post-dragoncon dump
I may not be in the best mental place to be writing this but I need to do it before I forget everything.
24th Dragoncon is done and in the books. We left before dawn Tuesday morning.
Before
After
Parents first time at Bucee’s!
Check-in was smooth. The news of Taylor and Travis’ engagement broke just as we were pulling into the Marriott. What a great start to the week! Then took forever to get a bellhop and got one who really didn’t want to help. I had to unload the car myself because Chase disappeared to a bathroom, and I had to haul the big black bin up to the room myself because the bellhop didn’t want to put it on the cart.
Marriott, it’s time for an overhaul. We had gross stains all over the floor of our room. At least we had a bathtub! And my parents’ room was just 2 doors down without having to beg to be put near each other.
Quick lunch at secret food court, took a nap, did a little unpacking, and then off to Trader Vic’s for dinner.
Wore my Star Wars dress!
Wednesday we went to run some errands, pick up some basics at Target, and had lunch. Then back to the hotel for my afternoon long steaming session.
The memorials are already starting!
Had dinner at Ray’s in the City – wore Star Wars again because I didn’t bring enough “normal” clothes! LOL
My parents went to bed after dinner, I got into Leia and we walked around and ran into lots of friends and did the midnight countdown.
Thursday we got up early and took an uber down to the Courtland for badge pickup. I was trying to avoid having my parents walk all that way but the end of the line was already basically 2 blocks away so that exhausted them. I knew I should’ve just gotten pics of their IDs and picked up their badges for them. But once we were in the room it went smooth, my parents got their badges no prob. For some reason it took me and Chase like 10 minutes to get ours, they kept having trouble with scanning our code and confusion about what we were picking up? It was odd.
Back to the hotel for breakfast and a nap.
Time to get into our Trois!
We didn’t quite get mom’s wig on perfectly. Did a better job when she wore it again Sunday. But look how cute she is!
After a little walking around and some photos, we went back and changed and had a rest. I put Scully on (I wore Scully a lot. Really needed to have brought one more easy comfy costume than I did.) and went to Big Kahuna for dinner.
My parents found Godzilla on the way back.
Scully
Changed into T’Lyn after that only to realize I brought the WRONG BADGE. I brought my Picard era badge instead of Lower Decks. Oops!
YAY friends!!
And facetimed Kevin
Friday morning – Women of Star Wars!
Wore Padme which was nice and cool! But forgot my fan. My parents made their way over part way through the shoot and brought me one of theirs.
As soon as Star Wars was over I had to run go change into Lorne for Severance.
The Severance photoshoot was SO FUN! There was so much swag and people had so many hilarious and perfect costume ideas.
I am glad I bought new shoes that actually fit my feet though. Were they comfortable? No, but at least they weren’t 2 sizes too big.
I also spilled my red paint I use for blood while getting ready. Went all over the bathroom. Thankfully I only had the petticoat on in that moment and only got a few watered down spots on it.
Was not happy with my hair in this Friday. When I did the test shoot a couple of months ago, my own hair seemed to work fine, but this time it felt too thin and small. Maybe because I’d already been wearing wigs for the whole day previous? LOL More on this later.
After that I went and put Scully on and we went to the dealer’s room. My parents sat this out. Didn’t buy much but we happened upon the enso booth – we’d been looking at buying more casual wedding band rings from them for a while, so it was nice to get to see them in person and try them on – ended up buying the LOTR set we’d been looking at. Good timing since this Dragoncon is our 20th “meet-a-versary”.
Saw a falcon on the way back
Met my parents and ate dinner in the food court. Miraculously got a table as soon as we walked in.
Had a rest and put on Shin and Baylan.
But totally missed the Star Wars shoot LOL
Oh well, we hadn’t planned to actually get IN the shoot we only went out there to see folks.
I put Scully on again and we wandered around the rest of the night.
Saturday was LOTR time!
Dad’s Gandalf hat did not fit LOL We had to rip a hole in the seam to widen it and safety pin it to his wig! But it stayed on.
Chase’s Radagast turned out really cute.
As did mom’s hobbit. Those are her same hobbit feet she wore to dragoncon in 2004 LOL
The wizards were very popular!
Our whole crew
Me and dad
Selfie!
My parents went to take a break and I got into Wanda.
I’m still not happy with how stiff the center panel is and how much it rises up under my chin because it can’t conform — but when I finally got it all on and got to see the finished thing, it made me tear up a little bit. I’ve never had that reaction before so that was very satisfying.
