San Diego Comic-Con, 2013

After packing up and dropping off the dogs, we were on our way to San Diego Comic-Con, 2013! With our professional badges in hand, we stayed Wednesday, July 17th, through Sunday, July 21st, and it was a blast. We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel using points and drove to the Fashion Valley mall to take the trolley to the convention center every day. They even had their own Comic-Con 5 day trolley passes set up for sale. 

 Though we were exhausted pretty much all of the time, we made the effort to get up early in the morning to make it down to the con to beat the crowds and get good spots in line for panels and signings. We stayed out every night to eat dinner and get drinks with friends. By the end, we were sleep deprived and dehydrated, but everything was completely worth it. 

Some Highlights from SDCC this year: 

1. Hugh Dancy in the Hannibal panel! I am absolutely in love with the show, Hannibal - it may actually be my favorite show on television right now. And I'm in love with the two stars of the show - Hugh Dancy, who plays Will Graham, and Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Though Mads wasn't able to make it to the panel (sniff), the producers and Hugh were there to show us sneak peaks of the blooper reel (so hilarious!) that will be released with the DVD set and talk about what it was like working on the show and what may be to come. After the panel was over, the fans rushed the stage and went crazy for Hugh. I just had to run up and snag a picture.We were threatened with security, so Hugh promised us he would meet us outside. Such a cool guy!

2. Meeting Michael McMillian who plays Steve Newlin on True Blood. He had a booth set up in the autograph area and we just happened to stumble upon it while he was there! He's one of my favorite characters from the show, and no matter how weird the show starts to stray, his character is always entertaining and consistent. When it was my turn for his autograph, he actually talked to my friend and I about how the convention was going and what we saw. Turns out he likes The Walking Dead too. I told Michael he was my favorite character from the show and he told me I was his favorite fan. I'm sure he says that to all the girls!

3. Running into Justin Chambers. After a long day at the convention, my boyfriend asked me if I wanted to join him and his friends in a late screening. The convention center was closed, with the exception of these few, later panels. My friend that I was hanging out with was heading back to the hotel, so I decided to join the screening. I found out it was a panel and advanced screening for Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. Not my usual thing, but the screening was actually pretty awesome. It was geared towards a mature audience (not what I was expecting) and I actually enjoyed the cinematography and action sequences. My stereotypical expectations of animation were proven wrong yet again. After the screening was a short panel with the creators and voice actors. I had no idea that Justin Chambers played Flash! I know him as Alex from Grey's Anatomy and it was cool seeing him in a different element. After the panel, we were on our way out of the convention center to go grab dinner and I realized we were walking out right next to him. We told him he did a great job with the voice and I got a picture with him. Really chill dude.

4. George R.R. Martin! We waited in line for a raffel drawing for an hour and a half and out of the six of us in our group who drew tickets, three of us got winning tickets. This meant we could come back in an hour to meet George R.R. Martin. None of us expected to actually win so we were a bit unprepared. One of my friends and I each had a book for him to sign, but my other friend didn't bring anything with her. We rushed down to the floor of the convention center to search for autograph-able Game of Thrones materials, which were strangely difficult to find once we were looking for them. We found no books for her so she ended up getting a poster. I found two vinyl figures of Daenerys Targaryen and Robb Stark and snagged those for him to sign too. Once we got back up to the autograph section to get in line, we found that they were selling Game of Thrones books right on the table where George was signing. Sometimes I really feel so blonde. When it was my turn, George took a look at the vinyls he was signing and mentioned "Oh, Danny! I see they ran out of the headless Ned!" followed by a laugh that reminded me of Santa Clause. I had a stupid grin stuck on my face for about 15 minutes straight after that.

5. Giving a random girl dressed as Daenerys a Game of Thrones poster. So the poster that my friend bought for George R.R. Martin to sign was going to waste since she was able to buy the books for him to sign at his table instead. She was ready to throw it away when I yanked it from her to give to someone randomly. Better than just throwing it away, right? I was about to give it to a small child when my group of friends shouted at me and pointed out a girl dressed up in a Daenerys costume. It was too perfect. I went up to her and called out "Daenerys! You want a free poster?" She said, "sure, thanks" and unsurely accepted the rolled up poster. I told her I liked her costume and started walking away to the sounds of her unrolling the poster and shrieking to her friends in delight as she realized it was a poster of Game of Thrones in the background. Pretty awesome feeling!

6. Spending time with friends & meeting new ones. One of my favorite parts of being at SDCC was being there with my friends and meeting people. An awesome part in one of our days was a break we took in one of the corners of the convention center behind the Telltale games booth and next to a Mrs. Fields cookie stand. We sat on the floor with our group and eventually snagged a table to camp at. We drank soda, ate cookies, took turns leaving our stuff at the table and wandering the floor, and watched all the fascinating costumes and people go by. After being at the convention and lugging around a backpack filled with goodies, a camera, and give away items, it was a great feeling to leave it all at the table with our group and walk freely in the crowds, 10 pounds lighter. It was also a very cool feeling being able to walk the floor alone since I was always with a group trying to keep tabs on everyone's location and stick together before. Having a home base to report back to was such a relief and I had a great time wandering through aisles of booths alone and buying nicks and knacks for myself. We witnessed a Walking Dead costume contest at the Telltale booth too. An awesome Shaun of the Dead costume came by and I had to grab a picture just because he looked so much like the actor! And I saw a Booker from Bioshock Infinite. It's such a cool thing to play into someone's world. Calling people by the names of the characters they are dressed up as and seeing them respond in character. There were a ton of other great costumes too and I enjoyed our commentary and discussions as we rested at our little table.

