Making myself write this before I crash and forget half of it. There will be photos later, as a bunch are on my mom's regular film camera.

Friday, as soon as I got home from school, I ran, burned my and Mara's masquerade music in five minutes flat, and then we piled seven people and their luggage, including a full-size Wolfwood cross. We got stuck in traffic, but managed to make it to the hotel, where we met up with Mara, and went and picked up our badges while my mom parked, and we waited for our rooms. Mara informed me that Nicole told her that morning she wasn't coming, and thus Mara's shoes for our walk-on were still in DC. So we ended up running out to Chinatown at 8:30 at night, and bought a pair of wodden sandals, which we have to rip the sequins off the straps of. So that was Friday.

Saturday, we woke up, put on our wedding kimono, and headed down to get judged. We got lots of fangirling from people, including staff, and managed to win a hall contest ribbon apiece in fifteen minutes XD; After that, we met Yuumei and browsed the dealer's room while waiting for Claudia to show up. Mara and I bought tabi to replace our missing ones, and I got two volumes of Fruits Basket. Claudia came, and I left them to go grab her and show her where registration was, and by the time we were done with that, we had managed to thouroughly lose Mara and Yuumei. So we went up to the room and hung for a while, before they showed up and we sat around more, and then headed down to the masquerade.

The masquerade ended up being pretty awesome. There was some confusion with the groups lining up, but it got sorted out quickly. The seating began on time, the pre-show cosplay band (Bad Luck), was excellent and both started and ended on time, and the masquerade started on time. There were a few sound difficulties, and three groups that didn't show up, but Ada gets mad props for managing to organize everything nicely (spaced out skits and walk-ons), and having a masquerade that ended fourty-five minutes early. It would have been even earlier if the awards ceremony hadn't dragged on and on and on - the Kagome with the backpack talked far more than anyone was interested in hearing. There were a couple of really excellent groups - in no particular order, the Lynx and Harle were so awesome, the Rikku totally deserved best novice craftsmanship (and the Vash with her was tremendously funny), the male persocom skit was really clever, the Haku was awesome, the Vampire Hunter D group was really excellent, and the Gundam Wing group which disappeared at the last minute was OMG good. Now, of course, comes the usual bitching about the awards. Most of them were very well deserved. The only couple I didn't was the Atashi (that's how you spell it, yes? The bunny things from Chobits) has a really boring skit, and the CCS group got way more craftsmanship awards than they desevered. But all of the costumes I really liked got awards too. Mara and I got a Judge's Award from one of the craftsmanship judges ourselves (Big thank you to Brooke, too, for that ^^ You winz as well <3). We then went to the 'wedding reception', at Gyuhama, had huge amounts of sushi, and Mara, Yuumei, and Claudia went back to Claudia's house.

Sunday was both more, and less eventful. Michelle and I put on our Cain outfits, and wandered around and bought stuff in the dealer's room. I ran into the Seishirou I met two years ago, and got him to buy me yaoi XD We also played one round of DDR before the gaming room closed. We also met up with Claudia, Mara and Yuumei. Claudia was supposed to just get her stuff and leave, but tried to stay, which resulted in what could be accurately described as a blazing row, with me trying to slam the door on her, before Claudia got forcibly dragged from the room. So we ended up sort of wandering around. We tried to find the EGL picnic and failed (we discovered later that it had been moved, and their sign proclaiming this was confiscated by security - it was hanging on the wall there >.>), so we browsed the stores in the Prudential Center and Copley Place instead. The rest of my group drove home after this, but I stayed with Mara and Yuumei and wandered a bit more, before we all took the train back to our respective homes.

So, Claudia's mom aside, it was largely a very fun con. I ran into a lot of people I had met at previous cons, which was very nice, even though I didn't remember some of them (Sorry, Duo ;;!). It was kinda wierd being in a new building, but I think I'll be used to it by next year.