Went out to do a little photoshoot with Corrine in her Yelena.
Then I had to run go change for the Taylor Swift shoot!
I got there right at 4 when it was supposed to start and everyone was already on the stairs taking pics! Geez! I had to fight my way through the crowd to get up there and I’m sorry to anybody I ran into. Stressful.
Then it was so crowded it was really hard to trade swag which was disappointing. I had stickers and bracelets and barely gave any out. I DID make sure I always had a stack of my badge ribbons in my hand and I only came home with like 5 or 6 so not bad there!
And apparently nobody in our crew took pics at the TS shoot. Here’s one I stole from FB of the 4 Star Wars/TS mashup costumes!
Took some pics in the hallway before changing:
Overall I was really happy with how Padme LOOKED… didn’t feel great though!
Like it looks great in photos but it was uncomfortable. The suit just doesn’t fit great, it’s especially tight and uncomfortable along the upper edge under the arms. And the straps are too long! When we do the photoshoot I’m going to experiment with some different undergarments to see if that helps. The boots were SO painful and that’s the main reason I couldn’t stay in it long. And the wig kept getting stuck on EVERYTHING. Again during the photoshoot may experiment with a few photos in the actual lake wig.
Also I still had my Scarlet Witch makeup on, I tried to do a little cleanup but didn’t have time to completely redo my face. But if anybody was wondering why I had really dark smudgey eye makeup on… that’s why.
Put Lorne back on for the night with a couple of change.
Wore my black flats with it instead of the Mary Janes. My feet were going to hurt by this point either way so I’ll go with the lesser evil.
And I braided one of my Leia hairpieces and used that as my braid. Looked much better.
Also didn’t do the blood this time.
Went to get dinner at the Hilton restaurant. We eat here every year and never have much of a wait, but this time it was a 30 minute wait. So we found a place to sit and wait. When they were ready for us they asked if we were ok being sat next to the karaoke. Umm, karaoke?? That’s new. We asked if we could be sat away from the karaoke but they said they didn’t know how much longer that would take, so we accepted the table, and then couldn’t even talk to each other during the whole meal because we couldn’t hear each other over the singing. Would’ve been nice to know they stuck the karaoke in there before waiting the 30 minutes on a table.
After that we went to see Raspberry Pie play, and hung out with Catherine.
Sunday morning we got into Belle and Beast:
Chase forgot his fangs.
We hung around in the Marriott for a while. Eventually went downstairs so I could take some photos to recreate pics from Dragoncon 2005.
She’s a lot
I could only manage wearing it for about 2 hours. All of the weight of the costume was on the small of my back and it really started to get uncomfortable.
I do wish I’d stayed in it while Chase changed and then came out to shoot some decent pics of me. Most of what I have is muddy iphone pics.
Then we changed into the Trois again.
I did a chop job on my Troi wig in the hotel room LOL turns out the ice bucket makes a decent wig head holder!
Family photo! Dad wore Qui-Gon!
We found a Riker!
We didn’t get in the Star Trek shoot – too hot. But we hung out in the shade and watched.
They cute
I’ve got to get new shoes for this, they are too big. I had to wear 3 – yes 3! – pairs of socks underneath my tights just to keep them on my feet LOL And they are marked as being my size!!
My badge beard was super long this year!
Put Scarlet Witch back on for Witches Coven, saw lots of friends, that was nice. I also kept my Troi contacts in for this which now I regret because I didn’t like how they looked in photos LOL
I stayed in Wanda the rest of the night. We had dinner at Sear, where the hostess was not having a good night.
Called it a night fairly early because we had to finish packing.
Monday check out was interesting. 15 minutes before we agreed to be ready to leave, my parents called and were already downstairs. Dad was already on his way to get the car out of the garage. So we got our stuff down there and checked out. Then waited and waited while dad got lost trying to get back to the hotel. Finally got everyone loaded up and on the road only to find out dad left his ipad in the hotel. Thankfully they found it and shipped it back.
Back home with Luna by noon.
We immediately went out and bought paint swatches so we could finally start on our house painting projects.
Work has been absolutely shit the past week. I’m not in a great mental place over and I think part of it is Con Drop. Just tired, sad, and super frustrated and anxious over work.
I did get the Lush ET bath bomb though, so that’s nice.
