Okay, before I forget, my good friends in Toronto over at Twilight Mommy have made a contest and my blog is part of it. It’s a treasure hunt – all you have to do is the find the answer on a few blogs and you might win a $40 gift certificate. What could you buy with it?

My sister-in-law JL recently had a baby. You know my friends DQ and JR love throwing a good party so we had a blast. DQ was such a sweetheart she did all the invites and the favours herself.

See how pretty?

Check out these matching hand iced sugar cookies. They were delicious too.

We were ecstatic to welcome a new baby girl into our lives since JR and I both have two sons and DQ’s youngest is already three.

By the way, take a look at the menu JR made up. Our preggie girl is a huge fan of Paris so we thought a French food theme was in order.

The food JR made was amazing as always and she managed to make sure even the fancy cheeses were pasteurized and pregnancy friendly.

See the cute wheelbarrow? My father-in-law made that on short notice just for his baby girl. So sweet.

Okay, onto the cupcakes.

Not actually JL’s real name

I made Coconut Cupcakes – Recipe courtesy of Ina Garten.

This is a tried and true favourite of the mom-to-be. Note – I tried increasing these by 50% – did not work well. I think the ratios must have been off.

Almost considered tossing the lot because I thought they were a bit dense. But the cream cheese frosting saves everything! This recipe makes 30% more frosting than you will need.

Fondant Toppers

JL’s favourite colour is blue and her baby room is a wonderful turqouisey teal colour. I was going to make a flat 2D graphic bird. Way too hard for me to cut things out with an exacto or use the Cricut. Actually easier to hand sculpt these guys.

The brown fondant is actually the new Duff’s (as in Ace of Cakes from food network) Chocolate fondant at Michael’s. Very easy to work with and tastes quite good. I got a kick out of staring at Duff’s face while I was working on these.

The birds were inspired by these ones from Wilton’s but I actually like mine better.

If I had time I would have toasted the coconut before sprinkling and shaped them into little nests. Alas next time…

Okay another travel post about Florence is coming up this week.

The New Moon log in the dark dank forest near my house

These cards are perfect for those planning a trip to Forks or who have already been.
Check out their website to order Twilight inspired scrapbook products online right now.

Here’s a glimpse at some of the cool pics they’ve spent so much time getting (I seriously wonder if Lulu or janie got into traffic trouble getting the first photo):

seriously, how awesome is this shot of a silver Volvo and Bella’s red truck in Forks

love the title on this one

authentic First Beach

my mini-Edward

my mini E and B in the treetop just like in Twilight – love that scene!

that’s my FSE! My baby’s all grown up!

got an Eclipse party coming up?

Perfect for your Forks trip pages

Bella’s truck in front of the Port Angeles Theatre Real filming spots for Jacob’s House, the Cullen House, and Breakup Log

Guess what Christmas cards I gave out last year? These are my absolute favourite holiday cards!

Once again check our janie+lulu now!

Have any questions for these girls? Contact them here.

Wanna hear their story? Here’s the background on these chickees and how they came to make such great stuff

janie+Lulu was born unofficially in July 2009, the result of an unforgettable trip (1 Twilight-decorated minivan, 2 mums, 4 kids, and an endless supply of vampire fangs!) to Forks, WA from Vancouver, BC.

We LOVED the energy in Forks and the surrounding area and were so impressed by how the local people played along to make their town into the literary setting (a vampire Disneyland, if you will) without making it feel commercialized.  During our stay we always had the feeling that the mythical characters from the Twilight series could really be standing next to us at the grocery store or keeping a careful watch over us from the never ending forest.  We were in the same land of make believe as our 5 and 8 year old kids and it felt terrific!  It’s hard to make a souvenir that represents that kind of feeling, the feeling of possibility, but that is exactly what we felt compelled to do.Living on the edge of our own breathtaking forest in North Vancouver BC, we were surrounded by the film crews for New Moon and Eclipse this year and we were able to build on our Forks-inspired ideas with local photographs. An important aspect of our Route 101 Adventures is that we do not visit active film locations, we do not seek out the cast or crew, and we do not trespass on any private property.  Our thrill is in being able to identify locations from other media sources and to then make a “possibility shot” involving that idea.

Upon returning home, we drew upon our combined backgrounds in graphic design and print to transform our holiday photos into whimsical stories that convey the magical energy of the Olympic Peninsula.  Our images are not about the celebrities, the actual plot line of the Stephenie Meyer novels or vampire themes of blood and fangs.  When shown our images, people actually ask us “How did you find a wolf print?” and “How did you get the photo of the vampires running?”.  Apparently our intent to stimulate the imagination and take people to a world where mythical characters exist among us is working…

Before I go into the mobile fic thing check out the wonderful gifts I got this week

First from my wonderful friend DQ

love that they sparkle like EC. And she got me 2 boxes so I can actually open one She really knows my hoarding collector ways

Bandages for the doctor – what a good idea!

