Happy Wednesday Everyone :)
I hope you're all having a great week so far, and I want to thank you all for stopping by today here on The Preppy Book Princess.
Its been quite awhile since I last posted any kind of a DITl post, but I had such an amazing time at our first ever "comic con" type of event this past weekend, that I really wanted to share the highlights with you all.
For a few years my hubby and I had been talking about attending one of these events with one of our closest friends, and this year we finally decided just to do it. We had a bit of a road trip ahead of us, but we couldn't wait!
All three of us ended up working all day on Friday, and of course for me, this was one of those days where so much stuff got piled onto my workload that all had to be done before I could leave for the day. I ended up having to stay late, but soon it was all caught up, and I was headed home to finish packing, and get ready to leave early the next morning.
Saturday May Fourth, 2019:
My alarm went off at 5:30 the next morning, as I knew I'd need the extra time to get my R2D2 cosplay all ready to go. I had a few issues with my wig, but I was all ready to go by eight o clock, and my hubby and I were out the door a few moments later to pick up our friend.
After picking her up, we made a quick stop at Starbucks, where for some reason I decided to forgo my usual iced tea lemonade, and instead ordered a black sesame tea latte. The flavor profile of this was extremely interesting as the first sip would taste like tea, but the aftertaste was basically Chinese food. I don't think it's something I'd have the urge to order again in the future.
The long road trip would have been uneventful, if it weren't for the fact that after we stopped at a gas station to use the washroom, my wig came off, and I ended up having to put it back on in the car. Thankfully I got it on much more secure, and it never moved again the entire day. Unfortunately, I had it pinned so tight that it ended up giving me quite a headache as the day went on.
We arrived at the expo around 12:00, and were quite blessed to find a last parking spot in one of the closer lots, and we were on our way to Sask Expo for the first time ever!
Right from the start I was so impressed with how well organized this whole convention was. They had everything mapped out so well, and there was rarely a moment where we didn't know where to go as everything was clearly labeled, and helpful volunteers were always there to answer questions.
We got our weekend wristbands, and made our way out into the expo hall.
One of the first stops we made was to get pictures with the prop sets and cosplayers from Star Wars (Since it was May fourth), that were there in support of a local charity, and were only asking for donations towards the charity.
From there it was off to do some browsing, and shopping before the Laura Vandervoort panel at 12:30.
Neil and our friend ended up browsing a video game booth, so while they were doing that, I went over to an author's booth, and ended up buying a book from him.
It sounds pretty interesting, and I'm really looking forward to reading it.
There were a lot of people in the expo hall on Saturday, so it ended up not being the greatest day for shopping. However, we really did enjoy browsing, and while this book ended up being my only expo purchase on Saturday, Neil and our friend ended up finding a few things they wanted and purchased.
About 12:15 we got a seat for the Laura Vandervoort panel, as she's one of my favorites and I knew I didn't want to miss this.
Her panel was really enjoyable, and it was neat to hear some of the behind the scenes moments from the many projects she's worked on.
After the panel, we went to get some lunch, and this was honestly my only complaint from the whole expo. I thought the food choices were pretty bad, especially for a vegetarian. I ended up just getting nachos and cheese, and iced tea, and because there weren't a whole lot of tables, we ended up just quickly eating on the floor.
After lunch, Neil and our friend wanted to look at buying some art work so we visited two different amazing vendors, Maze Studios and Ink Fable, and they both ended up buying some prints. Both of these gentlemen were so friendly and accommodating, and we will definitely be looking out for them at future cons.
A little while later, my friend stopped to look at some art work that she really wanted, and this was the only bad experience we had with a vendor the entire time we were there. Most of them were downright amazing, but this guy was extremely rude, and acted bothered that he had to be interrupted from the game he was playing on his phone. While Neil and our friend finished at this booth, I ducked into the Hartley Sawyer panel for a few moments, and I really enjoyed it.
I only stayed for about half of it, but we all ended up wishing we'd gone to the whole thing, as I really enjoyed the part I'd been there for, and the other two said they wished they' d gone with me.
