Wizard World weekend!

oh my, we had such a full weekend. we are all exhausted today, but it was totally worth it for such a fun weekend. our week was busy as usual with taekwondo and guitar and jump rope club plus the regular school and work schedule. well, john had a busy work schedule, working late almost every day. and then on friday, he went out to support his friend who was filming a reality show about motorcycles at his garage. alex and i had Wizard World plans! we had a 3 day VIP dual Matt Smith and Karen Gillan ticket package. we've never been to one of these conventions before so we really didn't know what to expect. friday night our plan was to pick up our passes and find out the lay of the land. thank goodness we did that (even though we were already tired and i didn't really feel like going downtown on a friday night after a full day of work) because it was beyond crowded on saturday. friday night we were able to do all our window shopping and pick up business cards for the things we wanted to revisit and we found out where the photos and autographs would be as well as the panels. saturday morning we almost didn't make it on time - i did not expect the parking to be that busy (i keep having to remind myself to always always leave more time than you think you will need.) we did make it in time, but unfortunately Matt Smith's flight was delayed so his panel was moved to the evening so we missed that. However we were front row center for Karen Gillan's panel. she was so cute and was great answering the questions. i was surprised by how many people want to give her pictures that they drew of her - she took them all graciously. and she told some funny stories and was quite clever. Karen Gillan was a companion on Doctor Who as well as Nebula on Guardians of the Galaxy. and Matt Smith is the 11th doctor on Doctor Who. After the panel alex really wanted to purchase the piece of art that she wanted before it was sold out - she fell in love with this painted cat in a TARDIS wearing a fez :) so we picked that up as well as a couple of prints that i really liked and some enamel pins (my new favorite pin is the Boba Fett that i got this weekend.) then saturday night we had a hockey game. first we fit in a dinner with john and we all went to the hockey game where alex got a monsters hockey player lego minifigure for the giveaway and her favorite player, Josh Anderson, gave her a practice puck. the monsters won in the overtime shootout. then sunday morning was back to Wizard World. i thought we were getting there extra early, but there was an accident on the shoreway so again we barely made it on time to get our Matt Smith autograph. he was so happy and nice. then we ran over and got our Karen Gillan autograph. then since we had a few hours to kill before our photo op we decided to get Henry Winkler's autograph. he was the nicest guy of all. he did a magic trick for alex and really spent time talking to her about his books and school and asking her questions. he was also really good about saying hi to everyone while they were waiting in line. we got a great picture with him. we took a break to have some snacks and then back in line for our photo with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. that was terrifying because when it came time to line up there was just a mob of people showing up to get in line, but we were still second in line. while waiting for our turn Michael Rooker (from Walking Dead and Guardians of the Galaxy) came over and talking to us for a hot minute - that was fun. then was our picture time. when we walking in Matt Smith said to alex "hello River" (that's who alex is dressed up as in the picture above, River Song, the doctor's wife on Doctor Who.) it was so cute. and we were exhausted at this point, so we got our picture and called it a weekend. note to self: next year get the special beer in the special Wizard World metal mugs that i didn't see until we were leaving on sunday. we had a great weekend and both alex and i would definitely do it again. and thanks to john for doing laundry and grocery shopping this weekend which allowed us to go and nerd out all weekend :) oh yeah, and sunday night alex made her own blueberry muffins all by herself and cut the onions and eggs for our salads.