Salt Lake Comic Con 2013

We were so excited when we heard Salt Lake was actually going to host it's own Comic Con this year.  It has been a secret geek dream of ours to go to the big convention in San Diego.  It might have been a favorite past time to watch the live feed on Spike before we got rid of our satellite (you don't know me!).  The tickets were pretty expensive so we went back and forth on it for a few weeks until I found out some people from work were going and I got super jealous.  I was checking out the website a couple of days before and when I saw that Nicholas Brendon from Buffy was going to be there that pretty much sealed the deal and we bought tickets for Friday.

 

There were about eight and a half billion people at the convention center which made my brain explode a little.  I really don't do crowds very well, it makes me angry.  To put the sheer number of people in perspective, the most successful first time Comic Con for any one city was New York and they sold 50,000 tickets.  Salt lake ended up selling 80,000 and had to move the venue from the Southtowne Expo Center to the Salt Palace just to attempt to accommodate the numbers.  It was wall to wall people.

First thing when we got into the building we happened upon master chief, Xander was in heaven.

 

The Convention Floor

 

They had a pretty sweet Lego section.  Steven loved the buffy mural

The Emerald City

 

Jurassic Park when the goat is about to get eaten

 

This is the exhibit for the Desolation Of Smaug

 

The guy in the blue shirt is Ben Hansen from Fact or Faked on the SYFY channel.  I actually stood and talked to him for like five minutes but didn't think to ask for a picture so I took this one after the fact.

Tracey Hickman is one of Steven's favorite authors.  He wrote the Dragonlance novels which we own a bunch of.  He was really cool, even though he had a pretty long line he talked to each person for three or four minutes and signed a book for us.

Here's the highlight of Steven's life.  We actually paid to get a picture with Nicholas Brendan.  Since Xander is named after his character on Buffy we included him in the photo.

 

 

 

 I was a little star struck when we were standing in line so I wasn't really prepared when it was our turn.  I wish I could have gotten a little more video of Nicholas talking to Xander about his name.

 

Xander is really excited for next year because he wants to dress up of course.  Steven says we need to go to all three days so that we can attend some panels this time but we will see what life when the time comes.

 

 



Marble Run

For one of Xander's pack meetings they had all the boys create a marble run.  Ours was probably less of a Xander creation and more of a Steven invention because he went a little crazy, but it turned out pretty cool.  Steven may have been overcompensating for the pinewood derby loss.

Crazy Activites

I've felt guilty in the past with our crazy commute the kids didn't really have the opportunity to participate in many activities.  Now that we are home a lot more we may have gone a little overboard getting into things.

Both kids are doing fall and spring soccer

Paizley at practice making a goal, she's the one in pink

Paizley and Ammie are on the same team

Paizley's first game

Four year old soccer is funny, they are like a school of fist following the ball

Xander's first game

Xander playing defense

Tommy and Xander are on the same team

I've been really proud of Xander this season.  Last year he got kicked in the knee, which from here on out will be refered to as his "sports injury", so he's been a little on the timid side.  He really stepped it up and did a great job the last few games of the season.

I decided to sign Paizley up for gymnastics, thinking that with her size that she might really excel at it.  Xander was thinking that he wanted to do karate, but after he atteneded one of Paizley's classes he changed his mind.  That was awesome for me because now I only have to drive them to one place.

Swinging on the bar

Front support

Doing a bridge

Practicing to do a back flip

 

The balance beam

 

Scaling the rope

 

On top of soccer and gymnastics Xander joined the school chess club.  Steven is volunteering once a week so we didn't have to pay the $20 for the admission fee.  

Xander Starts The Third Grade

I can't believe my boy is in the third grade.  We went to back to school night so we could meet his teacher and find his classroom.  He was excited to pick out his desk and folder.  Paizley is bummed she misses the cutoff this year, but I think she will just be that more excited next year for kindergarten.

We had to stop and look at the Lego display at the front of the school

Xander is in Mrs. Thurston's class this year

 

First day of school! 

So we totally thought we were leaving our house in plenty of time to get "getting on the bus" pictures, but the stupid thing showed up like 15 minutes early so we were lucky he made it on at all.  We had to run to make it on time.

This is the best I could do after he got on the bus

Paizley wishing she could get on the bus too

The Great Midget Cleat Search

I signed Paizley up for the same county soccer league that Xander played in last year.  She had only played one season in the city league and they don't require that the kids wear cleats.  I didn't really think much about it until a week before the season starts we get an email from the coach that even the four year old team had to wear cleats.  Good news for me Paizley wears a midget size 8 shoe.  Do you think it's easy to find cleats that size, the answer is a resounding no.  We went to the new Scheels store that opened in Draper not too long ago and luckily even though they didn't have any in their store they were able to order us some from another store.  They said it could take up to eight weeks to get the shoes in so I was a little nervous about that but they managed to get them in less then a week.

There is a giant ferris wheel inside the store

 

We of course had to ride on it

Paizley was a little nervous at first but she loved it

 

On the top

There is also a big salt water aquarium

Here is the source of all the trouble.  Paizley was excited because they turned out to have pink on them.

Hives Beware!

This summer we tried to go to Seven Peaks several times to take advantage of our pass of all passes we purchased last year.  Well I managed to contract a UTI infection on one of these trips.  Not wanting to go to the doctor I attempted to get rid of it myself by drinking buckets of cranberry juice, but to no avail.  I went to the doctor and got an antibiotic, which was awesome until a couple of days after I finished the ten day run.  On Saturday I started to feel super achy like I was running a fever but I wasn't.  I just felt tired and just generally weird (well weirder than usual).  Sunday I felt a little worse and Monday when I got to work I broke out in hives all over my body.  I was freaking out a little that I had some crazy bug bite or something.  I didn't think it had anything to do with the medicine because I had been taking the stupid pills for 10 days.  I went to urgent care and found out that yes I am allergic to Bacterium (awesome name I know).  Apparently you can have a reaction to a medicate up to two weeks after you are completely done taking it which I didn't know.

Ryan Exits Stage Left

Earlier this year Ryan got it in his brain that they needed to move to Korea so he could teach English for a year.  There was plenty of discouragement from everyone including North Korea who was threatening to bomb the crap out of South Korea.  The teacher placement program he applied to rejected him because "his wife might not acclimate to the culture very well", even though she is Korean and her parents live there, whatever.  Anyway even with all the signs pointing to don't go he still managed to pull it off.  So by the end of July he had quit his job, packed up his apartment in my garage and booked the flight to Korea.  Ryan and Emily decided they wanted to have one more romp on Temple Square before they left so the kids and I went downtown to hang out with them and my parents.

Salt Lake Temple

The whole group

We went to the Church history museum where Xander learned to do his name on a telegraph machine

If I remember right she was pointing at the teepees on the map

Paizley trying her name

Learning some pioneer games

Talking to the blacksmith

Paizley was fascinated by the flowers on Temple Square

She is such a girl

We went to the Cheesecake Factory for dessert before the creepers had to leave.  I had the black tie cheesecake.  It was amazing.

The tiny menace stealing my cream

Walking through the city creek center

 

I'm excited that all of Ryan's wildest dreams are coming true but I'll miss them a lot.