From my awesome cousin VL who got me the Japanese editions of Twilight – Twilight in Russian! So cool.

what a great 10th anniversary present – for me!

By the way I changed my avatar to my Bella and Edward figurines – I was a bit tired of looking at my own face. Click here for my post about them.

Okay on to the regular post…

So I’ve usually been saving mobile related things for my other blog Twi-Mobile but this news is just too big.

Those of you who read fanfic and have been following my blog know that I’ve made it my mission in life to do everything from my iPhone. I’ve even gone to great lengths to try and get fanfiction.net stories onto my iPhone and iPod touch and written tutorials for you guys as well.

Sunday was the release of the final chapter of Master of the Universe by Snowdragon Icequeens. It’s Chapter 87 and this fic has finally finished after 8 months of wonderful reading bliss.

I was so happy when my email alert from fanfiction.net came with this at the end

See the Mobile? Too exciting. It’s about frickin time.

If you click on the mobile version this is how the story looks from my iPhone.

To jump chapters you can scroll to the bottom or press Menu at the top.

This even lets you Review, Add Story or Author as Favourite, and Follow Story or Author.

What happens if you go to a regular desktop fanfiction.net URL? Nothing, as in there is no automatic detection and redirection for mobile devices.

But it’s easy to get to the mobile version of any fanfiction.net story.

Just replace the www with an m

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368782/87/
becomes
http://m.fanfiction.net/s/5368782/87/

Side tutorial – How do you do select and replace text on an iPhone?

First hold your finger down on the www part of the URL until you get the magnifying glass.

Then tap on Select, not Select All.

You should get a Cut/Copy/Paste box showing a highlighted www part. Don’t click on any of those options.

Now just type m to replace the www and you’ll get the correct URL. Then press Go at the bottom right and you’re there.

So if you don’t mind reading fanfiction.net online this is the quickest way. If you have to read it offline then still follow the tutorial here.

I’m off to Italy in 3 days. I’ll try and post a bit in those two weeks.

By the way here are some iPhone wallpapers I made for myself this week.

You can find them and my other iPhone wallpapers at the iPhone Wallpaper Archive.

Lastly, notice my new buttons on the right sidebar for Twitter, RSS, email? Well there’s a new button you may not recognize

.

It’s for tumblr – my new microblog – I’ll explain it next time. For now just go ahead and click on it to check it out. Don’t forget to click the Archive button when you’re there – the Archive gallery is so pretty!

So way back in February 2010 I entered a contest over at Twi-sted Edbrella entitled “We Want Your Sparkle Peens” vying for this version of mini-E

Frankly I’m not so sure I like the whole Fabio open shirt thing but Edward is still Edward.

Guess what? Today they announced over at Twi-sted Edbrella that Snarkier Than You, Jenny Jerkface, and Latchkey Wife from Twitarded had picked me as the winner!

Here’s the anatomically correct mini sparkle peen I made out of fondant and painted with lustre dust dissolved in vodka.

Go check out her latest post for more of my sparkle peen pics and also some of the other entries. Everyones entries were great and had me LMAO imagining a bunch of middle aged women secretly making sparkle peens around the world.

By the way, I’ve got more pics of this sparkle peen if you want to see them. Trust me, they’re pretty anatomically correct except mini of course.

Now I have to find this fondant creation. I can’t remember where I put it and I’m sure the boys will end up stumbling upon it one day when they sneak into my baking drawer again looking for chocolate.

If you want tips on how I made this guy go ahead and ask in the comments.

Can’t wait for my new mini-E to arrive. Thanks so much to Stan and the Twitarded girls!

So last month I posted that I wasn’t sure if I should go to the Official Twilight Convention Tour or TwiTour for short.

I can’t believe I almost didn’t go. What the hell was I thinking? I am so glad you girls all convinced me and broke me out of my lunacy.

The convention ran from Friday May 14th to Sunday May 16th 2010 but I only attended the Sunday events. We bought Preferred Day passes so we’d have front row seats reserved the whole day but that’s all you get.

Want to see the schedule for the convention? This is my pic of the program. Seriously not expecting you to read it for real but here you go.

By the way, so glad that I’m already in Italy in June because I am super tempted to go and sit front row in LA. I mean if Mr. TC would have flown home early for NHL playoffs I can fly home for Rob can’t it?

Warning – long and detailed posts – what else did you expect from me

Location – Sheraton Wall Centre hotel – also where the cast happens to stay when they’re in town since you can lock down the floors very securely.

down the escalator – it’s coming!

