FAn Expo

I didn't take as many photos this year.  Having Rob in a wheelchair that weekend made everything extra difficult.  I would like to go on record as saying that the con volunteers did everything they could to help us out, bending over backwards really, to get him and his chair through lines with ease.  This trip we got autographs from James and Oliver Phelps (Fred and George Weasley), Sarah got her drawing of Chewbacca autographed by Mr. Mayhew himself, and gave him one of his own to keep.  That was adorable. We got our family photo of us with Nichelle Nichols at HOT Con autographed by Nichelle.  We got to hear Frank Miller talk about Dark Knight, Sin City, and 300.  That was pretty cool. Friday we did our Firefly cosplay, Saturday our Star Wars: The Force Awakens cosplay.  As usual there were other Kaleighs, Cpt. Mals, Washes and plenty of Jaynes.  There were plenty of Reys, Finns, and Kylo Rens but no Old Lukes or General Leias at all. We got family portraits taken both days. The only thing I bought was a really cool, exactly what I wanted Star Wars T-shirt.  I had heard rumours that a Face Off contestant was going to be there, Ben from Season 9 since he's from Austin, but no such luck this year.  Maybe he was at Comicpalooza instead.  We didn't get to go to Houston this  year.  The wheelchair was too much of a burden and we had to pick Seth up from his DC trip on Saturday anyway. 

​ Our hotel's fire alarms went off Saturday midnight. Woke us all up from a dead, exhausted sleep, terrified the children.  We stumbled out in our pajamas, alarms screeching at a deafening decibel level. We had to stay outside while the firemen went in and investigated. Turned out to be not an actual fire.  Still, after a full two days of conventioning, not the way we wanted to spend the night, outside with hundreds of others wondering if all our stuff was going to burn up. Other than that, the hotel stay was still horrible--La Quinta.  The free breakfast was inadequate, no protein on the menu other than microscopic pieces of bacon and reconstituted powdered eggs. We got no refund or discount or official apology for the midnight fire drill.  Worst of all the room was insanely too small to be either "a suite" or "accommodates 5 people" as stated on the website. There was one king bed and a sofa sleeper that looked big enough but the mattress when pulled out was a twin.  Two of our three kids slept on the floor both nights.  They rotated who got the bed.  We're never going back to that La Quinta.  We're pretty sure that the woman we were eating breakfast next to Sunday morning is the one who caused the fire alarm to go off.  She practically admitted she was smoking in her room.  This is the same woman who told her breakfast companion proudly that her own son had called the cops on her and had her arrested while in her mother's  (his grandmother's) kitchen on Mother's Day.  I found out later she was in town for a Harley Rally.  What a family!