Our Twi-Tour weekend started really on Thursday evening when Creation Entertainment sent out an email to all attendees that Kellan Lutz had canceled his appearance for Sunday. To say that I was disappointed would be putting it mildly, I cried. Literally was crying in my office at work when I read the notice. This had been followed by Billy Burke canceling on Monday, and Jackson Rathbone and Ashley Greene canceling on Wednesday. So, four of the five original guests had been replaced by other celebs and the new line up became Mike Welch, Edi Gathegi, Gil Birmingham, Catherine Hardwicke, Justin Chon, Chrisitan Serratos, Chaske Spencer, and Alex Meraz. While it was quite exciting that we would get to meet eight celebs, it still didn't detract from the fact that we would not get to meet any Cullens. But, I was resolved to have a good weekend because I had spent too much damn money on this to let it get me down.
Friday morning I finished packing up and we met at Estrella Nails in Litchfield Park for pedicures and manicures. Cut-out Edward joined us and watched while we were pampered. After we left there, we checked in at the Best Western (we only had one night at the Wigwam) and quickly left to the Arrowhead Mall to pick up some last minute things we needed. We spent way too much time in the largest Forever 21 we've ever seen. We rushed out of the mall and sped down the 101 and stopped at Borders to pick up the New Moon calendar for autographs. Off to the hotel, we quickly got dressed in time to get to the Wigwam. The line was rather disorganized and the people that were working the check-in desk were obviously disgruntled and a little upset. It was hot, felt like the AC was not working, and we had to wait a while. We met Laura (Pel) from the Lexicon and she took a picture of me holding my Peace Love Vampires bag. Since I had purchased Photo Op tickets with Kellan and Jackson, and supposedly had gotten my credit card refunded (I still haven't), I had to fork over some more $ to purchase photo ops with Edi Gathegi and the Wolf Pack. After finally getting all that taken care of, we got to our seats. Whit, Melinda, and Jen were in row C and separated by an aisle and one seat. Whit was sitting by herself. Carrie and I were in row F and sitting beside the most obnoxious girl ever (more about that later). The Hillywood Show came on and served as our "hosts" for the weekend and they were pretty cool. Hilly and Hannah are the tiniest things ever and the boys aren't all that big also. I loved Jasper the best, he had a funny stare about him.
Catherine Hardwicke was up first and anyone attending could write questions out for them and drop them in the boxes outside. I didn't write out a question, but nearing the end, they took audience questions and I raised my hand. Jasper came and I stood up and said, "We all know the story of Rob auditioning on your bed and you and Kristen knowing that he was THE one. I'm wondering who else was up for the role before you decided that Rob was it?" She then answered that she had never been asked that and it was a good question and told us that Jackson Rathbone, Ben Barnes, and Shiloh Fernandez were all up for the role. She had labeled them bachelors 1, 2, 3, 4 and that Rob got "overheated" when he and Kristen were making out and that she needed to give him a few minutes to "collect himself." It was awesome! (More on this later)
Edi Gathegi came on next and he is so amazing, I don't have words. He has the most piercing gaze, and a great smile. He sags his jeans and several times he turned and the shirt was pulled up in the back a bit. He watched New Moon on Friday with Stephenie in a private theatre and mentioned that Taylor was with him. He made a phone call on stage, but it went straight to voicemail. During the Q/A, they pulled out one of Jen's questions and Melinda gasped really loudly so much that Edi laughed about it. He did the Kelly voice while he turned around "because he couldn't do it if people were watching him." A crazy fan girl asked for a hug and she was shaking and crying. Another actually just walked up to the stage and stood right in front of him to ask her question. It was a bit obnoxious, but he was such a good sport about it.
After this was over, they had photo ops and we stood in line for our pictures with Edi. Melinda went first and she had word vomit and said, "I'm Melinda, you're pretty hot." We cringed and then made tons of fun of her all weekend long. She was forbidden from speaking to any celebs again. After photo ops, we stood in line for FOREVER for autographs. This is the one thing that Creation doesn't have down to a science...the autographs. They had them on one side, then on another side, then in a different area....it was a mess! And the Creation people are total police-like if you do anything that deviates from their master plan. They are CRAZY! We finally got to the autograph table and got our Movie Companions signed. They are personalized signatures, it's very cool. Catherine is so down to earth and so awesome to speak to. All weekend I was twittering and checking my twitter on my phone. Well, Pel at the Lexicon was there and twittering as well about everything the celebs were saying. So, she tweets about the other actors up for the role of Edward and then about 12 other Twilight fan sites pick it up and retweet it. And all I could think was "OMG! What did I do?!" Nonetheless, I couldn't do anything about it now.
After the autographs, we were starving and went to find something to eat. We went to Village Inn and sat in a corner. Of course, we were the most obnoxious group there and I asked the waiter if we could take a picture and he shoved his way into the booth. He was irritating, took too long to take our order, bring our drinks, and bring our food. We devoured our food and when paying the bill we scared Jen by doing a "JENHOW" all at the same time.
We headed back to the Wigwam for the musical concert and got there just in time to see Gil Birmingham come out with his acoustic guitar. Although we missed Mike Welch with Goodnight Juliet, Gil was awesome! Very folksy, bluesy, and really fun to get into. I was so tired by the end of the night. I ran to the bathroom and then we left back to the Best Western. We were all so tired, but we squished onto our beds and then giggled like school girls for about another hour. I set the alarm for 7:30 AM and crashed. We had a big day on Saturday and Day Two will come up next!
OMG - Edi was a hoot, wasn't he? He was killin' me backstage! He is SO down to earth and easy to talk to - both him AND Gil! Wish I could've stayed for the whole concert... but my dinner arrived at midnight and I had to crash. :(
ReplyDeleteP.S. Ditto on the autographs - wish it wasn't so dang chaotic!