Charity Brunch and Auction with Peter Facinelli and Cameron Bright

So let’s cut to the chase. Red_Bella from Victoria (a short ferry trip away on Vancouver Island) came over with her friend for the whole weekend. She was nice enough to save me and MK seats for brunch.

I was expecting a huge room and was surprised there were only 4 tables with 10 seats at each table. Brunch was continental and for 89 bucks we got some hot eggs, bacon, and sausage. They let us eat before the actors got there. Better than the stale muffins I’d heard they’d had at other conventions so MK was pleased to eat a good lunch.

They had 9 of us at each table and left an empty seat for the actor. MK happened to have the empty seat next to her and frankly didn’t want it. She kept claiming she wasn’t that big a fan (as she was only there to keep me company) and offered to let someone else sit next to the celebrities but in the end no one moved.

Cameron Bright came in first – we were only allowed to take photos for a few seconds.

Cameron Bright sauntered in – oh to be 17

Reminder that this is him in New Moon

Cameron Bright as Alec

Cameron came and sat at our table for 30 minutes. He was in the seat next to MK and on the other side of him was the only child in the room – a lucky 14 year old girl. Cameron is a local to our parts and ended up chatting with all the women at the table about Vancouver Island. He seemed like a typical 17 year old skater who happened to be used to being in the public eye. Well spoken and not too egotistical.

Peter Facinelli came in a few minutes after Cameron – with almost no notice! No good pictures from me – I was way too flustered and I’m still waiting for MK’s photos.

PFach really is more handsome in real life – sorry, cameras away ladies!

Peter took his time with every table and the table behind us was howling. Apparently one of the girls asked him to pull her finger and that was officially the strangest thing a fan had ever asked him to do. He got to our table last and at 12:10. We were worried because Catherine Hardwicke was supposed to be starting her Q&A panel downstairs at 12:20. Well, we weren’t disappointed with Peter – he stayed for almost 30 minutes with us. Catherine could wait.

He sat down next to MK and proceeded to pick up her sunglasses and put them on. One of the women asked if we could take a photo of him and he was totally fine with it so the handlers stayed back.

He’s wearing MK’s sunglasses

MK is fully aware that she is never allowed to wash her sunglasses and must now forever wear them with Peter Facinelli’s sweat on her face.

Before he could start talking about anything I leaned over since he was just a seat over and told him “my friend Dangrdafne loves you – see, here are the tweets she just sent me.” He took my iPhone from me and started reading this out loud

The tweets Peter read out loud to everyone

Sorry to embarrass you Dangrdafne but I’m sure you understand why it was necessary.

He then hands me back to the phone and says “Call her.” I looked at him stunned and stupidly said “I don’t have her number; she lives in Pennsylvania.”
Peter says “send her a DM and ask her.”
Oh my god I am so stupid because I think “what if she doesn’t get my message? Then this will be wasted and he won’t have communicated with her at all. Twitter is a guarantee” so I say “can you send her a tweet for now?”

So he takes the phone and tweets to Dangrdafne. He says he can tweet, talk, and drive all at the same time. We politely tell him that’s illegal in Vancouver. Some other smarter woman at the table calls up her bff in LA whom Peter proceeds to have a conversation with while texting Dangrdafne.

His phone conversation with the other woman goes “Hi. This is Peter Facinelli. No, it’s not Jesus Christ. It’s Peter. How are you doing? Oh, I didn’t know they were having one [a convention] in LA. Next month? Really, oh well I’m sure I’ll find out about that one later. I hope to see you there.” etc etc.

This is Peter’s tweet from my twitter account cupcakegirl76:

I then proceeded to spend another 5 minutes scouring my email for Dangrdafne’s phone number but to no avail. Sorry sweetie!

Highlights of Brunch with Peter:
- he asked us if we watched Nurse Jackie – when we said that we did he asked – “did you guys see the one where I grabbed the old ladies boob? I think it was just on last week” There was a quiet mumble from us since no one could admit we hadn’t seen it yet. That thread of conversation died down pretty fast and I kinda felt bad – HBO in Canada is so behind!

- when I asked him if he knew where they’re filming Breaking Dawn he replied that he didn’t know but will probably find out a couple days before. He did mention that if it was Illinois it was possible because all they needed were sound stages for the interior shots.

