Uuggghhhh! I woke up this morning with the worst hangover. But it was all so worth it!!!

Last night my wonderful friend Lisa happened to come across an extra ticket to the KCRW fund raiser at the Gibson Ampitheater; a fund raiser that included a very special surprise unannounced performance from my most fave band to dance around in my underpants to - Franz Ferdinand!!! I was so excited! Not only did I finally get to see them for the first time, but I got to see them for free!!! And we had great seats. And the band performed amazingly. And we got to go to the afterparty where there was FREE BOOZE and free delicious burritos. And I got to meet the band!!!!!! And most importantly they were really really nice!!

The only down side to the evening was that since this was such a last minute thing, I actually had to leave another show that I was at earlier, before my friend Alex even performed his set. :( And.....ummmm.....it was a Wizard Rock show where the bands that were performing sang songs about Harry Potter. Of course I dressed up for it and didn't have time to change before heading out to see FF. So, I was dressed like a Hogwarts student for my Gibson Ampitheater adventure. I'm such a dork!!

And now the pictures! Enjoy!

Here I am, chillin' at the afterparty contemplating my dumbass decision to purchase a $13 double gin and tonic at the show when I knew there was going to be free booze later. Duh!

Me and Lisa (my hero!)

The crew that we partied with-Lisa, Zeb, Nathaniel and Alyson

My bling that got me in to the afterparty! And now the Franz boys!!

Here I am with Paul Franz. I approached him first because he's my fave FF member. I mean, have you seen him pound the hell out of his drums??? Dreamy...These pics came out kind of dorky, but whatever!

We love Paul/We want more! Which is it?

Me and Alex Franz. Awwwwwww....

Me and Bob Franz, wearing the popular fashion of the evening-the black and white striped shirt.

The first of what turned out to be many pics of me and Nick Franz. That guy is cool as hell!

Ha!

Cute Lisa!

Lisa and Parker, who is FF's sound engineer I think. Hey gurl, watch your sign language!!

Andy "Fucking" Knowles and Lisa. Check out his shirt. Check out her face. She's so gonna kill me for posting this.

Yay! This one's better!

Me and Andy. Awww.. I think I want to make babies with him!

Andy, Lisa and Nick. Woot!

Parker (with delicious free burrito in hand), Andy, Lisa and Nick (staring into the dark yonder)

Mmmmmm...drinky drinky! Did I already mention that Nick is cool as hell????

I think I had a little too much drinky drinky...

.....and me thinks Nick had a bit too much too!

Parker's bling!

Lisa, Andy and Parker. Andy's the king of the world!!!

Damn I love this picture!! Andy, me and Parker having good times!!! What possessed these boys to keep lifting me up in the air I will never know. Maybe it was all the vodka and burritos!

So, yeah, we closed out the afterparty. Security actually had to tell us to leave! I had the time of my life. As I type this, I am still wearing my wristbands. What??! Didn't I already tell you that I'm a dork?! Now if this hangover headache would only go away......

Well, kids! Here it is - part one of my blog dedicated to Lumos 2006, a Harry Potter Symposium! This event was life changing for me. I met soooo many wonderful and amazing people and had many great adventures. It's funny because I think that it was the people who made this event special for me, not the programming. Harry Potter fans are the absolute best people you could ever meet! Fer reals!!!

This first blog covers only one day - the best day! The Wednesday night before Lumos actually started. This was the day that we (Marisa, Bree, Gwnavere, Tatiana, Rachael and I) threw our big Hogwarts Grads Party! And after that, Marisa and I had an amazing jacuzzi adventure! ;) Actually, after all of the fun we had on this night, the actual symposium paled in comparison!

The day started --- well..........late. We were supposed to be on the road by 10am. Monica was supposed to be at my house by 9am so that we could make it to the OC by 10. She didn't get to my place until 9:30 due to horrid Wed. morning rush hour traffic. I'm freaking out because I hate being late and I don't like to keep people waiting. Luckily, Marisa calls and says that she's running late also. She had trouble getting out of bed due to the fact that she was up late doing last minute things such as packing, washing out cauldrons and retro-fitting a Harry Potter sheet to fit the back seat of her car perfectly. (It looked awesome by the way!) On top of that, the last member of our car pool party, Daniel, had missed his train to the OC, so we had to go to Duarte to pick him up. Which is right by my house. So Monica and I had essentially driven to Marisa's for no reason. But, whatever! We finally had our whole crew together and were on our way to Vegas, baby, Vegas! The drive was long and boring. Highlights included stopping at the most amazing five-star Del Taco in Barstow, taking pictures at an abandoned, spooky, old restaurant, and listening to the wizard rock stylings of Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys and The Remus Lupins. We didn't even hit any traffic until we got to the strip! Awesome!