7. Kit Harrington in the DreamWorks Animation panel! What a lucky surprise. We didn't attempt waiting in line for the Game of Thrones panel in Hall H, so we didn't expect to see anyone from that show, but here he was - in the flesh! While waiting for the Hannibal panel all day, we sat through a ton of other panels that were scheduled before, one happening to be DreamWorks Animation. Once they started getting into the next How to Train your Dragon movie, they announced the voice actor of the bad guy in the film to be someone we would all know and someone who was going to be joining the panel with us, then Kit Harrington walked out! They showed clips from the film, including two full scenes (it looks awesome - I can't wait to see it!). Kit talked about what it was like working as a voice actor opposed to what it's like on Game of Thrones. He was there for a split second and then it was back to the panel and back to waiting for Hannibal.

8. FREEBIES. One of the best things at SDCC every year is the free stuff that is given away. We pay for gas on the way down to San Diego, we pay for a hotel to stay at (or not in our case since we used points!), we pay for our trolley pass so we have transportation to the convention center, we pay for overpriced junk food at the convention center and for dinners and drinks when we go out, we pay for the must haves we see at booths, and some of us pay for our tickets to get in (we went free with our Professional passes with $170 value). So when something is given out for no cost at Comic-Con, it is quite exciting. I looked up where the freebies would be beforehand and found out that the Petco booth would be giving away Yoda dog ears. Preview night was way more crowded than it was last year and I was cut off right before getting a pair for my dogs, Chance & Cody. The next day I came early and prepared and snatched them after a minor loss of control I had when yelling at my boyfriend to grab the small dog size for Cody as I had grabbed the large size for Chance and we could only take one each. Freebies can be so stressful sometimes (embarrassed eye shift)...
My friend and I ran The Walking Dead Escape at Petco Park again this year and we got a free exclusive poster and The Walking Dead Rise of the Governor novel for participating. I also got a free Ghosts Portfolio artwork book signed by artist Rochelle Heagh Phister. I hadn't seen or heard of her or her art before but since it was free I thought, what the heck. It's Comic-Con! We were also given How To Train Your Dragon autographed artwork posters from the DreamWorks Animation panel and a Hannibal sketch of a body signed by Hannibal. Not too shabby for a grand total of $0.

9. Hanging out with Dave Fennoy, voice actor of Lee from The Walking Dead Game and his wife after his signing at the Telltale Games Walking Dead booth. This booth was awesome, first of all. The staff allowed us to go inside the prop car and there were actors as characters from the comic - Lucille was there, if you read the comic, you'll know what item that is. We stumbled upon a signing with Dave Fennoy so we all got our picture with him and I got an autographed still from the game. This is my favorite video game, so this was a pretty awesome highlight for me. I can't WAIT for the next game to come out, and if you haven't played the first season, you really should. The teaser game for the next season has me pretty amped up. Anyway, after getting our signing and sitting at our home base table, Dave's wife came over to sit with us and talk. We bonded over being pit bull owners and she convinced us all to call our mothers (she is a mother and expressed her displeasure when her children text back instead of call back - she had good points, actually). After Dave's signing was over, he joined our conversation. For about an hour or so we got to hang out with them like it was nothing and it was awesome. He's a great voice actor (also the Hulu guy!) and it was actually really hard to tell it was him just by hearing him talk. But when he did his impressions, I could totally picture Lee's face and/or felt like I was watching something on Hulu. 

Great view of Rick! 

Us in the booth earlier

Us in the Governor's office earlier

Daryl and the Governor! 

10. Seeing the entire Walking Dead cast on the floor! My friend and I were walking the floor on one of the days we were there and we ran into a stop in traffic. An entire direction of the floor was blocked off and we were told to turn around.  Then I noticed that there was a massive swarm of people around The Walking Dead booth where my boyfriend and I had gone in earlier and got our pictures taken. It was made up to look like the prison from the show and on the inside was the Governor's office. Pretty cool, actually. I assumed the crowds were for the cast of The Walking Dead show since I knew there was going to be a signing. After making our way around, we were able to get a pretty decent view of the entire cast there. The actors who play Rick, Herschel, Glen, the Governor, Daryl, and Tyrese were there along with Robert Kirkman and the creators of the show. Perfect sighting and photo op!

 All and all, this was a great year at San Diego Comic-Con. It was the most crowded year yet and the first year I didn't venture into Hall H. I really enjoyed my experience outside of it though and can't wait to see what will be in store for next year!