After this panel, we basically just did more browsing and shopping, and spent quite a bit of time at one of the comic book booths trying to find some for my nephew and for Neil.
I thought these video game key chains were adorable, but as I'm not into video games, and Neil said he'd probably never end up using it, we didn't end up buying them. They were awesome to look at though.
At about four o clock we all decided we were done for the day, especially after getting up so early, and we headed out to go check into our hotel.
We checked into our hotel, headed to the Chop Steakhouse for a very mediocre dinner, and then ended up going to Winners, Marshalls, Homesense, and Chapters to do more shopping and browsing.
After finishing shopping, we all stopped at Starbucks for a drink and a snack, since dinner had been so underwhelming.
On the way back to the hotel, my friend suggested stopping at Tim Horton's to pick up something we could keep in the car the next day for lunch, since the expo food hadn't really appealed to any of us, and after that we headed back to the hotel to rest up for the second day of the expo.
Sunday May Fifth, 2019:
Sunday thankfully didn't start out as early as Saturday did, with me getting up at seven, and the others following about half an hour later.
We all showered and got changed, and then headed down to the breakfast room downstairs.
We all enjoyed our quick breakfast, and then headed back upstairs where one of the funniest moments from the entire weekend happened.
As we were on the elevator heading back upstairs, it opened on the floor before us, and we heard a guy yell you guys are from (name of our hometown) and yell yahooooo. We all burst out laughing as it sounded so funny.
Once back to our room, we finished getting ready, and all packed up and then we were all ready to check out and head off to day two of the expo.
I was going as Princess Anna from Frozen today :)
We arrived at the expo a few moments before they opened the doors, so we all ended up just hanging out in the car until the doors officially opened, as it was freezing outside and none of us felt like hanging outside in the cold.
Soon we were on our way into a much less crowded expo than it had been the previous afternoon. In the future we'll definitely try and be there both days by opening as the first couple of hours are so much less chaotic.
One of the first things we ended up doing today was heading over to the little store that was selling all the pop vinyls. My friend wanted to look for a few, and Neil decided while we were there that he wanted to meet Kirby Morrow, who was signing autographs at that store.
We picked a print, and paid for it, and while he was signing it for us I had to mention to him that we had the same first name, cause I don't meet other Kirby's very often.
He was so friendly, and offered to get a picture with us too after he was done with the autograph.
This morning was so much fun as the expo hall wasn't as crowded, and we were really able to take our time looking through everything.
We revisited a lot of the vendors we visited the day before, and also stopped at quite a few other ones.
Neil spent quite some time at the same comic book booth from the day before, and my friend and I ended up spending a lot of time going through all the fandom jewelry at another booth.
I hadn't actually bought much at the expo by this point, and I kept coming back to the fact that I really wanted to do photos and autographs with some of the media guests, rather than doing a ton of shopping. So we headed over to that section.
I decided to buy a print to get Hartley Sawyer to autograph first, and we headed over to his table. I kind of thought it would be just a quick sign the photo and move on type of thing, but he was amazing and took so much time with us. He introduced himself to me first, and then called Neil and our friend over to say hi as well. We had a lovely chat about the weather here versus where he grew up in New York, and various other things, and he was so warm and friendly the entire time.
I can't wait to have this framed and hang it up on our picture wall.
After meeting Hartley Sawyer, I really wanted to meet Laura Vandervoort as well, but I was kind of hemming and hawing about it, as I was a little nervous about doing so. I've seriously been watching her since I was a kid and she starred in the Disney movie Mom's Got a Date With a Vampire. Neil ended up handing me some money and telling me he'd pay for half of it if I'd just go do it. So I decided to do the table photo, and paid for it, and we just waited for her to come back to the booth.
I was once again expecting a quick photo and to be on our way, but she was so incredibly nice and told my friend to take multiple shots, and to make sure I was happy with the photo before we left.
After taking the photo, we talked for quite awhile, and I told her how much I love her TV movie Coffee Shop, and she told me that I'm the first person that has ever brought up that role to her before. I told her that I'd watched all the seasons of Instant Star, and that I loved so many of her projects, and we ended up talking about another one of her TV movies, Finding Mrs. Claus.