So now we get to the JW Marriott, the host hotel for the symposium. It is the most amazing and elegant hotel I've ever had the pleasure of staying at. I don't know what I expected, but I guess that I just didn't expect such grandness for a Harry Potter symposium! I mean, this wasn't a typical tacky Vegas hotel. This hotel was more like a resort, with chandeliers and robes in your room and waterfall showers and BIDETS!!! That's right, we had a bidet in our room. Our room was absolutely magnificent!! It was 1100 sq. ft. of swankyness. We couldn't even believe our eyes when we first entered - we ran around oooh-ing and ahhhh-ing like the cast of the Real World does when they first see their ridiculous house.

Here is a pic of our luxurous bedroom with the softest, fluffiest pillows and comforter ever!

The bidet. Unfortunately, I never got to use it. I was a little bit afraid of it. And no matter what Marisa says, I DEFINITELY DID NOT DRINK OUT OF IT!

Monica and Marisa lounging out on our kick ass wrap-around balcony!

Our living room/dining room area, before the party. Look at how neat and tidy it is!

A nighttime shot of the exterior of our fabulous hotel.

And now: the party pics!!!! It was so much fun to finally get to meet so many of the people from our Lumos Attendees myspace group! So many wonderful costumes, so many wonderful dancers, so much......booze. Good good times!

A group shot of some attendees; bondage Harry and Draco, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, and a couple of Tonks'.

The best Snape at Lumos! And she can really boogie down!

Erynn (as Luna Lovegood) and Monica. Look - she even has the radish earrings!!

"You're a woman, Harry!"

Lucius and Draco Malfoy. Their costumes were so detailed and amazing!

Monica, Marisa, Tatiana, Me and Gwnavere - raiding the bar.

Awww.......look how much we luv Rachael. I think that this is around the time that Marisa turned into "Marishah". Everytime she tried to come behind the bar, she would rip the table cloth on her way back, and then yell at the table to "stop it!" :P

My BBFF, Matt, and the gigantic jug of wine.

Draco hexing me. Evil!!!!

Alex with his The Remus Lupins fangirls and Matt's hand. Which is covering my face. :(

Mikey - catching all of our shenanigans on tape. Oh no!!!!!!!!!

Finally! My account of the actual symposium! All of the Harry Potter related activities and events that I had saved up to participate and witness were finally about to begin! The Welcoming Feast, Wizard Chess, Art Gallery, Vendor Room, Wizard Rock, Water Quitdditch, Book Discussions, Night Classes, LeakyMug Podcast, Movie Screenings, Hogsmeade Trip ::takes a deep breath:: It was almost too much to take in. And as excited as I was to get started, I was definitely NOT looking forward to waking up on Thursday morning for registration - not after a night of drinking, dancing, and jacuzzi-ing until sunrise. However, it'a amazing what adrenaline will do to you. I actually woke up with a smile on my face and headed down to lobby for registration. It was hilarious seeing all of the hungover faces of people who were at the Grad Party the night before! If only I had pictures.......

It ended up being a good thing that I didn't have to do anything symposium related (after registration) until the Welcoming Feast at 6pm because I was exhausted! My roomies and I decided to head back up to our suite to clean up a bit and take much needed naps. Normally I wouldn't bother with such mundane details, but cleaning the room was actually pretty funny because we kept finding condoms in the weirdest places! Was there some sort of condom fight at the party that I missed?? They were everywhere! Including hanging from the Gryffindor banner! LOL!

We slept through the Wizard Chess game, which is a shame because I really wanted to see how they were going to pull it off. I mean, in the books you tell the chess pieces where to go and they move on their own and totally annihilate each other!! I found out later that at Lumos, there are human chess pieces and you sort of move yourself around a giant game board. It still sounded pretty cool. I "borrowed" this pic from someone elses collection of Lumos pics. Even though it is blurry, you kind of get an idea of what was going on.

