LARP!

Long ago, when I was in college, I used to LARP every weekend. It was White Wolf LARPs of the 'rock, paper, scissors' variety, and I loved it.

I love roleplaying in general but I really loved LARPing - costumes + rping = WIN!

But after I left college, I had a hard time finding a new place to LARP. I went to a White Wolf Vampire LARP in Grand Rapids once but it wasn't a great fit. And there was the Firefly one-shot weekend LARP I was a part of in April 2008.

But other than that, I haven't LARPed since college. But my cousin's wife (who is a great friend) has been telling me I should come down to GA some weekend to LARP. And I've been wanting to, but I was afraid that Emily wouldn't be able to cope with being gone from me.

I finally took the plunge this past weekend, and I had an awesome time. It is a boffer-style LARP and I was an NPC, so mostly I fought and died all weekend. It was so much fun.

Miss Emily did great for my aunt, so I'm already planning on going to the next event in November. I'm super excited!

As much as I love being a mommy, I do really enjoy having time away from her to reclaim my Mandy-ness and to spend time doing things for me. And it is good for her to be away from me too.

Dragon*Con 2010 Trip Report - Thursday

I had planned on spending most of Wednesday night finishing up my costume and finishing packing, but Emily kept waking up every hour, and ended up just sleeping with me.

As a result, I forgot to set the alarm and didn't wake up until 7 (we had wanted to be up at 6:30) - so we got out of the house later than we intended.

I spent the majority of the 3 hour trip sewing and I still didn't finish my dress!

We got to my aunt and uncle's house at about 12:30-ish, and hung out for a few minutes before Todd and I left Emily in the capable hands of my cousin's wife / good friend and we headed downtown.

MARTA ride was easy as usual and we got to the Sheraton about 2. I had hoped the lines would be less crazy due to the early opening, but,  it was only slightly better. We didn't have to wait outside at all but it still took about 2.5 hours.

After we got our badges, and I got my parade ribbon, we went to the food court and had some lunch dinner. We ran into some friends too, which was fun :)

We headed back to my aunt and uncle's house as we were planning on getting up early to get down to the con early the next day. Plus I had sewing to do - I finally finished sewing the layers I had pinned on Thursday night.

Kids and Dragon*Con

I love my little girl, and I hope she'll be a geek someday. I have no issue with taking her to smaller cons like ConCarolinas, but I won't be bringing her to Dragon*Con anytime soon.

But this year at Dragon*Con, I saw kids at every turn. Teeny, tiny babies and toddlers, along with older kids who probably actually enjoyed the con.

My husband and I talked about the little kids at the con at length as we waited in lines, and felt very good about our decision to not bring our toddler since she doesn't like standing still and zombies freak her out.

We figure when she is 5 or 6 we'll let her decide if she wants to come down to the con, but until then I'm so glad we have relatives we trust to take care of her while we get our geek on.