing we ate all weekend. Ash got the chicken and waffles proper… I got a chicken taco.
With some watermelon lemonade. YUM.
Then since we were already “out and about” we decided to walk over to the dealer’s room. That little hike uphill about killed us, LOL. We shopped for a bit, mentally picked out a few things to buy, and then headed back to the hotel.
Meeping Angel!
Westworld!
I understand Hamilton costumes now!
Marriott Quidditch team!
I tried to take a pic in the hallway outside of our room of every costume I wore… I got them all but one.
I got into my TFA Leia to meet up with some other TFA costumers! My wig looked so dang good.
Had some time to kill beforehand so wandered over to the Hilton and checked out the back patio.
Then to the Hyatt for the shoot:
Pretty Sparkley Unicorn People:
I’m feeling MUCH better about this costume than I was previously. I still need to remake the underdress, but it’s not near as bad as it was in my head.
Thanks so much for inviting me Kayla, this was really fun.
Then we headed off to eat dinner and I ran into a great Luke in the Marriott store LOL:
We were on the 14th floor and I dunno what good thing I did but we NEVER had elevator issues. We never waited more than maybe 10 minutes? Maybe 15 once.
We ate dinner – which, btw, the Marriott rooms all having fridges was a LIFESAVER. I took some lunchmeat and bread, and chips and drinks so most everyday I just ate in the room. Instead of an expensive greasy pizza.
Got changed into Medieval Leia!
We wandered around for a while.
Eventually found some empty chairs in the Marriott lobby and camped out and just people-watched. Our fav thing to do.
We called it a night early because obviously it had been a long day.
I had planned on wearing TFA Leia and Medieval Leia again but never had time. Nine costumes were too many for 2.5 days. I should’ve stuck with 6 maybe? But I did get to wear everything at least once.
Saturday! We slept in a little, got ready slowly. Watched the parade on the tv. Heard a commotion outside the room and went and looked out – the marching band had just come in from the parade and was playing the GoT theme, followed by Star Wars:
That was neat. We could also the very tail end of the parade from our room – I think it was just the vehicles coming off the parade route.
I got into Bespin Leia just for wandering around. Ash and I headed over to the Hilton to look for the Sun telescope set up and also the costume exhibit.
This was super cool:
Ran into BenaeQuee while out there!
The costume exhibit was really neat also. I took a lot of pics but I’m not going to post them all here, they’re in my gallery link at the bottom tho!
Back to the room for lunch:
Then I was going to put on Medieval Leia again… untiL I started going through the rest of the day and Sunday in my mind… and realized I had no spot for Mon Mothma. OOPS. Like I legit forgot one of my costumes. So I wore that in the afternoon instead.
I was really pleased with how it came out. Also… super comfy.
Twister!
I was going to go out to the pool area for the Slave Leia shoot just to say hi to folks… but it looked like a big crowd and I decided not to add to the crush.
Then I went ahead and changed into Funeral Padme – and had to sew myself into it because the velcro closure would not stick, LOL. Ash and I headed down to Sear for an early dinner – we decided to splurge on this one meal because why not. Also we wanted the dragon egg dessert everybody was posting about.
Ash had the brisket:
I got the filet with a side of mac and cheese:
And then Dragon Eggs!
I did NOT eat in full funeral Padme – I carried the cape down and put it on a chair, so I was just in the underdress/wig. Then carried the cape over to the HIlton and got into it once I got in vicinity. It’s too hard to walk quickly in.
The Star Wars meet-up was really cool:
I kept telling everyone beside me – you can step on my cape, you can kick it out of your way, it won’t hurt it I promise LOL… it’s a 10 year our costume and it’s hardy as all get out, stepping on it is not going to hurt it. And I also don’t care if you do at this point! LOL.
But anyhow this meet up was really great, they were moving people in and out and had handlers arranging us and fixing costumes super fast – it was very efficient!
Ash’s video of this pose got reposted by the DragonCon instagram!
Skywalkers:
Ladies:
GET ME OUT OF THIS THING
Then I threw on Trillian cuz we were planning on running around and having fun that night.