Time for The Welcoming Feast! I was curious to see what they would feed us - the program only said "British Food". Everyone gathered in front of the Great Hall. We were eager for the doors to open. There were two bars set up in the common area outside of the Great Hall where everyone got their first tastes of the special Lumos Harry Potter themed cocktails! There was Butterbeer, Pansy Parkinson's Frilly Pink Martini, Morsmordre Margarita, Liquid Lion, Luna Eclipse, Hufflepuff and Avada Colada. Suddenly, I didn't want the Welcoming Feast to begin because I wanted to try ALL OF THE DRINKS! They sounded so fun! Unfortunately I only got to try the martini and the butterbeer before we were let into the Great Hall. OH! But before we go inside, here's a pic of a woman dressed as Luna Lovegood. Her lion hat actually roared!! How effing cool is that?

The Great Hall was very grand just as I expected! I thought there would be a bit more magical decor, but it served it's purpose.

The "British Food" however, was icky. There was salad and bread and butter, but the main course was this stew that just wasn't very appetizing. Good thing that the organizers decided to equip each table with Owl Post! We ended up spending most of the feast writing naughty messages to each other and throwing them across the table, while alternately cracking up and ingesting mass quantities of butterbeer (the fast favorite cocktail of choice!)

Here's Bree and Gwnavere trying to look all innocent. :P Notice the only edible food on their plates.

Mikey, Daniel and Alex, awaiting the main course.

Tatiana smiling pretty as Narcissa.

Tatiana concentrating on writing an Owl Post message.

After the "feast" it was time for WIZARD ROCK! Yay!! One of the events that I was most looking forward to was the wiz rock concert featuring Draco and the Malfoys and Harry and the Potters. I had never seen DatM live before, so I was super excited to see them. Plus, in the jacuzzi the night before, Brian said that they were going to sing their songs as they were originally written, which meant putting all the swear words back in. Hooray! And even though I'd seen HatP before, it had been over a year ago so I was anxious to see them again as well!

The posse got their drinks and prepared to be ROCKED.

Alex with his Luna Eclipse and his cool beans belt buckle.

Bradley and Brian doing their Malfoys thang! They were even giving away CD's in exchange for beer! My kind of guys!

The Malfoys completely won over the Lumos crowd with their energetic set and humorous songs about how Voldemort is awesome and how Harry Potter is "a stupid dork with a stupid dorky scar" and about how poor the Weasley's are and how Tom Felton is "kinda hot". But it was time for Harry and the Potters to take over, and take over they did! Joe got the crowd good and riled up by doing his stick-it-to-the-man speech and the Potters continued on to melt our wannabe wizard faces with the rock!

Joe gets all wrapped up in his performance.

Bradley joins the Potters on drums (now dressed as a Gryffindor) and they continue to blow our minds.

Paul, toasting the audience as the Potters debut a new song, exclusive to Lumos, called Let's Drink to Aragog.

Three extremely cute girls mugging it up between songs.

Luna's lion hat enjoying the show.

Brian and I taking time out from heckling the Potters to ham it up for the camera.

Because the microphones just weren't loud enough...

Joe saxing it up.

Joe and his fist of fury!

A kinder, gentler, megaphone-less Paul.

ROCK!

The crowd, rocking out with their wands out! "Put your wand in your hand, put love in your heart, get your friends by your side, and tear evil apart!!!!"

Tee hee! ;)

Joe pours out his heart and soul.

The bubble finale!

The wizard rock was finished all too soon. I was sad, but I knew I'd see those guys again next week in Anaheim, so I tried not to dwell on it too much. :(

The next day, Friday, was the day that the actual programming started!!

Marisa and Monica woke up bright and early to take advantage of the Continental Breakfast, which was only from 8-9am. They got there at 8:30 and there was no food left! WTF? After taking care of their munchies at the hotel's Starbucks, Monica decided to go back to bed, while Marisa and I decided to check out the water quidditch games. We wandered around the enormous hotel grounds until we found the pool area. There was a quidditch match in progress, but it was really slow and kind of boring. What to do, what to do? It had to be about a million degrees out. But what's that in the distance? A pool side bar with lots of shade?? Yes! We head to the bar and order margaritas. It must be at least noon by now, right? Wrong. We look at our watches and realize that it is only 9:30am!! We are drinking margaritas at 9:30 in the morning?!! Why is it a million degrees already? Whatever. It's Vegas.