We have another graduate in the family!

Last night, our pup graduated from Beginning Obedience School. It has definitely been a journey, and a difficult one at that. The change, patience, understanding, accepting, and perseverance it took to get us all here was a challenge, but here we are! Chance is officially certified and has come such a long way. When we walked into our first class with Chance, just getting him from the car to inside Petsmart was trouble. He wanted to smell every step and listen to every sound. He wanted to play with every dog and everything was exciting, which made him so difficult to control. Chance is a rescue dog that my coworker was fostering back in February of this year. I fell in love with him and Adam and I adopted him within that same week. We don't know much about Chance's background, but that he was found as a stray and taken in. He had a ton of fleas, worms, and was about 20 pounds underweight. Now he's flea and worm free and has gained about 15 pounds so far (we're still working on it!). We've taken him around to a few different vets and the consensus is that he is about 2 years old. We think he is a boxer, american bull dog, and pit bull mix. He's 50 pounds now and all muscle, so getting him to go where we want to is always a work out.

After tearing Chance away from the parking lot, we had to basically drag him across the slippery floor in Petsmart to get him into the back classroom. Chance just wanted to bolt towards any dog he saw! Once inside the classroom, Chance whined the entire hour! It was so embarrassing. He made weird howl noises and sometimes they even sounded like a growl and he tugged on the leash for about half an hour straight. Over the next few weeks, Chance got better every time. We started taking him about half an hour early to each class and park away from the building to practice what we had learned away from distractions and get him in the right mindset for class. We learned how to walk him on a leash without him scaring people (and us) and now he is able to walk by our side with little problems. We are able to get him quiet, well quietER than he was when he sees other dogs.

On our last day of our 6 week training course, we had to pass some tests. There were 4 cones set up down a long aisle. The first cone was for the command, "sit", the second for "down", the third for "leave it", and the fourth for "stay". It was hard for Chance to focus on the first cone (even though he knows this trick, we do it all the time!) because he was so close to the other dogs in the class still. After about 10 tries, he eventually sat and we were able to move on to the next cone. He went "down" much easier, but still took a couple tries. The third cone was a breeze. He left the treat when we told him to "leave it", something Chance actually picked up pretty well! And the fourth cone was perfect. He "stayed" and I was even able to walk back a step (we didn't have to do that in order to pass) and Chance stayed where he was until I said "ok". So proud! The next part of the final was "come when called". This absolutely melted my heart. Our trainer took all the dogs on super long leashes to the way other side of the store and told us to call for our dogs. Adam and I called for Chance and he came bolting towards us! It was like straight out of a movie, I swear. I felt like an episode of Lassie! Chance ran to us so fast that I had to catch him in my arms as he tackled into me. I'm sure my eyes were twinkling with joy and pride at that part of the test :) We're both definitely oozing with pride and love for our little graduate. Next step is the Intermediate class, which our trainer says we're ready for!

We still have a long way to go, no doubt, but we have come such a long way too. Only way to keep going is up! Go Chance!

First Real Post! Hello World!

Hello!

This is pretty much my first (real) post on my brand new and shiny blog that I just created today! Yay!

The two posts below are linked from albums I made on Shutterfly that I was able to post to my blog in case anyone cared to take a peak.

In case you couldn't already tell, I love scrapbooking! And I love photos. I love all the digital scrapbooking we can do these days too - and I use it! I used the Apple scrapbooking to order albums they have available on iPhoto for my Hawaii, China, and Florida trips, but I really love the possibilities with using Shutterfly, so I'm starting to use that more instead. That's where I made my Father's Day album and the Lake Tahoe Trip album in the posts below.

Here are some posts that I would have posted had I had a blog within the last couple of weeks.

Here is the cake I made for the 4th of July! I used yellow cake mix for the cake, cool whip for frosting, cut in half strawberries for the stripes, and blueberries for stars. Festive.

Two weekends ago, I ran The Color Run 5k with my Mom! We went through courses of yellow, pink, blue, and orange zones and were sprayed with food colored water and food colored baking soda and this....is what we looked like afterwards. Pretty spectacular if I do say so myself. Below is one of the pink packets I got and threw into the air! There was an after run party at a music stage outside and everyone released their packets into the air at the same time for a beautiful misty rainbow of powder. It was awesome!

Last thing - I got a cotton candy frapaccino. Yep. Believe it. Pretty tasty. It's just vanilla bean frapaccino with one pump of raspberry syrup for a tall, two for a grande, or three for a venti if you want to try it yourself.

Father's Day 2013

My Father's Day book I made and ordered back in June for my Dad for this year's Father's Day, 2013.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Create your own personalized photo books at Shutterfly.com.

Lake Tahoe, 2013 Photo Book

I finally finished our Tahoe Trip album! I love scrapbooking - this is my most recent creation from our family trip to Lake Tahoe this past June, 2013. Enjoy!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Create a gorgeous, high quality wedding photo album at Shutterfly.com.