It was a fantastic experience, and I'm so glad I had the chance to meet her.
After this meet and greet, we headed out to have our lunch in the car, and to put all the merchandise we'd bought so far in our car.
Neil's priority today was the LeVar Burton panel at 1:30 as he's a HUGE Star Trek fan, and I was really looking forward to this one as well, since I'd loved Reading Rainbow as a child.
We knew that people would probably just keep their seats from the Adrian Paul panel through unto the LeVar Burton one, so we decided to head into his panel for the last half hour or so, to have a better chance at getting decent seats.
I'm really glad we ended up doing this as while none of us were familiar really with who Adrian Paul is, he had some pretty amazing things to say. As well, when we finally get to season seven of Arrow, it'll be cool to say that we got the chance to hear him speak on a panel.
In no time at all, it was time for LeVar Burton's panel, and it was downright hilarious. He has such a witty, sarcastic personality, and it made for an extremely interesting hour.
In fact, my friend who really had no idea who he was, said she ended up being so glad she went with us as this was one of the best experiences from the whole expo. As a book blogger, I loved how he stressed the importance of literature, and utilizing your library, and he definitely kept the Star Trek crowd happy with the various behind the scenes moments he highlighted.
This was such a fun panel!
After his panel let out, I ended up heading over to meet Meggii Cosplay, who was just as adorable and sweet as she always appears online.
We headed around the show floor once more, with each of us buying a few other small things, and Neil offered to run everything out to the car for us.
For the entire two days, I'd been encouraging Neil to go pay for either an autograph or a photo with LeVar Burton, but he kept hemming and hawing about it.
Finally, when he got back inside from the car run, I went over to the table and paid for the photo for him as I knew he'd end up regretting it if he didn't do it.
He wanted me to get in the picture too, as I was such a fan of Reading Rainbow growing up, and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to meet this amazing man who's been inspiring fans for decades.
After meeting LeVAr, we all felt that we'd gotten to do everything we wanted to, and decided we were ready to head out and start the drive home.
We stopped to get some Subway, and we were on our way back from an amazing weekend!
My hubby and I have definitely caught the con bug now, and I definitely foresee us doing many more of these in the future.
And to wrap up today's DITL post, I thought it would be fun to share with you all my haul from the weekend.
Here's what I ended up purchasing:
Starting with the non-expo stuff first
My friend gave me this adorable Little Mermaid bracelet that I can't wait to wear, and then I purchased these two shirts from Winners/Marshalls.
I knew I wanted to purchase a few books from my favorite Chapters while we were there, and I ended up picking up Superman, Stay Sweet, Eyes on Me, and The Queen's Rising. I've also been wanting a circular board like this forever to use for Bookstagram photos, so I grabbed this from chapters as well. Yesterday my preorder of Romanov came in, so I'm including that in here as well.
Now onto to the expo stuff:
I purchased three items of fandom jewelry: time turner earrings, chocolate frog earrings, and a mockingjay necklace.
I purchased this adorable glass cleaning cloth, and then my hubby got me a Little Archie comic book, and this amazing Wuthering Heights comic book that I couldn't be more excited about.
We also grabbed two Spiderman comic books for a treat for my nephew.
I met Meggii cosplay, and purchased one of her prints to get autographed. I also purchased a book from Edward Willett that sounds really amazing, and I can't wait to read.
Neil and I did also purchase a Dragon Ball Z print for Kirby Morrow to sign, but it's currently getting laminated so I didn't have it for the picture.
Lastly, and perhaps most exciting of all is.....
My autographed photo of Hartley Sawyer. I can't wait to frame this and hang it up!
And that's a wrap on our amazing weekend at the Saskatchewan Entertainment Expo. We had such an awesome time, and I'm so happy we finally decided to attend. I'm so thankful to all the amazing people who work together to bring this event to fruition each and every year, and I can guarantee we will be back in the future.
Thanks so much for sticking with me throughout this whole post guys! I hope you all have a great rest of your day.