- he found out about his read for the part of Carlisle the day before his audition with Catherine Hardwicke and then there was no script for him

- he read all the Twilight books quickly and said he found them addictive

- he spent a month before shooting the suturing scene just practicing and the day of shooting he didn’t manage to prick Kristen Stewart once

- he researched the entire timeframe of Carlisle’s life and what would have been happening at each place historically

- he hasn’t read Midnight Sun but remembers that Rob got an advanced copy. Peter’s still waiting for Carlisle’s POV

After our 30 minutes with him our time was up – he waved and said “see you all later this afternoon” and left. Impression? Handsome, down to earth, and gracious. Frankly I wish every celebrity encounter was that good.

Just in case Dangrdafne and I want to clone Peter Facinelli one day…do you ever wonder if you sat next to Rob at a bar would you save his napkin? Well, here’s the answer to that question:

Yes indeed I saved PFach’s used Red Bull can – I have no shame

The Auction part – before the actors even came in on the side of the room there were tables set up with auction items. We could bid throughout the brunch until after the actors left and then there’d be a last call.

Want to see what was for grabs? All proceeds went to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Gigantic Edward banner (he’s mine now!)

Almost bid on this for you Twired Jen – except Jackson doesn’t look so good

Wolf Package

Girls package – Autographed 8X10s under the hat

Guys package – once again autographed 8X10 photos

Each item ended up going for between 75 to 150 bucks. The Jackson poster went for the most money.

I was in a very mini bidding war with a girl for the Edward banner and the Girls package of stuff. MK is so sneaky she told me to let the girl win the package of stuff so she’d be happy when I outbid her for Edward. Totally worked! I got to set my banner aside and pick it up at the end of the day.

Regular Twilight Auction

The Twilight Auction for all the regular convention attendees happened in the afternoon.

Stage set up for auction

Banners autographed by celebrities from the weekend

Banners that were all auctioned off

Jacob went for almost 200 bucks

I am so happy that my New Moon Edward was up for the brunch auction instead. There was a banner of Twilight Edward (not nearly as nice) that went at the public auction for a lot more than what I paid for mine at lunch

By the way, do any of you watch the TV show Supernatural? They are filmed in Vancouver and apparently their convention is huge. They sold some autographed Supernatural 8X10 glossy photos and they went for over 250 dollars.

A photo of Bella and Edward in the tree in Twilight that was autographed by Rob and Kristen went for 675 dollars. The woman laughed how she was going to justify this to her husband.

Autograph & Photo Ops

We had purchased our autograph and photo ops tickets online before the conference and picked them up when we registered in the morning. They would have been mailed to us if we had ordered them more than two weeks before the convention.
MK is such a minimalist that she would throw out her autographed merchandise and photos within two weeks after getting them. She generously let me use her signature opportunities for my own stuff.

The line for Catherine Hardwicke’s autograph was surprisingly short since we went to the 10:20am session before the brunch.

in line waiting for autographs

snapped this pic right before we were told no photos allowed

Catherine Hardwicke has her critics and she comes across on the Twilight DVD as a bit fluffy. But I was very excited to meet her. A successful female director is to be celebrated and meeting anyone who has been that integral in my life is definitely worth a few bucks.
While you’re in line they’ll put a sticky note with the personalization you want on the item ahead of time. Catherine was really nice and when I asked her to make it out to “Dr. TC” she asked what kind of doctor I was. Told her I was a family doc seeing mostly women and babies. Then I handed her Mrs. P’s avi and told her the story about Mrs. P’s travels. I didn’t have time to tell her that Mrs. P already had Jackson and Peter’s autographs. Catherine said “you’ve never met this woman?” She genuinely seemed baffled that we have this online blogging community that are almost like modern day penpals.

My copy of the directors notebook almost a year old.

It’s odd that the only copy of Twilight I could find for her to sign was my Hong Kong edition. Betcha she hasn’t done that before.

We had Catherine’s photo ops session later that day. You show up with your ticket and you are allowed two people in a picture per ticket. When you are about three people away from the actor there is a long table for you to put your stuff down on. Everyone is very trusting and just leaves their purse and all their precious Twilight belongings but it’s only a couple feet from the photographer. Then you’re rushed in and literally have the celebrity’s arms around you for one shot. You are with them for all of 5 seconds and hope the photo turns out. The photographer briefly checks their screen and I’m guessing just to make sure the actors eyes are open. That’s still 5 seconds of a celebrity hugging you

After we did our photo with Catherine she yelled out to me “the doctor right?” and waved. MK and I couldn’t believe she remembered me hours later after meeting so many fans.

Peter’s photo op line up was longer and even then we only waited about 15 minutes. Nothing different from Catherine’s photos otherwise.

Since it was the last day of the convention we couldn’t pick up our photos. We will have to wait until May 31st to go online and get our photos sent to us.