We went back to the room to “refill” and guess what was on TV?!
So yeah I was a little bit drunk and that was SUPER EXCITING.
Also made me realize I had the belt on too high and I fixed it, LOL.
Cat finally got done with work for the night and joined us:
We caught a parachute man!
We found a corner of the Hilton to sit and talk and drink until they told us they were closing the floor down so we had to leave!
So we wandered around a little more – mostly avoiding the Marriott AL because it was too crowded. We headed back to the room a little before 2…. and only like 2 minutes before that idiot threw chairs off the 10th floor. (which was apparently on the outside and not in the AL like I thought, not that that makes it any better).
Sunday we had wanted to try to go to the dealer’s room early in the morning but it was not happening. I got into Donna so we could go do all things Billie Piper:
Ash got in and got her autograph! I was with her in line for that, but realized they probably wouldn’t let me in if I didn’t have a ticket too, so I left since it was super crowded in there. (Although then I thought what if I’d paid for half of it? There would still only be one ticket and they probably let people in like that. So maybe I shouldn’t have gotten out of line. But oh well. Ash got to see Matt Smith in there too!)
Success!
They had everyone waiting on Doctor Who photo-ops go wait outside. Thankfully the weather was super mild so it was not uncomfortable.
The lady in front of us in this hand-painted Doctor Who Jacket had a gazillion autographs on the back! Super cool!
The photo-op process was so much smoother than last time we did it (last time we did one it was still Froggy’s). Also Billie Piper is taller than I thought.
And so pretty *_*
Then Ash and I split up. She went to get in line for the Billie Piper panel and I went to change into Bespin Leia for the Ladies of the Legions shoot.
I got over to the Hilton a little early and just kinda wandered around taking pics of other shoots happening.
I fully stole this photo off facebook, taken by Susan Joy:
At that point I was trying to conserve phone power — I was down to like 30% and had no way to plug in for a few hours yet, so I didn’t take any pics of my own!
As soon as it was over, I headed over to find the end of the line for the Alton Brown panel. Aaaaand it was already all the way around the block and the volunteer manning the end of the line was warning people that they would likely not get into the room at that point.
So I changed course. I kept walking and went into the front of the Marriott and into the Guest Trans office – asked Cath where Alton Brown was signing after the panel. Discovered she hadn’t eaten lunch. So I went upstairs, changed into regular clothes, brought her down a sandwich and some chips, and by then Ash was getting out of the Billie Piper panel – so she and I headed straight down to the International level to go ahead and get in line for his signing. We were the start of the 3rd row of people already waiting. Whew!
So then we had 2 hours of waiting. Thankfully it was super cool in there, everybody was just sitting patiently on the floor, so it wasn’t bad. It would’ve been better if my phone hadn’t been near death, so I had nothing to do but sit, LOL. But it wasn’t too bad.
I wish I’d thought to take one of our Good Eats books like I saw lots of other people with – and we had no idea what to have him sign (didn’t bring ANYTHING not even the program book), or how much it was going to cost (I just grabbed a bunch of money and stuck it in my pocket.) Then the volunteer came out and said Alton had a big stack of photos to sign. He’d sign 2 things, the photo and anything else. He’d take one photo (flash off!). And it was free. Whoo hoo!
Once he came in the line moved fast. I also had him sign my badge, since he was signing 2 things… why not.
YAY!
So that was exciting. We grabbed some pizza in the ML and took it up to our room, ate quickly, and then Ash put on Lilo and I got into Lucy.
Look how cute Ash’s Scrump turned out!!
LUCY finally. Honestly it took every ounce of willpower to make myself get into this that night. I was tired.
We hung out in the AL for a while because it wasn’t super crowded. Then went down to ML to kinda rest.
OMG!
While sitting after those photos I realized my foam feather holder wasn’t in all the way, it was sticking out and back, which wasn’t helping with the back-heaviness of the headpiece. Also made the whole thing look tilted back. That wasn’t the only thing causing the back tilt, too – I didn’t think I needed the stuffing I’d originally had in there because it seemed fine without it – so I jettisoned it since it was added weight. But now I think it needed it. So I’ll have it back in for whenever we do a photoshoot.
