Day three! Today was the summation of a lot of hard work and searching and really just a fun reason to go shopping...princess photo shoot day! Well, it had to be better looking than the year before when I looked like a glam rocker who'd been in a fist fight. And I didn't need to wear fake nails. Woot to that.
Well, the morning started off with breakfast and oohing and ahhing over our fantastic crafts and t-shirts. And then several pictures. Have I mentioned we like to photograph our stunts? It helps a lot. We went out to the roof and took some sun and pondered our photo shoot themes and settings and paraphernalia. Thankfully Hana's house is so wonderfully picturesque so we could stay in the house. Plus no one really wanted to head out into the relative wilderness. We got all dressed up and did hair and make up, because that's how we roll. I really liked my dress, pretty emerald green with a sweet bird print on it, however it'll be too cold to wear until summer or a really warm spring day. Plus the crowns! We all looked pretty fabulous and got to shooting in and around the house as our characters. We got some great portraits, and a few goofy pics as well. I'll admit, we like to be goofs, but it's more fun that way. Our princess specific theme pics turned out great: Juniper playing the harp and looking very grand, Mayapple with her animals and looking knowing, Valerian mixing potions and being coy, and Hemlock with something sharp looking and quite menacing. It really makes me smile. A lot.
Holy cow, my friends make me happy.
After a while, we all got a little tired and hungry and discovered the time to do close ups is at the beginning of the photo shoot, aka, not when we did it, but we still had a pile of awesome. We agreed the best group shot was of us up on the roof in our princess get ups with our crowns and sunglasses in the sunset. Being goofy.
After that it was time to decompress, look at stuff, eat food, pack up a little, and of course head out to the hot tub for one last soak. We had a great time reflecting on our weekend and planning for the next day, and just being together. PrincessCon 2012 SW was an epic success. And it's weird, but I always get a little sad right before the vacation ends, because I can feel it coming, and I don't want it all to end, but when the moment comes, usually I'm okay.
Le sigh.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Day two of PrincessCon SW kicked off with a great decision...breakfast. Hana took us over to this diner sort of place which smelled delicious no matter what we ordered. Even the coffee, and I am not a huge fan of coffee, but whatever they had in it made it smell of joy, as Terry might say. Terry and I also had a breakfast brainwave since we couldn't decide if we wanted something sweet or savory, but as luck would have it, we were both torn between the same two items, so we ordered both and split them. Best Hash Browns EVER. Then it was back to glorious downtown Santa Fe for sightseeing and window shopping, and further photographic goofiness. We went to the Santa Fe cathedral which was neat. I walked the entire length of the labyrinth as fast as I could, and when I got to the end, I took the short cut out, aka walking across the pavement instead of just following. I think the meditating on God and life and all that is in the world while walking the labyrinth probably works better when your friends aren't waiting for you to get a move on.
After our parking meter ran out, we headed back to the house to make ourselves a nice tea to snack on while we worked on crafts, because it was Princess Craft Time, after all. First up, dumping glitter all over the sleeves of our princess t-shirts to make cool designs. We each had a different design and color assigned: Heather had a blue snowflake/stained glass window design, Terry's was a red "dragon flower", Hana's was a pretty golden pinwheel design, and mine was a green Celtic-type knot. There was plenty of swearing and shenanigans as always with any of our craft projects, but we set them up nicely and left them to dry outside on the porch while we continued with project #2, sparkly Princess goblets. Why? Well, we can't drink out of our hip flasks all the time, that would just be silly. It fascinates all of us how we can take almost the exact same materials and do completely different things with what we have. They turned quite super. We then were pleasantly surprised at how epic our t-shirts turned out. I mean it, they looked so cool. We all agreed that we needed to do something else with those designs (even if they were still covered in glitter).
Then we sat and admired our handiwork, snacked, and went up to the roof to look at the stars. That was pretty neat, though we could've used something softer to lie on, and it did get a bit chilly. We gave Hana plenty of suggestions for her parents to do, and I'm actually contemplating getting a rooftop patio someday for myself, though I haven't a clue how to get there. Visit Hana's parents probably. When we finally got too cold and the roof was too uncomfortable to lie on, we FIRST set up the hot tub, and SECOND put on our swimsuits and went out to soak.
It was not a very hardcore day, but the walking around Santa Fe, the making of tea snacks, and the crafting of awesome mementos does take it out of you. Yay for hot tubs under the starlight with royalty who also happen to be wonderful friends.