The last thing we did that day was line up for Peter’s autograph. They called up the Gold Pass and then the Preferred Weekend ticket holders row by row first. People who had won banners in the auction that also won an autograph ticket with it got in line early as well. After about 20 minutes they opened it up to people who had bought autograph tickets.

Peter’s forte is not the signing session. He was totally flustered and barely looked up.

love that he signed Dr. TC with Dr. Cullen and tried signing P Facinelli

then he gave up and signed PFacinelli at the bottom of Catherine’s disc

He got flustered – tried to use a black sharpie then had to change to a silver one

Q&A Panels with Peter Facinelli and Catherine Hardwicke

We are stage right front row

The panels were held with the official stage but I think it was slightly dismantled since all the banners were about to be auctioned off.

We arrived at Catherine’s session quite late since we were busy having brunch with Peter.

Seriously once again no pictures. They are sticklers for no audio and videotaping and MK and I were too stunned to take out our cameras for her.

Highlights of Catherine Hardwicke’s talk:
- the thing that stands out of course is about how she really did warn Rob that “in our country the legal age of consent is 18 [which it is in Oregon] and that he was expected to toe the line.” She said she definitely felt the chemistry between the two of them right away which is why they chose him in the first place.

- she used the phrase “now that they are together” once in the day referring to Rob and Kristen

- lots of stories about Nikki Reed as a 13 year old - like how she would spend 2 1/2 hr in the morning before school getting perfect model hair and makeup ready

Peter’s Q&A

The Question box at registration for Peter

This was the highlight of the event for most people. He was so easy going and open to questions that it just felt like fun for him and us. Very humble and also proud of acting as an art.

Yeah he was pretty frickin close to our seats

He spent most of the time on stage answering questions submitted to the box collected over the weekend. Then he went around the room and answered peoples questions on the spot.

Highlights of Peter’s Talk:
- first of all I realized that Twilight Lexicon was sitting next to me in the front row. They were tweeting their updates and it was surreal to witness that as those gals are celebrities in their own right. I couldn’t help but send them a tweet too from my seat. I know that they tweeted some of the things below but I’ll still mention them.

- I have this part sneakily videotaped but won’t post it – when asked if Rob really doesn’t shower Peter answers “well, I’ve never actually been in a room with him and said dude you really need to shower. I think it’s just a sort of new grunge thing. I’ve never asked him about his routine” and then laughs.

- in response to “Which werewolf would you choose to be?” he responded “Obviously Jacob because then I’d get to be buff. But I’d also have to fall in love with a baby and that’s just gross. In fact I think you’d go to jail for that in most states.”

- he remarked how it was odd that Carlisle never happened to be around when they really needed him.
Like right when Edward finds James but has to fight by himself in the ballet studio, Peter commented “weren’t we in the same car together? You’re telling me you ran faster from the parking lot by that much?”
Or when Bella goes into labour he just happens to not be there – Peter laughs “what Edward – you had to chew the baby out?”

- someone asked what kind of medical training Peter had to learn to be Carlisle – he couldn’t recall anything specific except he had to learn where her leg injury was for the ballet scene. He then lamented that the only thing he was supposed to do was apply pressure to the wound which seemed like such a boring thing. Peter found it funny that he couldn’t help Edward suck out the venom because he was too busy applying pressure to her leg – another case of Dr. Cullen not being useful according to him.

- he drank a Starbucks on stage saying that while he was in Vancouver he had to have one of these. When someone in the crowd tried to correct him by saying he should have a Timmy’s [Tim Horton's coffee] he said “but you have one [Starbuck's] everywhere. You sometimes even have two on the same corner.” Totally true of that on Robson Street.
He also proceeded to knock over his coffee saying that it was another embarrassing moment for Peter Facinelli.

Peter picking up his knocked over Starbucks

- it was great to hear his stories of being a shy teenager. Apparently he wouldn’t get in the cafeteria line for the first three years of high school and only ate from the pretzel cart on the other side. Three years of pretzels for lunch!

- another embarrassing story – he was in a yoga class once and was toweling off his mat after a particularly grueling pose. The girl next to him leans over and says “excuse me but that’s my towel.” He sheepishly handed it to her. Then at the end of class after the relaxing on the floor part the same girl leaned over and said “you’re lying on my towel again.” He proceeded to peel the sweat sodden thing off the ground and ask if she wants him to wash it. She responded “no that’s okay, I’ll just sell it on ebay.”

- when he was walking around one of the little girls asked him what his favourite colour was. Apparently it’s blue.