I was excited to attend some of the discussion groups and presentations, ranging from "Adapted Bias: Interpretations of Ethnic and Gender Relations in Harry Potter" to "Church, Woods, or Open Field: Religion in the Wizarding World" to "Muggles and Mental Health: A Psycoanalytic Perspective on the Inner World of Harry Potter" to "Parallels in Tyranny: Voldemort, the Ministry of Magic, and Jewish Persecution." Unfortunately the panel I was most looking forward to attending, "Sirius-ly Celibate? Sexuality and the Adults of Harry Potter", got cancelled. And then the next panel we tried to attend was full. And then the next panel we tried to attend got rescheduled to a later time. By now we were pretty frusterated and just gave up on trying to go to any of these panels. Oh well. There was plenty of other stuff to do.

I decided to check out the Art Gallery and Vendor Room. I couldn't get pictures of everthing, but here are a few things that I found interesting:

A model of Fred and George Weasley's joke shop.

Some Hogwarts graffiti.

A Monster Book of Monsters.

The Wand Shop.

I ran into my favorite evil wizard rockers, Brian and Bradley aka Draco and the Malfoys, in the halls, just a few hours before they left Vegas.

After a rather disappointing morning I was really looking forward to the afternoon and an inpromptu Remus Lupins performance in the Common Room!

Here's a pic of the bulletin board in the Common Room, where you could find notices for parties, sewing help, love notes, threats, fan meet ups, game nights...anything really! It was a really fun read!

But before I could settle down and be amazed by Alex's wizard rock, I had a meeting with two girls who were putting together a Wizardrockumentary, Mallory and Megan. They wanted to do a few interviews with fans of wizard rock and I happily agreed to be one of the fans. I was nervous to be on camera, but the girls were so nice and personable that I was able to relax (a little bit) and get through the interview. It was really great getting to meet and chat with them, and I can't wait to see how the film turns out!

The wizardrockumentary girls! Wiz Rock 4 Life! :P

And now on to the Remus Lupins Common Room performance, already in progress.

Alex rocking out acoustic style, yo!

Settling down for a mellow number.

Alex's fangirls...and Matt. Again. :P

I was so afraid that he would fall! Yikes!

After Alex's show Marisa, Matt and I went back out to the pool area for the "surprise" quidditch game that everyone knew about. The winners of the Quidditch cup (who happened to be the Threshers) were to play against a team consisting of LeakyMug Podcast members. Yes! Marisa hoped that Emerson would be shirtless. Unfortunately, all members of the LeakyMug team were wearing t-shirts, but fortunately this quidditch game was way more interesting and intense than the game we witnessed earlier this morning! The Threshers were fired up after a successful day of kicking the other team's butts, and the LeakyMug was led by Emerson's fierce competitive nature.

The LeakyMug staff, huddled up and discussing strategies.

Let the games begin!

The Threshers were dominating at the start of the match, which really ticked Emerson off. He was having so many hissy fits that he almost got asked to leave the pool. Here he is, backing off. Ha ha.

Jamie, looking quite adorable in his sunglasses.

Emerson yelling at........er I mean talking to his teammates.

The two seekers race for the snitch..........

........and Emerson caught it!! The LeakyMug team wins!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hi-fives and hugs all around!

Ben and Emerson gaze lovingly at each other as the Podcast team poses for a victory pic.

I had History of Magic first and boy was I glad to get that out of the way! It was mind numbingly boring, and I longed for a butterbeer to help pass the time. Then again, maybe it was supposed to be boring, like in the books. Well done to the HoM professor if that was the case! ;)

Arithmancy was pretty fun - we actually had to solve number problems which was waaaaay better than sitting and listening to someone talk. Herbology was interesting even though the professor handed out way too many packets about plants. There was lots of class participation and a few lucky wizards got to take home plants of their very own! It was during Herbology that we started to get antsy. Gwnavere, butterbeer in hand, began the trend of passing notes in class. It was awesome. I felt like I was in 6th grade again. Except I could drink alcohol. And I wasn't scared to get caught by the teacher. LOL! We laughed our asses off and kept getting dirty looks from the professor. Matt misspelled bitch as "bith" on one of the notes which we teased him about endlessly! And Marisa got yelled at for defacing her attendance card. All in all, a pretty good class! Here's a pic of the "good" students, listening intently to the professor.

