TwiCon or Bust!!

This was my thought process up to the point I boarded the plane bound for Houston. I had been counting down the days to seeing my best friend, Tammi and my sister, Jessica in Houston. We were planning on attending the Twilight Convention. What is a Twilight Convention (TwiCon) you ask? Well let me tell you, it’s all about Twilight baby! There are guest speakers that come, they do Q&A sessions, sign autographs and take pictures. They have merchandise out the wazoo, trivia games, and a party on Saturday night.

I was literally so excited about my trip, I starting packing on Monday and my flight didn’t leave till Thursday. This all started when Tammi came to visit me back in November of last year. I had told her that I was wanting to take a trip to see family and I mentioned I would love to attend a Twilight Convention someday with her. We had heard about them online thru Twitter from a site called Twilight Lexicon. We both follow them on Twitter. So her and I looked into it and decided that we would attend the Houston one, I told Jess and she decided that she was going to go too. So now the three of us are going and I am beyond thrilled. I get to hang out with my bestie and my sister for the whole weekend, no kids and no hubby. lol

Well the big day finally comes around and it is a 90 minute ride to Nashville, I hadn’t slept so before we left I brought a Monster with me. Then when I was on the plane, I had another one. So trust me when Tammi picked me up, I was beyond wired. ROFL!!! So we stopped to wait for Jess’ flight to get in and where do we go? Starbucks!!! I got myself a frapuccino — yum!!!

Now notice how blurry Tammi’s picture is compared to the one she took of me? That’s how bad I was — ROFL!!

Once we picked up Jessica, we went to Olive Garden for lunch — oh so yummy. I had Tammi take a picture of me and Jess.

After lunch, we headed to Tammi’s to rest for a bit. Another bonus to being in Houston was we get to see my dad. Now Jess or I hadn’t told him we were coming yet, we wanted to surprise him — oh boy did we ever. Jess called Daddy on his cell while he was at work and said she wanted to take him to dinner and was going to bring a couple of friends along. I could hear his excitement from across the room. He didn’t believe Jess that I was there till she handed me the phone and had me talk to him. He told us when he got off work and said for us to meet him at the house. So we settled in at Tammi’s and just chilled out waiting for him to get off work. Then we made the drive over from Houston to Pasadena — got to see a lot of sites that I hadn’t seen in years. Daddy called Lori to tell her we were coming and she was so thrilled to see us. Daddy ended up getting off work late, but that’s okay once he got there we took him out to eat at Denny’s. We didn’t stay out long cause both me and Jess were crashing big time. We made plans to go over to his house on Sunday and just spend some time with him. So back to Tammi’s we went to finally crash, cause we knew Friday was going to be a long day.

Friday morning came awfully early, but we were all super stoked cause Peter Facinelli (Carlisle Cullen) was going to be the main speaker that day. We were also going to get to take a picture with Peter. So before we headed out, we stopped to take pictures. Tammi was our wonderful driver for the whole weekend and so I’ve got to show some love for the little yellow bug.

Cute huh? Well try cramming four grown adults into it and see how cute you still think it is. I had rug burns getting out of it.

The convention was being held in the Galleria mall in downtown Houston. We were Gold Members – which meant we had the good seats and also got to be in line first for autographs. We were in row 6, in the center — we had a great view of the stage. Before we sat down, we walked around the convention a bit. We took this picture:

Which side are you on? Vampire or Werewolf?

Our main announcers for the weekend were a group of people called The Hillywood Show. They are a hoot, they do these awesome videos that spoof Twilight and New Moon. They signed a picture for me and let us take a picture with them.

Jess got all excited cause “Jasper” touched her.

Okay now onto the main event. What was suppose to be a 60 minute Q&A session, turned into over two hours of fun with Peter. He is an absolute sweetheart. He actually got up out of his chair and went all over the place to answer the questions from the audience. He even came and answered a question I had and then came back and answered one from Jess. Not bad for a guy who had been awake for the past 24 hours and only got to take like an hour long nap. He also had a piece of gum that he was smacking the whole time to keep awake.

