So... AE's over, and I got to say that before this I wasn't a superstitious person. Friday the 13th was just another day with no "curse" attached to it. But after this past week, man, I'm a believer.

Wednesday night I came home to receive a phone call from my mom telling me that my Grandfather had died. I had sent him an email a few days before and was wondering that day why he hadn't answered yet. I'm not close to much of my extended family. But my Grandfather was one exception, he wad the only one who paid me any sort of special attention. I was his "favorite" grandchild, and he made this known to everyone XD He was a fascinating man. An actor, a writer and an artist who may or may not have been a spy for a US oil company in the Middle East. I will really, truly miss him.

So, needless to say I went to the con feeling rather off. Thursday night Nova stayed up all night. I slept for about 3 hours and was woken up to find out that we had to go get spray paint to fix something. So we left the house that morning at 6:30 and bussed to the nearest Home Depot to get spray paint. We then went straight to the con where we sprayed *VandorWolf's shoulder armor for Dilandau and I hot glue gunned her armor on. I really should have thought more about how the armor was going to be attached, because it fell off several times that day T_T. It was very fun to cosplay Escaflowne with our Allen (*Valdrein and Merle ~mavichaos). However, our Hitmoi got food poisoning so she couldn't join us for our photoshoot. Another stroke of bad luck to add to the day. In addition, we found out that NONE of our panels were tagged as being run by us. In fact, looking at the con schedule and program, there was no way of telling which panels we were running despite the fact that we were included in the program as featured panelists. I'm sorry to anyone who was confused by this. Unfortunately, if you didn't read mine, Val's, Nova or Mavi's journals, you couldn't have known what panels we were running.
Our panel this day, Cosplay on a Budget, was standing room only (sorry that we couldn't get more chairs in for people :S) and for some reason we were not given a projector so we had to go without. Regardless, thank you to everyone who attended! It was amazing to see so many people there

Saturday was the same deal panel wise. Our Wig styling 101 panel was held in the same small room despite being crammed full. Sorry to people who couldn’t get in, or had to sit on the floor or stand in the back :S I also screwed up this day and forgot my test wigs, so i had to make due with *Weatherstone's Surge wig and :devHeimdall-sama:'s Harry Potter wig. Our Intro to Skit Making panel was written up as a manga publishing panel and was also at the same time as our group's FF Fight tournament. So we had to miss that and also had very few people show up at this. We also had missing equipment on this one. We were told that we would not have a projector for this one, yet we did XD Oh well! Friday the 13th bad luck continues.
I loved cosplaying Snow, aside from the fact that it was WAY too hot. I also got blisters on my chest and tore off some skin from my binding. My own fault lol.
A special thanks to ~Satsori for taking pictures for us :3

Sunday was a little more relaxed. The Worst Cosplay Contest went according to plan. I was the plant in the audience in case no one volunteered; thankfully we had lots of volunteers so I wasn't even needed! XD I made it to the final round anyway... which should not have happened, but Box Gundam took it. What a great sport, very entertaining guy. I'm very proud of the participation at this event! it was so much fun! We then filmed a Pokemon skit with myself as Red, *VandorWolf as Sabrina, *Weatherstone as LT. Surge, ~Kenshiro-FDP as Giovanni and ~Satsori as Officer Jenny. That should be up soon! We then went to the FF Open Fight Tournament where I judged. It was a blast! So many creative performers!
The con ended with some more bad news, though. So unfortunately I can’t say that it was a particularly good weekend. But life goes on, and we’re all trying to make the best of it.

I should also add this it was amazing to meet everyone who came up to us to say hi. The two girls all the way from Fort St. John who asked us for autographs pictures were so cute. I’m glad you two seemed like you were having a great time :3 And of course, *RadClawedRaid who came all the way from Australia, I’m so happy that you talked to us after our wig panel got out, we’ll see you this Sunday before you head back! Dude I met and talked to so many people at this con, I wish I could give everyone a mention but not only do I fail at remembering usernames but this journal is already getting to be essay-esque.

Thank you to the staff of AE for the following up on our concerns after the con. Despite what went wrong, I really appreciate the professionalism that was demonstrated toward us.