- when asked what actor (dead or living) he would love to act with he answered Paul Newman

- off the record he admitted that he almost dated Tori Spelling. Apparently when he first got to LA he got her number from a party. Then he ended up going off somewhere and when he came back he met Jennie Garth instead and never had a chance to call up Tori. He swears that he didn’t watch 90210 and didn’t have some plan to date the whole cast.

standing room only in the back

- he has three daughters and assistant coaches a softball team and also goes RVing a lot with the kids

- when someone asked if Peter had any advice for her husband as a father of daughters he answered “no, but does he have any advice for me?” He then went on to say what a great mother his wife is and that if he just follows her lead that he thinks he’ll be fine.

- when he filmed Eclipse in Vancouver he was also flying to New York to film Nurse Jackie and flying back home to LA to be with his family. Sometimes he’d fly from Vancouver to LA just to have dinner with his girls and then fly back to Vancouver in the same night.

- when asked where his favourite place in Vancouver to film was – he answered to be honest he didn’t know. As an actor you get the call to be down at 5am so he gets up at 4:57am. At 5am they pick you up from the hotel and throw you in a white van. When they get to the first set he joked they just kick you out and sometimes don’t even stop. You act and then you get back in the white van and go back to your hotel. He doesn’t even know where he filmed most things.

- he remembered liking the Japanese restaurant Tojo’s in Vancouver and then joked that if they film Breaking Dawn here all the fans will be at Tojo’s

- apparently all the men in the cast spent a lot of time at the gym while they were in Vancouver. Partly to avoid the paparazzi crowds as well. They’d end up doing exercises everywhere. He recalled one time he was in the elevator and it opened and there was Kellan doing push ups on the floor. He said “you win” and got right back in and went back to his room to go back to sleep.

- if he wasn’t an actor he would work at Blockbuster because then he could work with movies all day – a girl in the front row said she worked at Blockbuster and he asked her right away if she gets discounts and free rentals.
Apparently he did some schooling in pre-law and told a story about this lawyer boss he worked with who had no hands. He went into great detail about how this guy was able to do everything and had so much power despite his disabilities.

- he skypes a lot with his daughters when he is filming. Apparently when his three year old was watching the hospital scene of Twilight she was upset that daddy wasn’t answering her back because she thought he was on skype and was asking him questions.

- when asked what he said to Rob right before he bit him in Twilight he retold the story that he was sure we all had heard – that he said “I’m sorry” then “Be reborn my son” and lastly “Rob, you’re so sexy” The last one apparently made Rob almost laugh and you can see him about to smile on the take they used in the film.

- he talks a lot about Carlisle’s scarf (in fact he planted one of us from brunch to ask this question during the Q&A) – it’s not in the book or script but Peter thought it made Carlisle look more like an old world gentleman but then had to figure out how to incorporate it into Eclipse because he didn’t think it would be smart to be wearing one during the fight scenes.

- lastly, at the end someone started asking him for hugs and eventually about 5 women had asked. The organizers advised “no more hugs” because they were running out of time.

The Vendors

You all know I LOVE to shop so I was in heaven here. Firstly the official 8X10 glossies from Summit went for $5 each.

photo courtesy of Inside Vancouver.ca

There were autographed 8X10′s as well of some supporting actors going for 20-30 bucks each.

New Moon and Eclipse make up artist Leslie Graham offering vampire makeup for $35 (photo courtesy Inside Vancouver.ca)

The vampire makeover looked interesting but didn’t think I could stand next to Peter in my photo op with me in full vampire makeup and him looking all normal and handsome.

Our local big pharmacy London Drugs had the Volturi makeup on display. Heartbreaking that the Team Jacob line was way more wearable (bronze, browns, taupes) than the Team Edward line (pink and blue glitter).

Official merchandise from NECA

There was a huge Hillywood booth as well and official Twilight Convention T shirts but only L/XL left.

So what kind of Twilight stuff did I come back with?

smells tropical like coconut

They had The Wedding, Isle Esme, The Cottage, etc. Tempting to get them all

Absolutely positively in love with my giant Edward banner. So glad this was auctioned off at brunch. Don’t know if I could have beat out all the other crazy women at the public auction.

Here it is compared to my Twilight piano book

Can you see my toes and hands peeking out? Seriously 6 ft tall banner

I have a thing for umbrellas. This was their last one.

I also bought all the 8X10 glossies that had either Edward/Bella or just Edward or Bella on their own. No other way to have such big pictures in such high quality.

So sigh that it’s over. Thanks for reading this super duper long post but for those of you who LOVE details it’s all here.

What did I miss? Red Bella attended the whole weekend. She said Daniel Cudmore (Felix) was the best and Jodelle Ferland (Bree) was super cute. The Vampire Ball was apparently too well attended and there weren’t enough seats so she and her friend left.

