Traveling Valentine woke up early on a Saturday morning. Tom was addicted to playing Katamari Damancy while I was blaring showtunes like Les Miserables and Evita. Thanks to the $12 parking rate, Traveling Valentine drove to the con. Before going to the con, we stopped by Albertson's to pick up cakes. Then it was from 19th Avenue to Geary from there. We spotted Brad DeMoss on his way to Mel's. Once we found a (good) place to park, we went inside the hotel. I still had to put on my wig. For the first part of Saturday, Tom went as Yuichi Kayama and I went as Hanabi from Sakura Taisen. (Note: I'm supposedly an original Hanabi from Sakura Taisen 4 since they did Les Miserables, and neither Eponine or Hanabi was represented.) As an added bonus, Tom also brought a guitar for his Kayama. We also had to call masquerade quits since we weren't prepared for our skit. Saving it for Recca Con!

they did the voice acting demo stuff cast Marc, Vandread fanboy

So, we attended the Yuriko Fuchizaki panel. She also attended AOD last year. Yes, she did recognize familiar faces. She did something different this year - live voice acting. Tom decided to step up and do a voice over demo with a bunch of other AOD attendees. For the record, he did Maria's (Sakura Taisen) voice. To close the panel off, Yuriko did the opening theme to Sakura Taisen. Char's Sakura Taisen group performed the dance routine to the theme. After the panel, I said a "thank you" to Char for adding me to Cosplay Revue (AniMagic 2002) at the last minute. If it weren't for that, I would have never met Tom.

After a photoshoot of our Sakura Taisen costumes, we changed into our Gunslinger Girl costumes. Tom dressed up as Jose. I dressed up as Henrietta. This was a last minute costume add since FUNimation really wanted to see our Gunslinger Girl costumes. For a while, we chilled in our friend's hotel room. The crowd seemed to be really overwhelming out there.

Matt as a Hufflepuff Rey the Ninja Henrietta from GSG Sasuke versus Gaara Running into Yurika at the dealer's room

Jason of Recca Bleach cosplayers! Tom blowing out his "candle" (aka Magical Pen Light!) cutting the cake

It's not a party without Kenny! Mike as Hikaru And it's not a Tomcat party without some HYA Husky Wendell showed up! Tom DDRing Some people glomp, some people just stomp

Then after, Traveling Valentine went back to the convention - with cake! Yes, it was time to celebrate Tom's 20ish birthday with cake! Videl offered the PLC magical pen as the birthday candle. Hey, even Videl looked like a birthday cake. We drew some people in for cake. To continue on with the birthday celebration, we listened to Ramen and Rice's concert. Ramen and Rice also did something special for Tom. They played "Happy Birthday" for him (because I requested it!). It was really nice of them to take that request and have the convention attendees sing along.

Ramen and Rice playing a special song for Tom

Kenny, Tom, and I went to dinner at the hotel restaurant. Kenny treated us for some quesadillas and pizza. Good stuff! Afterwards, we went to the masquerade. We just got in when we were supposed to be on stage. It was a pretty spiffy masquerade show. Some of the masquerade highlights included Pegasus Maiden's Angel Sanctuary gown, the PLC group doing "The Egg Song" (When I saw them in the audience, I thought they were the real deal.) Cosplay Hell does bad fanfiction, Christophe getting down with a Mokona plushie, and a Voltron tango.

After the masquerade, Traveling Valentine changed into Prince of Tennis Western costumes. (For those of you who don't know, TeniPuri episode 115 has the characters chibified in a cowboy setting) We were quite unaware of the impending madness...

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