After our parking meter ran out, we headed back to the house to make ourselves a nice tea to snack on while we worked on crafts, because it was Princess Craft Time, after all. First up, dumping glitter all over the sleeves of our princess t-shirts to make cool designs. We each had a different design and color assigned: Heather had a blue snowflake/stained glass window design, Terry's was a red "dragon flower", Hana's was a pretty golden pinwheel design, and mine was a green Celtic-type knot. There was plenty of swearing and shenanigans as always with any of our craft projects, but we set them up nicely and left them to dry outside on the porch while we continued with project #2, sparkly Princess goblets. Why? Well, we can't drink out of our hip flasks all the time, that would just be silly. It fascinates all of us how we can take almost the exact same materials and do completely different things with what we have. They turned quite super. We then were pleasantly surprised at how epic our t-shirts turned out. I mean it, they looked so cool. We all agreed that we needed to do something else with those designs (even if they were still covered in glitter).
Then we sat and admired our handiwork, snacked, and went up to the roof to look at the stars. That was pretty neat, though we could've used something softer to lie on, and it did get a bit chilly. We gave Hana plenty of suggestions for her parents to do, and I'm actually contemplating getting a rooftop patio someday for myself, though I haven't a clue how to get there. Visit Hana's parents probably. When we finally got too cold and the roof was too uncomfortable to lie on, we FIRST set up the hot tub, and SECOND put on our swimsuits and went out to soak.
It was not a very hardcore day, but the walking around Santa Fe, the making of tea snacks, and the crafting of awesome mementos does take it out of you. Yay for hot tubs under the starlight with royalty who also happen to be wonderful friends.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
So to continue September's adventures, and pick up where my livejournal left off, I'll give it a go right here and see how this new blog suits me. As you'll remember, I left off with the end of Cowtown.
I took the Monday off to recoup which is perfectly necessary after the totally exhilarating dance weekend (balboa! Vintage gloves! Corn!), and then I made the fatal mistake of going back to work for two days before I went off to see my princesses in New Mexico. Apparently in my absence, my coworkers mistakenly did a lot of bad things to my accounts. So I got to spend a couple days stressing over that and cleaning up the mess, but to be fair, they helped out a lot. I think I was more annoyed by the jerkwads who don't do anything at all. Whatever, more about that later. Despite the panic attack that was work, I left it all behind me for PrincessCon Southwest! The convening of the four kingdoms in the mysterious land of Santa Fe! Okay, it wasn't quite that royal, but it certainly was awesome. I was psyched because I was meeting Heather and Terry in Dallas for the final flight to meet Hana in Albuquerque. I also prefer flying Southwest because it's cheaper (at least in luggage terms, gaz) but American was quite nice. And though we didn't sit next to each other on the plane, it was awesome to land together and find Hana.
It was about an hour's drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, which was easily filled with sightseeing the glorious New Mexican terrain, silly photos from the backseat, and of course, a princess singalong. There's really no other way to go. We got to Hana's parents' house (which is flipping AMAZING), and relaxed for a bit after our various plane rides, got out the crafting supplies, examined our new crowns. Can't be princesses without crowns, duh. I must say, the crown of Her Serene Royal Highness Princess Mayapple (aka me) is perfect. We all wandered around for a little bit with our crowns on, and we also agreed to wear our PrincessCon t-shirts together while we went out to lunch. More than a few people asked about it, and we really had no shame in talking about it. They were awesome t-shirts.
Hana took us to downtown Santa Fe for some much needed sustenance. I even ate the beans. Then we wandered around the little area. It's very picturesque, not too hot, lots of stuff to look at. We made our first stop on the Chocolate Trail (yes, it exists, no, it is not a metaphor for something), at a very cute little shop. We took lots of photographic evidence. We meandered until we thought the meter was going to run out and hit our next stop on the trail. This place specialized in authentic drinking chocolate from the ancient cultures, which was interesting to begin with, I mean, drinking the drinks that the Aztecs, sounds like a great idea? Oh, boy. So we each picked out one, with plans to try each others, Heather got the Colonial style, I chose the Parisian brew that was the pick of Marie Antoinette, Terry chose the Aztec warrior chocolate, and Hana got the chili pepper hot chocolate. I mean, they all sounded reasonable, interesting, mine was supposed to have orange water in it. Sure, I'll go with it. Wow, they were bad, I mean, really really bad. Heather's was fairly bitter, mine tasted chalky, Terry's was okay, but Hana's took the cake. It did not taste like chocolate, it tasted like oil with chili pepper in it and burned everyone's throat. We all agreed that stop was a fail. In retrospect, the peach raspberry pie should've been my choice.
Anyway, we moved on to stop number three, praying for redemption, and it was a cute little place with not much to it, but it did have some lovely looking treats and a fun 50's fridge, and we all ate our chocolate out front and took more fun pictures. We were starting to get a little sugar buzzed, but we made it to our last stop, a particular delight called Chuck's Nuts. How could we resist? We decided to get a box of treats for later. And take our picture in front of the sign. Princesses rule.