If they ever come back you know I’ll be first in line buying tickets. Now if only I could get to LA in June…
*********
Post Update – after I tweeted this post I was found by RobbedMyHeart who happened to be sitting right across from me during brunch. She was kind enough to send me a few of her photos – so Lisa this is all you get until my photo ops pictures get here. Damn I think I’ll be in Italy already.

Peter swaggers in

Peter with MK’s sunglasses and the infamous Red Bull can

RobbedMyHeart had a great view of Peter

Thanks to red_bella for her lovely comment in my last post. It was so good that I had to repost it here so you could all enjoy. Especially since she let me share some of her great photos.

It was an awesome weekend, I had so much fun.

It was great getting to meet you finally. I didn’t even notice that Peter had that can of Red Bull at the table with us during the brunch…. Quick thinking on grabbing that!

I thought about bidding on that Edward poster at the brunch, but then I noticed that you had already bid on it I thought better of it. You must bring it to FFFFOOORRRKKKSS!

I don’t know if I would do a whole Gold Weekend Pass again but it did put me up front and to the right of the state and in the front of the line for any autographs. Friday the attendance wasn’t so great. I did enjoy listening to Kiowa and Bronson though. I skipped the Karaoke on Friday night cause I can’t and won’t sing! Trust me on that one!

Saturday was great, a few more people in attendance. Jodelle was sooooo cute! She and Cameron Bright were joking around with each other. Bronson and Kiowa did a dual Q&A that was fun and then Daniel Cudmore just stole the show. God that man was funny! He could easily be a stand-up comedian. It was suggested that he do so during his Q&A, he said that he’d rather do sit down comedy since he was so tall 6’6″! That man was all legs! He also talked about being in makeup for an alien on Stargate Atlantis and how he couldn’t scratch his face and all he could do to relieve an itch was to poke at his face through the makeup.

I participated in the twilight trivia contest. In the first round I was 4th… oh so close and yet so far away. The winner was this guy from Washington who has won fifteen of the trivia contests with TwiTour! The man was a walking Twilight dictionary, his one comment to Cameron Bright when he admitted that he hadn’t read the series was “Real Men read Twilight”. He gives all his prizes and gift certificates to his daughter, part of the prizes were a makeover then be part of the Vampire Court at the dance Saturday night and dance with the cast members.

I came home with some good Twi-loot. Picked up a Vampire Baseball T-shirt, a Team Hillywood T-shirt, a convention tote bag to carry my loot, one of the Team Jacob gift bags for the Volutri makeup and a twilight sticker that I’m going to put on my Smart Car somewhere. I also acquired a Team Wolf pack pencil from the Twilight Lexicon ladies. Oh, I also had a photo op with Bronson and Kiowa. I’m not big on being photographed, so that’s the only one that I did. I was mistakenly given an extra photo op ticket and my friend didn’t want to use it, so I scoured the event and found this woman with six or more kids with her and gave it to her.

All in all I had a great time, got lots of autographs in my Twilight collector’s edition. I’m hoping to get all the cast’s autographs in it.

Well red_bella it was awesome meeting you and thank you so much for letting me share your weekend. Great that you’ve got the autographs in your Twilight Collector’s edition. Hoping you one day get the Holy Grail as Mrs. P calls it.

Here are some of red_bella’s photos from the weekend. You know it’s not normally my style to just post a bunch of pics but you asked for them.

Bronson Pelletier

Kiowa Gordon

Kiowa and Bronson

Cameron Bright

Daniel Cudmore

Jodelle Ferland

Catherine Hardwicke

Peter Facinelli

Peter coming to brunch with infamous Red Bull can

costume contest contestant Jane she was at Starbucks at it freaked me out

costume contest winner as Rosalie

Hillywood cast

Okay, you remember my last post about Hockeyward from The Misapprehension of Bella Swan? Even if you don’t remember the words you can’t forget this:

Well, Hockeyward happens to have his own Twitter account (I know, for all of you non-Twitter people how crazy is it that fictional characters have their own accounts). And of course I not only follow him but sent him the message that I posted about him last week.

Even after the Canucks lost and were down 3-1 in the series against the Blackhawks I still refused to Unfollow him. In fact, I tweeted to him that I was secretly cheering for him – damn him and his monster cock! Once again, you have to go and read this story. I am not kidding about the monster cock part.

Well, he finally tweeted me back. He told me in no uncertain terms that I was cheering for the right team and that it shouldn’t be a secret. He even had a message for Mr. TC.

I know this should seem as silly as when kids get excited that Santa wrote back to them from the North Pole at Christmas. But I just about squealed thinking that Hockeyward (and I truly picture some very buff looking guy that looks like Rob Pattinson) is typing to me on his laptop and smirking while he does it. I have to say it – Swoon!

