I'm back!! - Sephenie Meyer has taken over my life...

Currently listening to: Muse & Blue October

Ok, so I have several weeks of events to record but I don't have tons of time so I'm just going to write about the amazing Stephenie Meyer and what has kept me busy over the last few weeks...

Re-reading the first 3 books in the Twilight Saga: Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse

I wanted to make sure I didn't forget anything before the new book came out on Aug 2nd at midnight. I love this book series and I had to be there at midnight to get my copy of Breaking Dawn the 4th and final book of the saga. I started reading at 12:30 a.m. Sat morning and finished at 4:30 p.m. Sat evening. I didn't sleep - in fact I only took an hour and a half break to meet Sarah for breakfast at 7:30 a.m. because she had to work all night and we were both starving.
My initial review: I was disappointed. There was so much I wanted and didn't get. I want to go into more detail, but I don't want to ruin it for anyone, so I will just say that compared to the other 3 books it seemed like Stephenie didn't spend as much time with the characters in this book like she did with the rest. I wish she had written 2 books and had more time and pages to really write the characters like we are used to instead of trying to get the story told in under 800 pages. I have re-read all but the last 100 pages and I must say that I like it better (much, much better) after my second (slower) read through. It isn't what I wanted it to be, but I am ok with that now and after reading and watching some of her interviews and understanding why she did some things the way she did I get it. Also, I'm just sad it is over... No more Bella and Edward's stories.

So, I got 2 tickets to the Aug 7th book signing concert at Royce Hall UCLA. I missed the Host book signing and I wasn't going to miss this one since it was only 1 of 4 events for this book. Myra loves the books too (which I discovered by accident when I went down for Donna's birthday) and it didn't take much to convince her to go with me. We made T-shirts based on a saying that one of my fellow Twilight Moms came up with. Now I know some of you are saying - "wait, Mandy isn't a mom..." and you don't have to be a mom to be a Twilight Mom member. All you need to be is over the age of 25 and be in love with (obsessed) the Twilight books and their
creator Stephenie Meyer. I'm including some pictures in this post and going to put most of the photos I have (I'm waiting on Myra's from the signing) in a slide show on the page that you can click on to see bigger size pictures. DISCLAIMER: Don't zoom in on our shirts if you haven't read the last book. It will give something away...

So we got there early. We weren't missing anything. We finally found our parking (it was a little adventure in itself...) and decided we needed something to eat and since we were there about 3 hrs early we had time. We ate and were on our way out of the restaurant when Myra noticed a woman reading Breaking Dawn in the waiting area who had a Bitten by Breaking Dawn pin. She asked her where she got it and found out that the bookstore in the student union bldg was giving them out for free. We immediately headed that direction. People were reading our shirts all the way back up the street. It was really entertaining because you had the Twilight fans who loved our shirts and then there were the other people who read the back and when we stopped waiting on a light would look over to read the front and then have a confused look when they didn't get it.
We got to the bookstore and they just ran out. The woman had one on her name tag and she gave it to Myra, but I didn't get so lucky. If only we had known earlier - we had stopped in the student union bldg on our way to eat to use the restroom and we had even walked past the Breaking Dawn books... Damn!
So we went back and hung out with the other fans for another hour and a half before the event started. We had tons of time to kill, so we pulled out the cameras and started taking each other's pictures. The goofy ones are on Myra's camera... I'll post them when I get them. We started walking around and there was a camera crew interviewing people and the camera guy came up and wanted to film our shirts. He started out with the back of mine and then went to the front of Myra's. He made a comment about it being on the border of obscene because he was filming her chest. It was really funny. We met up with the Twilight Moms to take a group picture and they all had to take pictures of our shirts, so we stood front to back so they could get both sides - It was like we were in the middle of the paparazzi. Then it was time to get in line to go in even though we all had assigned seats. I ended up getting us pretty good seats. The inside of the hall was pretty great. They had banners up for each of the books. We still had about a half an hour to wait, but there were plenty of things to entertain us. CNN was there interviewing people around us, Catherine Hardwicke the director for the Twilight movie went and sat in the audience and was immediately bombarded with fans wanting autographs so she eventually got up and left until it started. Then Justin Furstenfeld from Blue October came out and performed a couple of songs acoustically. He went back stage to wait and Stephenie came out and answered some questions submitted by fans. She didn't answer too many, but we couldn't expect her to stay there all night. We would have loved it, but she probably wouldn't have. Then Justin came back out to join her and they talked a little about how they ended up getting together for this concert series and then Stephenie would tell us where a certain song fit in with a certain section of one of the books and then Justin would sing the song. It was amazing. To hear the songs and remember the scenes while he was playing was like nothing I have ever been a part of. I loved it!!! Then it was time to get our books signed. They let us out in sections and the balcony was first, so we had some time to kill. There was someone asking trivia questions for t-shirts and she also wanted people with shirts that they made themselves to go down to the stage to share with everyone. I made Myra go with me because we had to share our t-shirts!! After saying the 2 lines in the front - people in the audience got excited and then when I told them what was on the back (... PRICELESS! That's all you get here...) they all erupted in cheers and applause. I made sure I have proper acknowledgment to the Twilight Mom that came up with the phrase because she deserved it. I may be biased, but our shirt was a hit at the concert/signing. We got to then stand in line for about 45 min in a line that looked like the ones you get into at Disneyland (you know the ones that bend around and through 3 or 4 different rooms) to get our books signed. I thought Stephenie was just going to sign her name and move on to the next one - I wouldn't have blamed her she was signing over 1,000 books and I was probably around 300 or so already, but she looked up and smiled at me. Once she noticed my shirt said something she said "I have to read it." and she got a big smile on her face and Myra turned around so she could read the back. After she read it she laughed said "the shirts just keep getting better and better." I regretted not making her one. I'm still hoping I can find a way to get it to her...


So I have been in a Twilight centered universe for the last 3 weeks or so. Between reading the books, watching the interview videos of the movie cast and Stephenie online, and reading articles online I have been a bit preoccupied... Hopefully I can get better about writing in here...
But now Sarah has a Wii and the Olympics are on and I've actually been watching so we'll see.

This last weekend we had a girls night out on Friday at the Red Lion brew house. Dor (someone I work with who I discovered also loves the Twilight books and who helped me design our shirts) Sarah, and Shaina all had dinner, drinks, and "girl" talk. After dropping Dor off we went back to Sarah's to play the Wii and some idiot hit some plastic trash cans (they were just off the street waiting to be picked up the next morning) and they smashed into Shaina's car - skipped mine which was right in front of hers and hit the one in front of mine before ending up half a block down the street. It was an interesting night.
Saturday: Hung out at Sarah's playing the Wii. Then we went to a friends because they were having an outdoor screening of Grease (projected onto a sheet in the backyard) for Wendy's 40th Birthday. They had a popcorn machine and candy and it was lots of fun. If I ever get a house and have a backyard...
Sunday: Hung out at Sarah's again only this time we played Wii then hung out in the pool for most of the day. Our arms already ached from playing the Wii on Sat, but we still managed to hit a beach ball around like it was a volleyball in the pool. 2 people in the deep end (treading water while still managing to hit the ball) and 1 in the shallow end running around after the ball. Marissa and Tabitha (her 6 month old baby) came to hang out with us. We played some more Wii and then watched the USA men's team beat the French in the men's relay. It really got me into watching it and now I'm recording it on my DVR. GO USA!!!