This is not a sponsored post. All experiences and items mentioned above were paid for by me and/or my hubby, and none were provided for us. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I hope you're all having a great week so far, and I want to thank you all for stopping by today here on The Preppy Book Princess.
Its been quite awhile since I last posted any kind of a DITl post, but I had such an amazing time at our first ever "comic con" type of event this past weekend, that I really wanted to share the highlights with you all.
For a few years my hubby and I had been talking about attending one of these events with one of our closest friends, and this year we finally decided just to do it. We had a bit of a road trip ahead of us, but we couldn't wait!
All three of us ended up working all day on Friday, and of course for me, this was one of those days where so much stuff got piled onto my workload that all had to be done before I could leave for the day. I ended up having to stay late, but soon it was all caught up, and I was headed home to finish packing, and get ready to leave early the next morning.
Saturday May Fourth, 2019:
My alarm went off at 5:30 the next morning, as I knew I'd need the extra time to get my R2D2 cosplay all ready to go. I had a few issues with my wig, but I was all ready to go by eight o clock, and my hubby and I were out the door a few moments later to pick up our friend.
After picking her up, we made a quick stop at Starbucks, where for some reason I decided to forgo my usual iced tea lemonade, and instead ordered a black sesame tea latte. The flavor profile of this was extremely interesting as the first sip would taste like tea, but the aftertaste was basically Chinese food. I don't think it's something I'd have the urge to order again in the future.
The long road trip would have been uneventful, if it weren't for the fact that after we stopped at a gas station to use the washroom, my wig came off, and I ended up having to put it back on in the car. Thankfully I got it on much more secure, and it never moved again the entire day. Unfortunately, I had it pinned so tight that it ended up giving me quite a headache as the day went on.
We arrived at the expo around 12:00, and were quite blessed to find a last parking spot in one of the closer lots, and we were on our way to Sask Expo for the first time ever!
Right from the start I was so impressed with how well organized this whole convention was. They had everything mapped out so well, and there was rarely a moment where we didn't know where to go as everything was clearly labeled, and helpful volunteers were always there to answer questions.
We got our weekend wristbands, and made our way out into the expo hall.
One of the first stops we made was to get pictures with the prop sets and cosplayers from Star Wars (Since it was May fourth), that were there in support of a local charity, and were only asking for donations towards the charity.
From there it was off to do some browsing, and shopping before the Laura Vandervoort panel at 12:30.
Neil and our friend ended up browsing a video game booth, so while they were doing that, I went over to an author's booth, and ended up buying a book from him.
It sounds pretty interesting, and I'm really looking forward to reading it.
There were a lot of people in the expo hall on Saturday, so it ended up not being the greatest day for shopping. However, we really did enjoy browsing, and while this book ended up being my only expo purchase on Saturday, Neil and our friend ended up finding a few things they wanted and purchased.
About 12:15 we got a seat for the Laura Vandervoort panel, as she's one of my favorites and I knew I didn't want to miss this.
Her panel was really enjoyable, and it was neat to hear some of the behind the scenes moments from the many projects she's worked on.
After the panel, we went to get some lunch, and this was honestly my only complaint from the whole expo. I thought the food choices were pretty bad, especially for a vegetarian. I ended up just getting nachos and cheese, and iced tea, and because there weren't a whole lot of tables, we ended up just quickly eating on the floor.
After lunch, Neil and our friend wanted to look at buying some art work so we visited two different amazing vendors, Maze Studios and Ink Fable, and they both ended up buying some prints. Both of these gentlemen were so friendly and accommodating, and we will definitely be looking out for them at future cons.
A little while later, my friend stopped to look at some art work that she really wanted, and this was the only bad experience we had with a vendor the entire time we were there. Most of them were downright amazing, but this guy was extremely rude, and acted bothered that he had to be interrupted from the game he was playing on his phone. While Neil and our friend finished at this booth, I ducked into the Hartley Sawyer panel for a few moments, and I really enjoyed it.
I only stayed for about half of it, but we all ended up wishing we'd gone to the whole thing, as I really enjoyed the part I'd been there for, and the other two said they wished they' d gone with me.
