The past week has been long and tiring, but also lots of fun! Here is a day-by-day breakdown including pics of the day, but you have been warned: It is LONG!!!

( Monday, June 29 )

( Tuesday, June 30 )

( Wednesday, July 1 )

( Thursday, July 2 )

( Friday, July 3 )

( Saturday, July 4 )

( Sunday, July 5 )

All in all, it was a fun trip with lots of silliness and good memories. More cosplay pics can be found here, and more non-cosplay (trip pics) can be found here.

Oh, and..... QUOTES!!

"I'm so happy about how that looks!" "No, that's just the paint fumes."
"Look at what I drew! And after a half liter of shōchū, too!!"
"You could just suck my pants." (said completely deadpan)
"Mob him a little bit!"
"You know why Los Angeles is so confusing? It is built on a Z-axis as well as the usual X and Y"
"This hotel is made of circles and stairs and FAIL!"
"Shut up, President Cylon!!"
"Bunnies are not purple. This is wrong."

Yesterday was pretty busy, yet nothing was really picture-worthy, so we have two today! My giant book (my cosplay prop) is done!! I printed out the Odin Sphere logo and traced it onto the fabric, then went in and sketched the letters before filling them in with the gold paint marker. I think they turned out really well, especially for doing it freehand!

Then I got my white fabric and spray adhesive, and glued it all to the styrofoam. Even my mom said it looks like a book! Yay!!

This is my friend's cat Portia, who spent nearly an hour hiding out under this box. It was a good hiding spot from the baby, who thinks of Portia as a big, moving stuffed animal, and likes to pull her tail :)

I have spent SO much time in and around this river, but I think it is one of the places I will never ever be tired of.

Picked Mom up at the airport this morning (though her flight was a bit late getting in)- we had poboys for lunch, then hung out at the house. Mom went in the river for a bit, then we went over to our neighbors' house and caught up with them for a while. My allergies were awful (my uncle was there doing yard work, and brought his dog, who sheds terribly), so that wasn't much fun, but oh well. Mom watched golf, I played games on my DS. We ran into town to get me eye drops and to pick up dinner, which we ate back at the house. After dinner I said goodnight to Mom and came back to my own house :)

Tomorrow: more driving! Although Mom might be borrowing a friend's car for the week, which would be VERY helpful :)

The box with all of my sewing bobbins :)

Here is what I have been working on for the past week- my dress to play Alice, the little girl who reads the 'Odin Sphere' books in the game. While it is a LOT less complicated than akarui_sekai, akutenshi7, shy_violette, xtp5, and tokoz's costumes, I'm still pretty proud of the fact that I made this completely on my own in less than a week!!

Mom is flying in tomorrow morning, which means I am in for 9 days of being her chauffeur (more or less) but at least my big project is done! Now I just have to make the giant book I'm going to carry around at AX all day :)

Now you see it:


Now you don't!:


My dress is about.... 87% done. I need to figure out the collar and shorten the sleeves, and then I will be finished!! I was really happy with what I got done today- two rather hard things, and they both turned out well!

All this nice gathering? Had to be undone, because I am dumb. GRRR. At least it's a nice picture of the pretty color of my fabric!

Now that the scrapbook project is done, I now get to start sewing! We've done cosplay at Anime Expo for the last few years, and (much like last year, actually) I am waaaaaay behind on my costume. Today I managed to get all the pieces cut out, bodice pieces sewn together, and made sleeves. Hooray!

I have lived without my ipod for two months, which has been not all that much fun. Courtney, however, mentioned that Rick (her husband) has fixed several ipods/blackberries/etc., should he take a look at it? YES!!

So, I now have a fully-functioning ipod. HOORAY!!!

The day was already going well before that, though, because I went out to lunch (sushi!) with my friend Erin, and then we went to see "UP", which was both very cute and kind of sad- much sadder than any other Pixar movie I can think of, but happy and funny by the end.

Today was Payten's birthday party! Courtney (her mom) LOVED the scrapbook-I think she thanked me three times at the party and called me later to thank me again! *blushes*. Honestly, with everything they do for me, it was the least I could do.

Payten spent most of her time in the pool- and while she wasn't all that impressed with her own little cake (she is the only baby I've ever known who hates to get her hands dirty!) she did enjoy opening her presents

#8 on my ridiculous "To-Do" list for today was 'wrap presents'. Done! I actually did finish my entire list, which I was very happy about :)

Payten's scrapbook is finally done! I wasn't quite sure how I was going to do the last page, but then I remembered these adorable "Oh The Places You'll Go" stickers I bought about a year and half ago, for no reason other than that they were SO CUTE! I figured it was a nice way to finish off the book, and everything turned out really nicely. I hope they like it!!

I bought a 1/4" 'stitch' hole punch today- it makes pairs of slits that you then thread ribbon through. I had wanted to do that for these pages- (both are blue vellum over white paper) but it took a while to get it all sorted out... an hour and a half for the two pages, which included stitching a bow onto each.

BUT I only have 6 more pages left!!!

Gah, yes, I know I have been made of fail when it comes to pictures this week- I blame school being over, and therefore my usual daily routine being thrown out the window. I have not been completely lazy, though...

( Pictures from this week... )

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE

We get a season 6!!!

One last teacher present- I actually got this yesterday, but had Starr (the student it is from) bring the flowers to my desk, since we were on our way to the gym for the music/awards program. What I didn't see until today, though, was the CD along with it! Starr's dad is a musician, and this is one of his CDs! I listened to it today, and liked it a lot- very 60s influenced, but still very modern and cool music. FUN!!

This school year is officially OVER!! I love teaching, I really do, but ZOMG the last day of school is always SO welcome. This was my gift from my room mom- a really pretty, embroidered makeup bag. As my current makeup bag is getting rather icky and old, this is perfect!

... but ZOMG is it yummy!!!

Payten's scrapbook is coming along well, I finished 3 pages today, including this very cute one :)