The first weekend in March brought with it ECCC - Emerald City Comic Con.
This year, we forgot to get a family picture before we left for the day.
Bummer.
Katie broke out her Halloween costume and was Sailor Jupiter, of Sailor Moon fame.
Mikey was Storm Shadow, a ninja in the employ of Cobra, of G.I. Joe fame.
Huzbend chose to portray Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture, of Venture Bros. fame.
And, myself as Lady Jaye, of G.I. Joe fame.
I was not about to attempt a Sailor Moon or Venture Bros character.
Way too "boobie" for me.
So, I matched Mikey.
We love going to Comic Con.
I'm not quite sure how to explain it.
It's an event created by people like us, for people like us.
Nerds, if you want to come right out and say it.
Comic book, syfy, anime, D and D/fantasy, video game, pop culture nerds.
People in costume, everywhere.
LEGOS!
Comics!
Video game demos!
T-shirts!
Dice!
Board games!
Art!
and Droids!
Not very soon after arriving, it was already snack time.
One gets tired walking through endless booths full of stuff they "JUST HAVE TO HAVE!"
It is very easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer amount of crazy.
$100 comics?
Yep.
$100 dollar nearly-naked anime figurines?
Yep.
Funko Hulk.
Cutest there is!
Even Nintendo was there.
They brought in new Kirby and Donkey Kong games for people to try out.
My kids love Kirby.
Mikey especially.
He's played (and beaten) most of the more recent Kirby games.
We parked it on the floor and cosplay-watched our way through lunch.
Then it was LEGO time.
SPACESHIP!
(According to Katie, "Daddy's Specialty")
First stop in the LEGO section was the booths that sell stuff of course.
Some how, some way we escaped the booths without purchasing anything.
It was amazing.
We headed to the free-play room where the kids participated in a "community build".
Each participant got a cup of parts, a board and a map of what they had to build.
Once assembled, they brought their board to the head dude who hammered it on to the mural.
The first edition dust-cover art for The Hobbit.
Done in 1937 by Tolkien himself.
They always have models built by local LEGO club/organizations.
Here's a recreation of Alien(s) that I couldn't help take a picture of.
The Alien has bit the head off of a guy and it's laying in the next victims lap.
A big part of Comic Con is cosplay watching.
Here are some characters from World of Warcraft:
King Varian Wrynn and Lady Sylvanas (a past Katie favorite).
And McThor.
And, these two cuties.
We headed back to our hotel to drop off our purchases before heading to dinner.
It was a bit chilly, so the chidlers warmed themselves by the fire.
Yes.
We ate dinner in a fancy restaurant with our costumes on.
I did not know that was Huzbend's plan.
He assured me there would probably be others there.
He was right.
Just one lone dude.
Eating by himself.
The meal was super yummy and they did gluten free.
Katie had steak and potatoes.
Mikey had pizza. Non-Gluten Free.
After dinner, we headed back to the Convention Center for the Western Championships of Cosplay.
Before we hopped into a huge line (which was outside....BRRRRRRR), we visited with Totoro and his pal.....
.....The Cat Bus.
We waited outside for about 20 minutes before they let us in.
As we were finding our seats, we spotted Kit Fisto, relaxing after a hard day of Jedi-ing.
The competition didn't disappoint.
The costumes were incredible.
Pictures didn't do them justice.
All of them made, by hand, by the people wearing them.
This was not the most impressive.
Just the most nostalgia inducing.
At the conclusion of the competition, we stopped for a little retro-arcade action.
Then, we headed back to the hotel after a loooong day.
I guess Mikey didn't get enough.
His chosen bed time reading....
comics.
Katie had some cooking to do for a Cadette patch.
Here she is whipping up some ambrosia.
Not too shabby.
Yummy too.
Speaking of Cadettes, March is Cookie Booth Sales time.
The girls stand at tables outside grocery stores and hawk their wares to unsuspecting patrons.
There are rules, by the way.
