The Full Time Wife: I've Been Traveling in the Tardis of Life

Wow, I look at my blog and realize how much I've been starving it of recipes and attention...all sorts of attention. My only good excuse is that I've been traveling in the Tardis of life! Hours turn into minutes with great company and days and nights are mumblejumbled and the only thing that keeps me aware of time is my trusty iphone alarm ringing a nostalgic Animal Crossing song every morning. Then I forget time all over again.

However, you are in luck because I have recorded some pics and highlights of my travels and in particular today, my time at Comic-Con 2012 in San Diego. This was our second year attending and I'm happy to report that our con experience gets better with frequency and good company. This year my sister Julie decided to join us in our quest for toys and geeky fun. Here are some of my highlights.

Highlight #1: Meeting and making news acquaintances and friends is probably one of the best bits of Comic-Con. The three of us traveled early that morning, 4 a.m. from LA, and luckily we arrived on time for the Trailer Park and Twilight panel in Hall H. I must confess, I've never read the Twilight books but I do appreciate the movies on Redbox. I got harassed by some fans for that confession but soon enough eased my way into making friendships with those fans and fellow Hall H hopefuls. I had the pleasure of meeting Shannon Morse of Hak5, she told me she has an obsession with vampires so that was quite fitting, there's also a chance we might be related somehow through our great grandfathers. Small world. We also met a great couple, Jeff and Kristina, both had such fun and infectious laughs. The two hour wait time zipped by so fast we were seated and armed with 3D glasses and ready for the program to begin.

Team Edward or Jacob?

Highlight #2: Making it into your favorite panel and getting the chance to hear background stories about the new show or episodes coming soon to a screen near you. We attended the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Doctor Who panel as well. I'm excited to see both shows this year and look forward to what's in store for next year. TMNT will "surface" on Nickelodeon September 29. Doctor Who will be premiering Fall of 2012 on BBC & BBC America. Chris Hardwick did a fantastic job hosting the DW panel. Just between us, I wouldn't mind auditioning to be in both of these shows. I think I could be a great voice-over actress for TMNT and a great companion to the Doctor (admit it, there needs to be another ethnicity in the mix. Hehe).

TMNT Panel

TMNT Panel: Kevin Eastman delivered pizza. Hehe

The Doctor and the Ponds-Williams.

The one and only Steven Moffat

A Dalek attended the panel. His question was never answered.

Highlight #3: Free Stuff! Standing in the Hasbro line multiple times just to get a variety of free toys and hoping to get the entire set of Star Wars or Transformer toys. My sister was into all the "Django Unchained" freebies. She also waiting in line for four hours and received autographed posters by the cast and crew. Nice work. My favorite of the "Django" swag had to be the Bounty Hunt via Twitter or Facebook, where they gave you clues as to where the "outlaw" was located. Once you've encountered an outlaw, you say the code, "The D is silent" and get a coin to exchange for a free tee shirt.

Another crowd pleaser or THE crowd pleaser was the Turtles vs Foot Clan hats and possible free bag of exclusive Kevin Eastman (creator/co-creator of the TMNT) toys. You had to go their website turtlesvsfoot.com and vote for a team, either Turtles or Foot Clan. Show your vote and receive a free hat. Wear the hat during Comic-Con and you could win a bright green bag full of awesome prizes like a Ron English designed t-shirt and an unopened, unpunched and signed-by-Kevin-Eastman-TMNT toy. How totally tubular is that?!

Highlight #4: Discovering new artists and buying their work. My sister Julie gave us the best Comic-Con 2012 gift ever. The artists names are Victoria Ying and Mike Yamada and we fell in love with their artwork the first time we laid eyes on this poster. It's great to have the opportunity to talk with the artist and get to know them and understand the influence of their art. The list just goes on and on and one could spend all four days just getting to know each creative. Massive amount of art everywhere.

Highlight #5: Cosplay all the way. One could shoot over 2000+ photos of cosplayers both amateur and professional. You could even make a game of trying to guess who's dressed as what character. I'm so inspired by them that next year, I'm hoping I will have the proportioned body and costume for the character I want to parade around as. A secret for now.