The last class was Divination. Unfortunately my camera battery died before I could take any pics. There was such a cool set up with scarves and crystal balls and giant tarot art and cool lighting. Oh wells...

After completing all Magical Courses, each student received their W.A.N.D. I felt so accomplished!

Our Saturday ended up mostly being spent in line waiting to get into the LeakyMug podcast. I really wish that we didn't have to waste so much time waiting in line, and we were under the impression that we wouldn't have to wait in line due to the fact that we had friends taking part in the podcast, but we won't get into that right now.........or at all. (I'm doing the happy dance, I'm doing the happy dance)

But before we wasted away in line, we got to hang out around the hotel a bit. We were finally able to have lunch at J.C. Wooloughan Pub. This was a hot spot to try, not only because butterbeer was a whole dollar cheaper than anywhere else in the hotel, but the pub also had a Harry Potter themed menu. You could get a Hungarian Horntail Dragon-Burger, Mrs. Weasley's Shepherd's Pie, Harry's Famous Fish N' Chips, Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewt and Mash, Severus Snape's Potato Leek Soup and more. I chose Ron's Spider Tenders & Fries. Of course. Here's Bree, Tatiana, Marisa, Matt, Monica (you can barely see her head), Mikey and Gwnavere, patiently waiting for grub, butterbeers ready to be consumed!

Here are some random pictures of some of the amazing costumes! I was so impressed at the time and detail that was put into these outfits. Kudos to you all!

The Irish Quidditch team mascot.

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In the end, The Leaky Cauldron team ended up winning, even though Steve tried to give Mugglenet a couple of freebies. I mean, Emerson answered "pants" to one of the questions and Steve gave them a point for it!

Any bad feelings quickly melted away when, at the end of the podcast, both teams and everyone in the audience came together to sing "It's Voldemort Outside" to the tune of "Baby, It's Cold Outside". It sounds dorky, but it was really fun! And it didn't sound all that bad. We have awesome voices! And then John Noe from The Leaky Cauldron serenaded us all with "New York, New York". I was surprised to find out that he has a really nice singing voice! Those LeakyMuggers! Such fun!

We showed up to the movie about half way through. It was kind of like Rocky Horror! People were yelling at the screen and what not. Everyone was drinking and we were all sharing snacks. And then when it was time for the Yule Ball scene a bunch of us got up on stage and danced like maniacs! It was sooo much fun! I wish I had taken pictures, but I was too busy dancing. I even danced with midget Harry!! He was the coolest! And Gwnavere, Bree and Tatiana all ended up making out with "the token straight guy". I don't even think he was a part of the symposium. He was just a random guy staying at the hotel. Geez!! Good times!

When the movie was over, an overwhelming feeling of sadness took over. This was really the last night of the symposium. I didn't want it to end!!! There had to be something else to do, something to prolong the night so that the symposium would never end. I decided that it was time to hang out at the pool. Why not end the adventure in the same place that it began? I quickly changed into the TWIN-KINI!!!!

Monica was being a sleepy head, but Marisa was down to hang with me well into the night. While we were walking to the jacuzzi, we passed by lots of people making out and having wild good times in all of the different little pool/jacuzzi areas. It looked like we weren't the only ones trying to make the last night last forever.

I needed something more. A souvenir............a drink menu! Yes! It was my mission to find and steal a drink menu. They were so cute! Apparently, lots of other people had the same idea. Every table we passed either had no drink menu, or a photocopy of one. Grrrrrr. I would not stop until I found one. Marisa was a trooper. I finally found one on one of the little tables by the poolside bar. Mission accomplished!!

When the party at "our" jacuzzi finally ended, we took over and actually ended our night in that special place. It looked so different and boring without bubbles. Finally, around 4am, we decided that we could hold on to the night no more. We surrendered to sleepytime. :(

The next morning we woke up bright and early for the Leaving Feast. It was a breakfast buffet, and the food was much tastier this time! Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit. Whew! And then it was back to the room to pack and say our goodbyes. I decided to take one last picture of everyone who stayed in our room at some point or another: Monica, Shelana, Marisa, Mikey, Daniel and Alex. (Whoa! Check out all that dough on the table! We were rollin' in it! Yeah right that room was damn expensive)

The end. What an adventure! Good times and bad. I may not have been able to attend any discussion panels, or participate in the scavenger hunt because it got full (and then cancelled after one day because some dork broke an antique table while looking for an item) or go on the Hogsmeade Trip because there was too much else going on at the same time (plus they wouldn't let you on the bus if you were drunk), but I did get in to all of the Magical Night Classes, rocked out to wizard rock, attended my first LeakyMug podcast, saw some amazing costumes and most importantly I was able to meet so many wonderful Harry Potter fans!