After this panel, we basically just did more browsing and shopping, and spent quite a bit of time at one of the comic book booths trying to find some for my nephew and for Neil.
I thought these video game key chains were adorable, but as I'm not into video games, and Neil said he'd probably never end up using it, we didn't end up buying them. They were awesome to look at though.
At about four o clock we all decided we were done for the day, especially after getting up so early, and we headed out to go check into our hotel.
We checked into our hotel, headed to the Chop Steakhouse for a very mediocre dinner, and then ended up going to Winners, Marshalls, Homesense, and Chapters to do more shopping and browsing.
After finishing shopping, we all stopped at Starbucks for a drink and a snack, since dinner had been so underwhelming.
On the way back to the hotel, my friend suggested stopping at Tim Horton's to pick up something we could keep in the car the next day for lunch, since the expo food hadn't really appealed to any of us, and after that we headed back to the hotel to rest up for the second day of the expo.
Sunday May Fifth, 2019:
Sunday thankfully didn't start out as early as Saturday did, with me getting up at seven, and the others following about half an hour later.
We all showered and got changed, and then headed down to the breakfast room downstairs.
We all enjoyed our quick breakfast, and then headed back upstairs where one of the funniest moments from the entire weekend happened.
As we were on the elevator heading back upstairs, it opened on the floor before us, and we heard a guy yell you guys are from (name of our hometown) and yell yahooooo. We all burst out laughing as it sounded so funny.
Once back to our room, we finished getting ready, and all packed up and then we were all ready to check out and head off to day two of the expo.
I was going as Princess Anna from Frozen today :)
We arrived at the expo a few moments before they opened the doors, so we all ended up just hanging out in the car until the doors officially opened, as it was freezing outside and none of us felt like hanging outside in the cold.
Soon we were on our way into a much less crowded expo than it had been the previous afternoon. In the future we'll definitely try and be there both days by opening as the first couple of hours are so much less chaotic.
One of the first things we ended up doing today was heading over to the little store that was selling all the pop vinyls. My friend wanted to look for a few, and Neil decided while we were there that he wanted to meet Kirby Morrow, who was signing autographs at that store.
We picked a print, and paid for it, and while he was signing it for us I had to mention to him that we had the same first name, cause I don't meet other Kirby's very often.
He was so friendly, and offered to get a picture with us too after he was done with the autograph.
This morning was so much fun as the expo hall wasn't as crowded, and we were really able to take our time looking through everything.
We revisited a lot of the vendors we visited the day before, and also stopped at quite a few other ones.
Neil spent quite some time at the same comic book booth from the day before, and my friend and I ended up spending a lot of time going through all the fandom jewelry at another booth.
I hadn't actually bought much at the expo by this point, and I kept coming back to the fact that I really wanted to do photos and autographs with some of the media guests, rather than doing a ton of shopping. So we headed over to that section.
I decided to buy a print to get Hartley Sawyer to autograph first, and we headed over to his table. I kind of thought it would be just a quick sign the photo and move on type of thing, but he was amazing and took so much time with us. He introduced himself to me first, and then called Neil and our friend over to say hi as well. We had a lovely chat about the weather here versus where he grew up in New York, and various other things, and he was so warm and friendly the entire time.
I can't wait to have this framed and hang it up on our picture wall.
After meeting Hartley Sawyer, I really wanted to meet Laura Vandervoort as well, but I was kind of hemming and hawing about it, as I was a little nervous about doing so. I've seriously been watching her since I was a kid and she starred in the Disney movie Mom's Got a Date With a Vampire. Neil ended up handing me some money and telling me he'd pay for half of it if I'd just go do it. So I decided to do the table photo, and paid for it, and we just waited for her to come back to the booth.
I was once again expecting a quick photo and to be on our way, but she was so incredibly nice and told my friend to take multiple shots, and to make sure I was happy with the photo before we left.
After taking the photo, we talked for quite awhile, and I told her how much I love her TV movie Coffee Shop, and she told me that I'm the first person that has ever brought up that role to her before. I told her that I'd watched all the seasons of Instant Star, and that I loved so many of her projects, and we ended up talking about another one of her TV movies, Finding Mrs. Claus.
