HSV Expo Wrap-up

SORRY it’s taken me so long to get this posted! Work has been crazy and I had a lot of pics to upload between my phone, Chase’s phone and Chase’s real camera and I wanted to wait til I had them all.

On Wednesday night last week we picked up Kevin. I had Thursday off and Chase was working a half day, and I spent the entire morning finishing packing and cleaning the house. I was running from 8am til Chase got home around 12:30! Kevin entertained himself watching movies while I did that.

Chase got home and we loaded up the car.

We stopped for lunch and then hit the road. The ride was uneventful.

Got checked in at the hotel and they had no bell carts available. We had a lot of stuff, so that was a bummer. We got up to our room with the first load of stuff and discovered an empty bell cart in the hallway! Hooray!

Got the rest on the cart and to the room.

I got everything unpacked and steamed.

I know I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again – the Embassy Suites is a superior con hotel just for the rooms. Kevin was really excited to have the living room as his own space, we brought drinks and snacks for the mini fridge, and never felt cramped like we do in a standard hotel room.

We headed into downtown to have dinner at Melt.

Kevin had a meatball sub. I had some kind of chicken sandwich situation, and I think Chase did too.

Ice cream was right next door.

Kevin is a child of the universe

We got back to the hotel just in time to head over and get our badges at the con center.

Sat in the lobby for a bit. The power went out while we were sitting there? So weird.

Next morning we got up and found a coffee shop. Con didn’t start til 3, so we were in no rush this morning.

We also found a great antique store.

I got 2 sweaters – one vintage 70s and one Star Wars one that is sooo cute I wore it every night the rest of the con LOL I didn’t take a pic of yet though! I’ll do that for next week’s wrap up.

Met up with our friends and headed to a taco place for lunch.

Got into Luke & Leia.

I HAVE GOT TO UPDATE KEVIN’S LUKE COSTUME. If we are able to go to Celebration next year, that is my project. His tunic has a seam coming apart at the neck, the belt is ancient and wrong and won’t stay in the right place, his pants are too big for him, the upper boot covers are fairly new but his old 2007 Ugg-rip-off boots are a mess.

I brought both red and brown extensions for Leia because I wasn’t sure where my hair color was falling… it was kinda in between. Decided red was closer, but in some shots you can tell the reds don’t match.

Headed over to the con center for a quick photoshoot before the con started, and met Ashley Eckstein on the way over!

She was sooo nice!

Also, we brought 3 lightsabers with us and none of them worked. LOL — Kevin’s Luke saber is the reallly old MR Luke saber from 2005, and I didn’t have enough batteries to put in it. So photoshop’ll do. Then we brought Shin and baylan’s lightsabers… but Chase brought the wrong charging cables, so we only carried the hilts LOL

Con doors opened and we let the crowd go in first, then headed in for some shopping.

Showed off some fancy fan technology to a jawa

Ahsoka!

They peace bonded my blaster, which I expected, but they also peace bonded Kevin’s lightsaber LOL First time I’ve ever seen that… and I don’t recall seeing anyone else with a peace bonded lightsaber that weekend.

Went out and did some photoshoots at golden hour

Kevin got to try on Corrine’s cool glove prop

Actual photo of me struggling to see my phone while wearing contacts and no glasses

I literally have like 30 of these pics of myself that are all sliiiightly different as Chase moved around me and trying to decide which ones I liked best was difficult LOL

Got drinks at the hotel bar, then decided to head to this restaurant 5 minutes away. We drove one half of our group while the other half… got trapped in the hotel parking garage. Their key cards kept deactivating all weekend! So they said go ahead without them, they’d eat at the hotel restaurant. We ate this sports pub place and it was fine. As we were leaving, we found out that our other half hadn’t been able to eat at the hotel restaurant – it had closed already! Craziness.

Saturday morning we got up really early — because I’d discovered the day before my eyeliner was kaput. Found a Target that was open at 7am, so Chase and I headed over there to get that plus some meds I was missing in my usual med bag (anti-nausea for Kevin). That’s such a convention run stock-up — anti-nausea meds and eyeliner LOL Got coffee while we were out, came back and the boys went to the breakfast buffet while I got into Wanda, and then got Kevin into Star Lord.

He picked this pose like he was holding a blaster. I promised him I’d photoshop a blaster in for him. I still have not LOL

I did make him try my Scarlet Witch wig on though.

We headed over to the con and walked around for a bit. Chase wore Beefsquatch to great acclaim, and I apparently I took NO photos of him in it LOL But I didn’t have my phone on me for most of this day, it was usually in Chase’s pockets, so we’ve got far less Sat photos than Friday.

Once we were all tired of wearing what we were wearing, we took some pics and then headed back to the hotel for lunch and a change. We brought sandwich stuff and ate that and chips and things.

Chase & I got into Shin and Baylan, and Kevin put on normal clothes. We walked him down to the game room and let him stay there a while while Chase & I did the exhibit hall once more.

They had a good reception! Chase had reprinted his gauntlets to fit better and they worked great this time. Now to redo mine so they don’t have to be taped on.
I think I may have put the knee guards on the wrong knees – they weren’t labeled, but that’s the only reason I can come up with for why they hurt so bad this time? I’ve worn it twice at dragoncon with no issues, but this time the knee guards rubbed the inside edge of knee cap REALLY bad on both sides. I kept having to yank my pants up to get it to stop pressing on the same spot. I’ve got 2 spots rubbed raw on both knees, right is worse and yesterday I reopened it and had to put another bandaid over it. Haven’t had armor bits that bad since I debuted the TK 20 years ago??

Got changed and headed to dinner at Poppy & the Parliament – we ate here our first year at this con in 2023, and have always wanted to go back.

It was so yummy!

The mashed potatoes and gravy that came with Kevin’s bangers and mash was soooo good I kept sneaking bites LOL

After that we came back to the hotel and hung out in the lobby with Jon and Rose for a few hours, laughing and telling old stories. It was a lot of fun. Corrine, Billy and Bethany got back from karaoke, and we went up to their room for drinks and more stories. Ended up staying up til 2 am, which was a feat for us considering we’d been up since 7am and had no nap.

Kevin was already asleep in our room, so we crashed, woke up around 10 and had an hour to pack to check out. It was a struggle because guess who forgot to take her migraine meds the night before?? Me, and I was having a major migraine. Took my imitrex but still had that gross, pukey, moving-in-slow-motion feeling. Of course there were no bell carts, so Chase went and stalked somebody leaving and managed to get it from them. And then we got stalked as we were loading up and passed it off to her LOL

We found a McDonalds on the way out and eating made me feel SOOO much better. But then I passed out and slept for 2.5 hours! So the road trip to me was only about a half hour long LOL

Dropped Kevin off at his house, came home, unloaded, and then ran some errands.

Have not unpacked yet. I’ll get on it this weekend. But now I’ve got to recalibrate my brain into working on dragoncon stuff again. UGH!