BREAKING DAWN!

*insert hysterical fan-squeals here* And now a moment to regain some sanity. :)

I've been SOOOOO looking forward to Breaking Dawn. For those of you who have NO idea what I'm talking about, it's the 4th (and presumably last) in the INTENSELY popular Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer. Yes. It's a book. Feel free to mock me now. :) Anyway- I've been looking forward to the release for a year now. I recently discovered TwilightMoms.com, and I'm sure glad I did. What a blast! They had a ton of stuff planned out for it!

My cousin Katie and I went ALL out! Borders, our book purveyor of choice for this shindig, opted to give out wristbands the morning before the release. The number on the wristband dictated in what order people could buy their books. So, what does any self-respecting, completely obsessed Twilight Mom do? Well, I don't know about you, but we camped out all night at Borders to get our wristbands! :) It was so much fun! There were a few other Twilight Moms there, as well as some awesome FanFic authors. We had such a blast hanging out all night, meeting new people, eating peanut butter M&M's, watching Brian Regan and Jane Eyre on the laptop and talking about TWILIGHT! :) I managed to get about 2 hours of sleep on the concrete in front of the store. And as a sweet reward, I got the 10th wristband! Out of about 1200! :) Here's a picture of Katie and I the next morning and the line behind us:


After going back to Katie's for a few hours of much needed snoozing, we hightailed it over to my Grandma's house to get all dolled up for the release party. TwilightMoms planned a group dinner at Tucano's (our local Brazilian Grill- all you can eat MEAT and grilled pineapple! Can life get any better? I submit that it cannot!). We snagged Maleena on our way and the three of us had so much fun eating great food and teasing the waiters. Just for our benefit, a couple of the staff chose to wear name tags that read Jacob and Edward. Again, for those who've never read the books, these are the two guys in the love triangle that makes up the story of the series. A lot of the fans have chosen to side with either Team Edward or Team Jacob. Not so surprisingly, I have chosen the Switzerland route, and stayed neutral. So here's a picture of me with the guys (they are CUTE! And holding skewers full of meat! I'll take two, please!):



At the release party, amidst other fun activities- live bands, trivia contests, raffles, a blood drive, etc. , they held an Ugliest Bridesmaid Dress contest, in honor of the anticipated nuptials in the last book. Katie and I, ever the adventurers, decided to enter. I have to say that we put much time and effort into our costumes, scouring the local second-hand stores for the perfectly hideous dress, plowing through our mother's boxes of scrap fabrics and notions to make them even more unbecoming, and even HAND STITCHING the (in)appropriate accessories to our get-up. Well, Katie hand stitched. I just pestered my mom while she risked several fingers' well-being wielding a hot glue-gun on my behalf. Here's a picture (or two) of the finished product:


By the way, I made that corsage that's sprouting from my décolletage. Pretty spiffy, no? Since this is my blog, I'll brag for a bit. I did Katie's hair, with my fantastic flat-iron, and her make-up- which I think turned out perfectly Vampire-ish. She looked so awesome that I kinda feel guilty that I WON the contest! Yes!! I WON FIRST PLACE!! I couldn't believe it! :) I swear, I never win anything! Here's the prize for first place and a full length shot of the horror that won it for me:


After that it was a bit of a whirlwind! We got changed back into our street clothes (and not a moment too soon! All that polyester was making me HOT!) and got in line for our books. Once we picked those up, of course we wanted to get reading right away! TwilightMoms came through again and had a sleepover planned just a few blocks from the bookstore. After a quick but thoroughly fantastic chair massage (while we waited for directions to the sleepover), we headed to Charise's house. She had everything decked out for the party- cupcakes with strawberries, all KINDS of snack foods, and a chocolate fountain! What a kick! It was so much fun! Her mom even made us breakfast in the morning. Thank you, thank you, Charise! I'd still be reading if it wasn't for you. :)

I stayed up ALL NIGHT and read, read, read. I gotta tell you, this book was a real page turner! There were so many twists and turns, I didn't DARE put it down! I honestly looked up from reading about 12 times that night with my eyes as big as saucers and said, "WHAT!?!?! Oh my gosh! What page are you on?? Who's on page ___??" LOL Some major shockers, but I won't spoil it for anyone who's still reading. In the end, I'd say that it wasn't my FAVORITE book out of the four, but I was happy with the way it ended. There were definitely some parts that I wish were a little different, but I was so glad that she tied up every single loose end. I mean, you don't really go away wondering what happened to anyone. So that was really satisfying. I finished all 700+ pages in less than 18 hours- not my personal best, but once I got home from the sleepover it took me a little longer to finish. :)

Amazingly enough, after I finished up all of that, it got even crazier around here! My best friend since high school, Heidi, was in town to visit us the day I returned to Earth from Twilight Land. :) It is always so awesome to visit with her- now that we're all grown up we only get to see each other about once a year. We had our yearly reunion with the other member of our high school trio, Erin. Her poor husband had probably had enough of us by the end of the weekend. We tend to revert to our high school selves when we get together. I think I've giggled myself out for the next 11 months. Maybe someday we can convince her to move up here so we can get silly more often in shorter bursts.

And then, before Heidi even left, all the kids came down with strep throat. Of course, shortly following, Duke and I caught it, too. So we're all on antibiotics, and have quarantined the house from outsiders. I think we'll be able to lift the ban tomorrow, though. Everyone seems to be recovered completely, except poor Duke, who always gets hit so hard.

So! What a way to spend the last few days before school starts, huh? Yes, it's true. There are only 10 (9 by the time anyone reads this) days left until the first day of school!! The kids are SO excited! Jacob will be in the third grade this year, and Aspen will be in first. Time flies so fast! In two more years all of my kids will be in school! Can you believe it? As soon as we get new school pictures, they'll be up on here.

Well, that's it for now! I'm off to bed. Just a quick "hooray!" for the US Mens Relay Swim team! Way to go for the gold!! I'm so glad that they won today, especially after getting so much smack-talk from the French. GO TEAM USA!!

Upcoming Events:
*First Day of School
*My birthday! Woohoo!
*The 2nd Anniversary of our Sealing
*Duke's birthday!