It was a fantastic experience, and I'm so glad I had the chance to meet her.
After this meet and greet, we headed out to have our lunch in the car, and to put all the merchandise we'd bought so far in our car.
Neil's priority today was the LeVar Burton panel at 1:30 as he's a HUGE Star Trek fan, and I was really looking forward to this one as well, since I'd loved Reading Rainbow as a child.
We knew that people would probably just keep their seats from the Adrian Paul panel through unto the LeVar Burton one, so we decided to head into his panel for the last half hour or so, to have a better chance at getting decent seats.
I'm really glad we ended up doing this as while none of us were familiar really with who Adrian Paul is, he had some pretty amazing things to say. As well, when we finally get to season seven of Arrow, it'll be cool to say that we got the chance to hear him speak on a panel.
In no time at all, it was time for LeVar Burton's panel, and it was downright hilarious. He has such a witty, sarcastic personality, and it made for an extremely interesting hour.
In fact, my friend who really had no idea who he was, said she ended up being so glad she went with us as this was one of the best experiences from the whole expo. As a book blogger, I loved how he stressed the importance of literature, and utilizing your library, and he definitely kept the Star Trek crowd happy with the various behind the scenes moments he highlighted.
This was such a fun panel!
After his panel let out, I ended up heading over to meet Meggii Cosplay, who was just as adorable and sweet as she always appears online.
We headed around the show floor once more, with each of us buying a few other small things, and Neil offered to run everything out to the car for us.
For the entire two days, I'd been encouraging Neil to go pay for either an autograph or a photo with LeVar Burton, but he kept hemming and hawing about it.
Finally, when he got back inside from the car run, I went over to the table and paid for the photo for him as I knew he'd end up regretting it if he didn't do it.
He wanted me to get in the picture too, as I was such a fan of Reading Rainbow growing up, and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to meet this amazing man who's been inspiring fans for decades.
After meeting LeVAr, we all felt that we'd gotten to do everything we wanted to, and decided we were ready to head out and start the drive home.
We stopped to get some Subway, and we were on our way back from an amazing weekend!
My hubby and I have definitely caught the con bug now, and I definitely foresee us doing many more of these in the future.
And to wrap up today's DITL post, I thought it would be fun to share with you all my haul from the weekend.
Here's what I ended up purchasing:
Starting with the non-expo stuff first
My friend gave me this adorable Little Mermaid bracelet that I can't wait to wear, and then I purchased these two shirts from Winners/Marshalls.
I knew I wanted to purchase a few books from my favorite Chapters while we were there, and I ended up picking up Superman, Stay Sweet, Eyes on Me, and The Queen's Rising. I've also been wanting a circular board like this forever to use for Bookstagram photos, so I grabbed this from chapters as well. Yesterday my preorder of Romanov came in, so I'm including that in here as well.
Now onto to the expo stuff:
I purchased three items of fandom jewelry: time turner earrings, chocolate frog earrings, and a mockingjay necklace.
I purchased this adorable glass cleaning cloth, and then my hubby got me a Little Archie comic book, and this amazing Wuthering Heights comic book that I couldn't be more excited about.
We also grabbed two Spiderman comic books for a treat for my nephew.
I met Meggii cosplay, and purchased one of her prints to get autographed. I also purchased a book from Edward Willett that sounds really amazing, and I can't wait to read.
Neil and I did also purchase a Dragon Ball Z print for Kirby Morrow to sign, but it's currently getting laminated so I didn't have it for the picture.
Lastly, and perhaps most exciting of all is.....
My autographed photo of Hartley Sawyer. I can't wait to frame this and hang it up!
And that's a wrap on our amazing weekend at the Saskatchewan Entertainment Expo. We had such an awesome time, and I'm so happy we finally decided to attend. I'm so thankful to all the amazing people who work together to bring this event to fruition each and every year, and I can guarantee we will be back in the future.
Thanks so much for sticking with me throughout this whole post guys! I hope you all have a great rest of your day.
This is not a sponsored post. All experiences and items mentioned above were paid for by me and/or my hubby, and none were provided for us. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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