Our Trip In Bullet Points

• First kid-free vacation since before kids and it was a Star Wars convention. 
• It was much more fun than I could've ever imagined it'd be.
• Spent Thursday night in a hotel in Detroit so we could avoid fighting Detroit morning traffic for our 8:55am flight.
• Flight down was super smooth. I slept for a lot of it, which was nice.
• Our hotel was about 1/4 mile from the convention center so we walked everywhere.
• Spent about 5-1/2 hours at the convention Friday after we got to Orlando.
• In that 5-1/2 hours, we barely covered half of what was there.
• People were dressed in non-Star Wars costumes. Like Star Trek & Harry Potter. I don't get it (?).
• I very much enjoyed the costumes! Almost made me wish we'd dressed up. 
• Almost....
• We were in line by 9am Saturday morning (it opened at 10am). 
• There were already like 1000-1500 people in front of us by the time we got there.
• Anthony Daniels (C3PO in the movies) walked through the lines waving. I got a (blurry) picture.
• By the time we got in to the arena, there was a super long line of people waiting to buy a Lego exclusive.
• (That Lego exclusive is now going on Ebay for like $90 -- it still wouldn't have been worth it to me to wait in that line to make $50 on some Legos).
• Saw Warwick Davis (Wicket the Ewok in the movies, as well as the title character in the movie Willow) zooming through the arena on a Segway. 
• George Lucas showed up at a panel unannounced. Twitter exploded! We were not in that panel.
• Then he walked around the convention center. We didn't see him then either. 
• The only Jar Jar I saw was when some guy was carrying a 'statue' of Jar Jar's head on a platter. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the world who likes Jar Jar. *sigh*
• We stayed until 7pm Saturday when it closed. 10 hours!
• We enjoyed a romantic dinner of Subway & Zingers in our hotel room Saturday night.
• Sunday at the Convention was less crowded, not surprisingly.
• We were there Sunday from 9:30am (it opened at 10) until a little after 4pm, then caught a 4:30 shuttle to the airport.
• While waiting in line to see a presentation Sunday, I stumbled on a Tweet from the 501st Legion (a Storm Trooper costuming organization that does a lot of charity work) saying there was a special pack of trading cards hidden behind a water cooler in the room where we were waiting. I went running for it and got it! Dan was beside himself with excitement. It contained a special collector's card he likes!
• A few hours later while checking my phone, I saw another Tweet from the 501st Legion about another pack of trading cards hidden somewhere else in the convention center. It was nowhere near where we were at, but I ran off anyway just to check. I got them too!
• That pack also contained a super special collector's card!
• Dan professed his undying love for me at that very moment.
• Dan & I pounded a LOT of Mt. Dew this weekend. It was so yummy!
• Food at the convention center was insanely expensive (not that I'm surprised, but still....). Like $9 for a personal pizza, $5 for a pretzel, $10 for a turkey sandwich, and $3.25 for a Mt. Dew. The Dew was still worth it!
• At one point, we couldn't find a cold Dew anywhere! All the food vendors had sold out of Dew and had JUST restocked, so they were all still warm. Star Wars fans clearly have good taste in pop.
• Flight back was a little bumpier thanks to TS Isaac. But not too bad, especially the further north we got. I couldn't sleep through that flight, but I did play games on my Kindle.
• Dan made me load all the pics onto the computer the minute we got home, even though it was midnight. Then we looked at every one and re-lived the trip. Then I crashed. I'm pretty sure he looked at them all again.
• Note to self for next time: Take the boys.. Kids got TONS of special attention, little prizes, and photo ops with celebrities that adults didn't get. 
• Note to self for next time:  always have my camera at the ready because photo ops come quickly and don't always last long. (a-la: Warwick Davis on a Segway)
• Note to self for next time: Plan a lot further ahead for panels. They fill up fast.

I think that about sums it up.... next year's convention is in Germany so the odds of us going are slim to none. But that's okay. I think I've had enough Star Wars to last me at least another 2-3 (or 23) years.

Pics are in a Shutterfly album.