They can only ask if a person wants to buy when they leave the store.
And they have to handle the sale and the money transactions.
Sadly, she can't eat them anymore.
But, don't fret, there are GF Girl Scout cookies!
The shifts are usually about 2 hours long.
Yep.
And sometimes those 2 hours are EXCEPTIONALLY long.
People tend to get a bit.....
.....GOOFY!
Right around this time, the beginning of March, there was a Career Day event at the middle school.
I volunteered to go out and buy sandwiches and stuff to feed the Career Day speakers.
I was shocked that I could fit all of it in our fridge.
And, wouldn't you know it, Mikey came down with a stomach virus that week and was home from school for about 3 days - one of those days coinciding with the event.
Hahahaha, I have silly hair.
Wait.
I'm gonna barf.
Yes.
Huzbend was a speaker at Career Day.
Yes.
He had fun.
Yes.
He ate way to many of the sandwiches I purchased so that I had to go and buy more.
No.
He did not speak to any of Katie's classes.
But, he did invade her lunch period to say "hi".
Heh heh.
We kinda had a fake Spring somewhere there in the middle of March.
At least it was warm enough for Mikey to want to play with the hose.
That means it was probably approaching about 55 degrees and the sun was out.
Of course.
If you have a hose, you shoot it at your butt.
Who wouldn't?
It had been pretty cold and rainy up to this point.
I hadn't cleaned up Ralph poop in about a week.
This is a weeks worth of Ralph poop.
I can usually fit two to three of his poops in a bag.
That is a lot of poop right there.
Katie was on to another recipe for her badge.
This time she made fudge using tons of sugar, chocolate, butter and marshmallow fluff.
Stir, stir, stir....
The final product got a "ahhh, it's okaaaaaay" rating.
I've had way better fudge.
We'll have to give this one another shot with upgraded ingredients.
Mikey had to join for the last Girl Scout cookie booth sale.
At the end of the 2 hours, they rewarded themselves with a picture of Giganta-Chick.
All told Katie ended up selling 192 boxes of cookies.
Thanks to all who helped her hit that mark!
The next day was March 14th, the day of the school walkouts to protest school gun violence and remember students lost in Parkland, FL.
The kids at the middle school organized a walk out.
They read the names and a brief bio of the kids who lost their lives and extinguished a candle for each one.
The kids that walked out were silent and respectful during the protest.
It was a sight to behold.
The fake Spring continued that weekend.
Our Vitamin D starved son decided to take his reading outside for a change.
Sun-warmed dogs make the best reading pillows.
Katie has a habit of telling people, when she is explaining about what celiac is and what she can eat, that her options include grasshoppers and crickets.
I don't know where she got that.
I think she heard it from a friend?
I don't know.
Well, I found cricket chips at the grocery store.
And, sure enough, they were gluten free.
With absolutely no hesitation, she ate one.
Here she is saying something to the effect that the chips were made from, "wittle cwickets."
She said they were just okay.
Everyone in the house, even Huzbend, tried one.
They weren't that good.
Not because they were made from cricket flour.
Because they were not that flavorful.
Katie's "French Mouse"
This is what she does when she is up at all hours of the night on a school night.
She sculpts things out of kneaded erasers.
I took Mikey to a follow-up appointment for his asthma issues.
He's been going to see a pulmonologist at Seattle Children's ever since we ended up in the ICU during our first trip to Disneyland.
We got some good news.
Since he was doing so good, with no new hospitalizations since the ICU trip, and we seemed to be able to control it with his current meds, he didn't need to go back anymore!
YAYYYYY!
One less doctor to see is alright with me!
One more Cadette badge meal.
This time, she got complicated.
She had to make a usually processed food from scratch.
She chose chicken nuggets.
Cutting the chicken into cubes while tolerating her photo-bombing brother.
Breading said chicken.
"Breading Hands"
Time to fry 'em up!
They were DELICIOUS!
I'd be willing to rent her out for a reasonable fee.