Boomerangs!
Also my writing on the bottom of the shoes was wearing off after a while, I need to redo it and seal them:
By that point I’d been in the headdress for an hour and a half – longer than I ever expected to be able to wear it – so we decided to upstairs, take a break and watch the masquerade. Ash decided she was done, so after the masquerade, I decided to go downstairs “headless” – without the headpiece.
Nobody as EVER supposed to see this wig uncovered – it doesn’t fit and looks like crap LOL. But oh well, it was late Sunday night at dragoncon, who cares.
First I went and bothered Cath for a bit:
Then ran around on my own for a while.
Found DJSpider in her Super Lucy!!
And then since Ash and I were planning on getting up at 6AM, I headed on upstairs, got packed up and went to sleep.
That night was weird. I’d wake up a little to turn over, and I could hear a loud party with a pounding bass. Figured I was hearing the rave? Even though we hadn’t heard anything like that other nights. All of a sudden Cath’s phone goes off, she gets dressed real quick and leaves. Ash and I were both assuming it was like, 3 AM, because of the loud music and Cath getting called out to take care of something. But then Ash looked at her phone and it was like, 5 minutes til 6AM. And looking out our door it seemed the music was coming from outside the Marriott… so that was weird (and Cath just needed to go take care of one guest that was leaving.)
So Ash and I got up and got ready and loaded everything on the cart. We figured we’d do this early so we didn’t have to fight for an elevator – and we didn’t! Totally empty elevator. We took it down to the international level this time so we wouldn’t have to go uphill from the front entrance. We were able to just come out and go right across the street. Would’ve been smooth sailing if we’d been able to figure out where the car was. We came into the entrance and it wasn’t where we thought. We thought, ok we need to go up a level? We knew we were parked on D. Got in an elevator and…. there was no D. It went A,B,C,E,F… LOL. So we wandered around and finally found it, and we were on D so that was weird. Got the car loaded.
Then we went and hung around in the lobby, ate breakfast, hung out in Guest Trans. Then decided that our Starbucks breakfast wasn’t enough so we went over and had 2nd breakfast at Chick-fil-A. LOL. Only time we ate in the food court.
Then we just kinda slowly made our way over to Americas Mart, so we could finally do our shopping. We were just a few people back in line for the opening, so for most of the morning, we were able to shop in not-crowded-at-all conditions.
We went through the floor we missed Friday, and went quickly through the other floor again. By then it was getting crowded and we’d successfully gotten everything we’d wanted, so we decided to go ahead and leave. It was about 2 hours earlier than we originally planned to leave, but we were done… we were ready to be home… soooooo.
Ash and Teri
Here’s everything I bought:
After 16 years I finally got a Dragon Con t-shirt. There have been many I wanted but I never feel like waiting in the line. We really liked this year’s shirt…. there was no line… they still had my size… so I got one. Also two pins (a Janet Snakehole from Paper Bones ATL and Stitch and BB8 from Karen Hallion!), and I got 3 stickers from a booth who I stupidly didn’t get the name of. But these stickers are amazing – the one I got for myself is a cat yelling “You’re not my real mom!” one. Chase got a Husky being picked up by a UFO. And I got an otter one for my mom. Ash got some, too. The art is super cute.
Also got Chase a Direwolf tour shirt.
Drive home was slow. We stopped for McDonald’s for lunch. I kept trying not to fall asleep. Ash and I came up with costumes for next year. I’m excited.
We got home around 4:30.
I had yesterday off work — I’m SO GLAD I did. I was exhausted, everything hurt. I literally just sat on the couch all day. Took a nap. I did manage to unpack a little bit. But not a lot. Then Chase and I watched Hidden Figures which I’d wanted to see when it came out but never got a chance, and it was super good.
SELFIE GALLERY
I tried to take selfies with as many people as I could this year, but I kept forgetting to ask. (HonestlY I remembered better while drunk than while sober…) Next year I will do better.
My plan was to send these to Chase and be like “look what you’re missing” but then he was sad he was missing so I just collected them to show him later LOL.
Full gallery is HERE!