I can't wait for the next symposium! PROPHECY!!!! I have no idea how I'm going to come up with the money to go, but I must be there. Hmmmm.....if every single one of my myspace friends gives me just one dollar, I would have most of the airfare. (hint, hint)

Okay, so everyone who knows me knows that Fred and George (or Gred and Forge) Weasley are my favorite characters in the Harry Potter books. They are full of mischief and never fail to make me laugh. Not only that, they are incredibly intelligent and are not afraid to "stick it to Umbridge" in my favorite Weasley Twin moment so far in Order of the Phoenix. And everyone knows how ecstatic I was when the actors who play the Weasley twins (James and Oliver Phelps) "got hot" in Prisoner of Azkaban. I began to (sort of) obsess over them and I vowed to someday meet them and to seduce James Phelps (Fred Weasley).

Well, on Sunday April 15th, 2007 one of these dreams came true! I think you know which one........ ;) (Although I still haven't given up on the other one. Lol!)

On that wonderful Sunday I attended my first ever full blown Sci-Fi Convention: The Grand Slam Sci-Fi Summit in Burbank, CA. With my good friend, Girl Alex, in tow we headed off to the Burbank Airport Marriot not really knowing what to expect. This particular convention prides itself on not over-selling the event so that everyone can get a seat at the panels and everyone can get all photo ops and autographs taken care of in a speedy and efficient manner. Well, you know what? It's actually true! My only other convention experience has been Comic-Con, which has progressively become a huge pain in the arse. TOO MANY PEOPLE!! Events sell out or get full and you spend most of your time rushing around trying to get in to the next looooooong line so that you can (maybe) get in to a good panel. Lame. The Sci-Fi summit was so relaxed and well organized and stress free!! I loved it. We only showed up about 40 minutes early (whereas at Comic-Con you need to show up hours early) and we were 4th and 5th in line to get in. We met a couple of other HP dorks in line, and even scored free Hot Fuzz t-shirts! Woot! The day was off to an excellent start!

After getting our caffeine fix at the Starbucks in the hotel, we met up with my Old Skool homegirls, Niki and Sonya, and decided to check out the vendor room. I found a really awesome necklace that had a bas relief golden lion head mounted on this really cool red glittery flat stone. Gryffindor to the core! And then the real impulse buying spree was set into motion. Every single one of us ended up spending more money than we intended to. Peer pressure! The biggest impulse buy for me was an autographed Rupert Grint (as Ron Weasley) photo, and I'm not even going tell you how much I spent on that. Alex bought an autographed photo of Alan Rickman (as the character he played in Die Hard) for a slightly less, but still unmentionable price. :P The vendor made sure to tell us that if the photo had been of him as Snape, it would've been the same unmentionable price as my photo.

So, after swearing that we would not spend anymore money no matter what, Alex and I decided to figure out where we needed to go for our photo op with the Phelps twins. All photo ops were scheduled for specific times, and this convention runs so smoothly that you really don't need to get in line until 5-10 minutes prior. Since we had a little time to kill, we decided to sit in the elevator lobby and geek out over our purchases. While we were sitting there, STANISLAV IANEVSKI (Viktor Krum) comes out of the elevator. Completely alone!! No handlers or homies or anything. I gasp in mid sentence. He looks over at me, pauses (I think he was planning an escape route), and then scuttles off in the opposite direction of the photo op room. Lol! I think we messed up his plan. I couldn't believe how dreeeaammmmyyy he looked in person. I immediately started to fantasize about making babies with him. Then Alex snapped me out of it and we began kicking ourselves for not calling him over to us and sneaking some photos of him. We were the only people who saw him. We would've been discreet....... ;)