Back at Hana's house we had dinner with her parents, took a little more rest since we did walk a bit. As a note, Hana's mom has A LOT of stuffed animals. It's quite interesting. We sat and talked girl stuff, looked at pictures from last year's PrincessCon, and watched the video. We are pretty hilarious. And after a certain point we ate our truffles, and then went out to sit in the hot tub. This was a good and smart decision. What was not a good and smart decision was not prepping the hot tub before we went outside in our bikinis. It was probably about 50 degrees, but once we were in the hot tub, it was awesome. We could see all the stars in the sky because it's so clear and there's very little light pollution, and we could all relax and chat more.
And after a nice long soak (we probably spent an hour and a half out there, possibly more), we decided to spend every night in the hot tub, and hit the sack. For Friday held Princess craft time!
I took the Monday off to recoup which is perfectly necessary after the totally exhilarating dance weekend (balboa! Vintage gloves! Corn!), and then I made the fatal mistake of going back to work for two days before I went off to see my princesses in New Mexico. Apparently in my absence, my coworkers mistakenly did a lot of bad things to my accounts. So I got to spend a couple days stressing over that and cleaning up the mess, but to be fair, they helped out a lot. I think I was more annoyed by the jerkwads who don't do anything at all. Whatever, more about that later. Despite the panic attack that was work, I left it all behind me for PrincessCon Southwest! The convening of the four kingdoms in the mysterious land of Santa Fe! Okay, it wasn't quite that royal, but it certainly was awesome. I was psyched because I was meeting Heather and Terry in Dallas for the final flight to meet Hana in Albuquerque. I also prefer flying Southwest because it's cheaper (at least in luggage terms, gaz) but American was quite nice. And though we didn't sit next to each other on the plane, it was awesome to land together and find Hana.
It was about an hour's drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, which was easily filled with sightseeing the glorious New Mexican terrain, silly photos from the backseat, and of course, a princess singalong. There's really no other way to go. We got to Hana's parents' house (which is flipping AMAZING), and relaxed for a bit after our various plane rides, got out the crafting supplies, examined our new crowns. Can't be princesses without crowns, duh. I must say, the crown of Her Serene Royal Highness Princess Mayapple (aka me) is perfect. We all wandered around for a little bit with our crowns on, and we also agreed to wear our PrincessCon t-shirts together while we went out to lunch. More than a few people asked about it, and we really had no shame in talking about it. They were awesome t-shirts.
Hana took us to downtown Santa Fe for some much needed sustenance. I even ate the beans. Then we wandered around the little area. It's very picturesque, not too hot, lots of stuff to look at. We made our first stop on the Chocolate Trail (yes, it exists, no, it is not a metaphor for something), at a very cute little shop. We took lots of photographic evidence. We meandered until we thought the meter was going to run out and hit our next stop on the trail. This place specialized in authentic drinking chocolate from the ancient cultures, which was interesting to begin with, I mean, drinking the drinks that the Aztecs, sounds like a great idea? Oh, boy. So we each picked out one, with plans to try each others, Heather got the Colonial style, I chose the Parisian brew that was the pick of Marie Antoinette, Terry chose the Aztec warrior chocolate, and Hana got the chili pepper hot chocolate. I mean, they all sounded reasonable, interesting, mine was supposed to have orange water in it. Sure, I'll go with it. Wow, they were bad, I mean, really really bad. Heather's was fairly bitter, mine tasted chalky, Terry's was okay, but Hana's took the cake. It did not taste like chocolate, it tasted like oil with chili pepper in it and burned everyone's throat. We all agreed that stop was a fail. In retrospect, the peach raspberry pie should've been my choice.
Anyway, we moved on to stop number three, praying for redemption, and it was a cute little place with not much to it, but it did have some lovely looking treats and a fun 50's fridge, and we all ate our chocolate out front and took more fun pictures. We were starting to get a little sugar buzzed, but we made it to our last stop, a particular delight called Chuck's Nuts. How could we resist? We decided to get a box of treats for later. And take our picture in front of the sign. Princesses rule.
Back at Hana's house we had dinner with her parents, took a little more rest since we did walk a bit. As a note, Hana's mom has A LOT of stuffed animals. It's quite interesting. We sat and talked girl stuff, looked at pictures from last year's PrincessCon, and watched the video. We are pretty hilarious. And after a certain point we ate our truffles, and then went out to sit in the hot tub. This was a good and smart decision. What was not a good and smart decision was not prepping the hot tub before we went outside in our bikinis. It was probably about 50 degrees, but once we were in the hot tub, it was awesome. We could see all the stars in the sky because it's so clear and there's very little light pollution, and we could all relax and chat more.
And after a nice long soak (we probably spent an hour and a half out there, possibly more), we decided to spend every night in the hot tub, and hit the sack. For Friday held Princess craft time!
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