Once Peter’s session was over, we had to wait in line for our photo op. Which was so worth the wait. Peter was so sweet to each person that came up to him. It was funny cause during his Q&A session he told us he used to be extremely shy. I think he got over it.

Once the photo ops were over, they played a game called Yes/No. The winner would be treated to a make over for the Vampire Ball on Saturday. Both Tammi and Jess played, I was getting tired and knew my reflexes would stink, lol!

Needless to say, they didn’t win. But it was fun! After this was over, it was time for our autograph session. I brought my graphic novel and had Peter sign it. I asked him if he had seen it yet and I bookmarked a page with Dr. Cullen in it, so he could see it. He was trying to read it, it was cute. LOL!

I taped a bit of Peter’s Q&A session, here he is trying to teach us about how one scene can literally take all day to film.

With day one of the convention over, we were starving and headed out for dinner. Tammi took us to a place called Kenny and Ziggy’s, it was really yummy. It gave us a chance to just sit and relax for a while. Once we were done, we were picking up Greg and going to a place called The Hop. I was also going to meet my friend, Robin, there. Greg’s friend, Tommarra, was celebrating her birthday. So we had lots of people to meet up with. We had an absolute blast. I loved being able to see old friends and make some new ones.

Me and Jess — along with Jess, me and Greg

Me and my Bestie — Robin, me and Tammi

Saturday was jam packed with all kinds of speakers. We heard from five of them that day. Gil Birmingham (Billy Black), Kiowa Gordan (Embry Call), Charlie Bewley (Demetri), Christopher Heyerdahl (Marcus), and Mike Welsh (Mike Newton). Now I enjoyed both Gil and Kiowa. Gil answered one of my questions regarding a movie he did with Johnny Depp. Kiowa still seems really new at all this and doesn’t seem to feel comfortable on stage.

Gil Birmingham — Kiowa Gordan

I taped this for my mom, she’s a big werewolf fan — so here you go again Mom.

Our next speakers were grouped together. They were great as a team. They play the Volturi — the old vampires in the Twilight story. Basically they are the ones that enforce the rules — yup, vampires have rules. lol Now their stage presence was just so fun. Both Charlie and Christopher wandered around the audience and took questions.

I also taped some of their Q&A too:

The last speaker for the day was Mike Welsh. He is a hoot. He had done karaoke the night before and sang for us a little bit during his Q&A session. Someone one asked him some of his favorite bands and I instantly fell in love – he said he loves Fugazi. *le sigh* He also does a spot on imitation of Eddie Veder from Pearl Jam.

You still with me? Cool, cause I’m not quite done. Once we were done Saturday afternoon, we grabbed some dinner and got ready for the Vampire Ball. Any excuse to get dressed up, we were all for it. The girls from The Hillywood Show taught us a dance from their latest video, boy was it hard. Gil, Mike, Charlie, and Christopher were all there, they danced, Mike sang and just had a good time. I got a hug from Christopher and Jess got one from Gil.

Look out, here comes trouble.

Jess and I trying to do the steps.

Sunday, we opted to just not go to the final day and just hang out together. The movie The Runaways was playing in select theaters and it was playing in Houston. So the girls and I headed to the theater. It was an amazing movie and I can’t wait to own it. After the movie, we made a stop at a candy store and The Chocolate Bar.

Then we headed over to Daddy’s house to just hang out for the rest of the day. He and Lori made us tacos, oh they were so yummy!!

Daddy with his girls. <3

Since it was our last day, we "kidnapped" Greg and forced him to eat ice cream over at my dad's house. He was an unwilling participant at first, but eventually he came around.

All in all it was a good trip. It seemed to go by way too fast. I really hope to get back down to Texas again soon. I’m looking into going next summer, but we’ll see. Thanks again to my bestie for being our driver and taking us all over Houston, Pasadena, Friendswood, you name it we went there. Thanks also for letting me and Jess crash at your place. The lesson we learned from this trip, aside from what happens in Tejas, stays in Tejas (haha) is that Jessica just wants to lick ‘em! *muah*