Anyhow, the time finally came for us to get in line for our photo op. It was pretty hilarious watching everyone in line combing their hair and touching up their make up. It really was a lot like school picture day (good call, Monica)! The cheesy background only added to the wonderful badness of it. Alex made me go first. I seriously thought that I was going to faint. I could not believe that I was finally going to meet the twins after years of being their number 1 fan girl! They were looking right at me. I couldn't move. One of the employees actually had to nudge me a bit to get me moving. I felt like a zombie. I relaxed a little bit when James (Fred Weasly OMG!!) looked me directly in the eyes, smiled and said "hullo" in the most wonderfully warm and friendly way. I think I may have gasped again. I wedged myself in between those boys, smiled real big and dork-like....and then it was over. I swear, it lasted about 10 seconds. I mean, I know they had a huge line of people to get through, but still. I wanted to take a billion pictures; I had waited so long for this moment! And then James did that whole "looking me in the eyes" think again and said "Thank you very much". I squeaked out a "thank you" in return. And I proceeded to smile for hours afterwards!!

Me with the Phelps twins: James and Oliver

Alex with the Phelps Twins

Next, it was time to head on over to the Harry Potter panel, where James, Oliver and Stanislav would be talking about the films. For some reason, the display that they had on stage featured a recent picture of Stan, but an older picture of the twins, when they were still kinda dorky looking. I thought it was funny. :)

The panel was okay. It could've been better, but they seriously were being interviewed by the WORST interviewer EVER in history. Here's a completely true example of his awfulness: James was talking about how he's done some directing in his free time and that he would really like to be more involved behind the camera when his stint as Fred Weasley is over. Immediately after he said that, the interviewer asked, "So what would you like to do when you finish filming the Harry Potter films?" I'm not even kidding. At least it was fun to laugh at him. The look on James' face was priceless!

The twins and Stan with The Worst Interviewer Ever

One interesting think that I learned from the panel is that Stan is going to be in Hostel 2. Yes! A torture/horror movie. There's always nudity in those, especially with an Eli Roth film. Oh please please please please please let Stan get nekkid in this film! Please! ;)

Alex crawled down the aisle to the front of the stage to get this close up pic for me. I was too nervous to do it. I was certain that I would trip and fall and die of embarrassment. Or I would gasp and cause Stan to run away again. :P

After the panel, it was autograph time!!!! I was really looking forward to this because you're able to spend a few minutes with the celebrity, rather than only a few seconds like with the photo op. Plus, I was super excited to get the famous twin-kini signed!!! Unfortunately, when I gave the twin-kini to Oliver to sign (he was first at the table) he looked a bit horrified. It was not the reaction that I was expecting at all. He couldn't even speak for a couple of moments. I told him that it was a bikini top, not a bra and that it was clean and that it's supposed to be funny and not gross, but he wasn't convinced. He asked me if he could please stick to signing a picture or something like that. So I finally caved and gave him my special publishers edition of Order of the Phoenix to sign. I was a bit thrown off. I couldn't even remember any of the things that I wanted to say, and I later realized that I should have had them sign a picture, not the book. Doh! And then I panicked. Oh noes! Had I offended them? This was just all wrong. But then I looked over at James and he did the smiley/eyes thing again, and I knew that everything was okay and that Oliver is just probably a bit uptight. Actually I had read in an interview that Oliver is a bit more sensitive and serious, while James is the real life mischief maker and enjoys "taking the mickey". I wondered if James had been first in line, would he have signed the twin-kini? I'll never know.... But I talked to him a for a couple of minutes and he said that he really liked my shirt and I tried not to swoon. I left the autograph room with another huge smile on my face!

The twins signing stuff

More twins

While waiting for my turn to talk to the twins, I became chatty with Stanislav's handler. She was really cool and she grabbed Stan's cell phone from him in order to show me how "weird" he looked in all the different contacts that he had to try on for his "bewitched" scene in Goblet of Fire. He really did look evil in a couple of them. She kept exclaiming "my god this doesn't even look like you!". I think he got a bit annoyed. But he still let me take this piccy of him! Hot damn he's gorgeous!!!

Hmmmm....Latasha Monique Ianvevski. What an awesome name! It sounds so exotic. Let's make this happen people!

Even though things didn't go exactly as planned (damn you Oliver!) I still had a most excellent time and I was smiling hugely the entire time that I was writing this! Next time, I am all about the Stanislav Ianevski photo op. Ohhh yeeaaahhhh!