All right, enough silliness. Thank you all for listening to the rant yesterday and also for agreeing with me that my kids can be crazy adorable sometimes. Not all the time, like when you wake up at 6:45am and hear “Mommy, Geoffrey is peeing on me!” it really isn’t very cute.

So, Jelena pointed out that I have been seemingly distant these days and it’s true. I have not been around this blog as much. But I am spending a whole lot of time over at my Twi-Mobile blog. I actually went and refreshed all my HTML and CSS last week just for the hell of it. I’m still not even close to knowing what I’m doing but it’s been fun. In addition I’ve been pulling out the Photoshop to work on new wallpapers for the iPad and iPhone.

So these are some that I posted over at Twi-Mobile tonight.

Here’s one for Mrs. P from Twibite

And another one for Alison from Twifans

So go over there and check out my pretty things even though you don’t have an iPad (yet) – see Twi-Mobile.
By the way, I was super excited last week that Twifans joined Twi-Mobile. Do you know they have 30,000 followers? Craziness.

The Twilight Convention is this weekend coming up and I am very excited to be going. Can’t wait to meet PFach and CHardwicke. Still haven’t decided what to have them sign (besides Mrs. P’s avi of course).

So, now that you’ve all witness my giddiness over getting a tweet back from a fictitious character -
Have you ever heard back from a celebrity fan letter before?

So, it’s Mothers Day evening and the kids are finally in bed. My two little boys today were nothing short of wonderful. My husband, god bless him, was extraordinary as well. Considering today is his birthday he decided to move his birthday to next week just so today would be all about me.

I am in a ranting mood though. Not because the breakfast that the kids fed me this morning made me nauseous and gave me stomach cramps. Or that the nausea coupled with my period being two days late made me force my husband to go buy me a pregnancy test. And that Mrs. P’s rant blog mentioned people whose contraception failed and causing them involuntary motherhood. Or that I had to take a gravol for the nausea which knocked me out cold for the whole afternoon. Or that Mofuse chose today to upgrade their server (I hope) and that all mobile blogs were down.

No I am ranting despite the lovely things too – like my mother taking my youngest for the whole afternoon and my husband taking the oldest out for the whole day. And that I got gifts from my sister and sister in law. Including Twilight and New Moon trading cards

See?

My first twilight trading cards ever

Love that this is not a pic from the movie – Rob and Kristen look so carefree

My New Moon trading cards – yeah for the hologram one bottom right

Oh, one with Rob half naked is always good

I love this line from the movie – gives me chills even now.

By the way, despite the fact that I have a crapload of Twilight stuff I haven’t owned a single trading card until today. I’ll pay sh*tloads of money for an autographed scrap of paper but $3 for a pack of cards seems silly to me. Go figure.

Anyways – no, I’m ranting because we have a gigantic family. My husband is the eldest sibling and Sunday family dinner falls to us quite often. Our dining room seats 8 people and we always have 12 people for dinner. It’s my fault really for not buying a bigger house and dining room table. The issue always becomes who should sit with the kids in the kitchen during dinner. Not really a big deal – it’s just the kitchen right?

Well, it’s Mother’s Day. Don’t you think that even though I didn’t cook the dinner (like I said my husband is great and cooks everyday and made prime rib tonight) that I should get to sit in the dining room for my own celebration? No, instead me and my mother (bless her heart she was very happy just to spend the holiday in Vancouver rather than Hong Kong) had to sit in the kitchen and feed the kids. The rest of our family sat in the dining room drinking wine and eating on the table that I helped to set.

I know this must seem extraordinarily silly and petty but it made my blood boil. The only person to clue in to the fact I was upset was my pregnant sister in law, who offered halfway through dinner if I wanted to sit in the dining room instead. I wasn’t about to make the preggie woman move when the meal was almost done.

I ate 6 bites of food and decided to spend the rest of the evening upstairs holed up in my bedroom suite. Mind you it’s comfortable and altogether about 600 sq ft so I was quite happy to stay in there surfing and tweeting. My husband eventually found me and asked why I didn’t ask someone to move seats. What the hell would I say – walk up to one of the men and ask them to get up out of my chair and go feed my kids? They are still guests in my house and if they are too clueless to think about the fact that I should probably be enjoying my own celebration then I wasn’t about to be the bitch to tell them.

So, I’ve vented – thank you for listening. They are now all gone and I have finished cleaning the kitchen and the rest of the house after the mess that no one bothered to offer to clean up.

Like Twired Jen said, it’s nothing a little fanfic won’t help with.

I know that I am blessed. I don’t have very much to rant about in general and I’m sure my mothers day was one of the best out there. It’s just the PMS talking. And, no, the pregnancy test was negative so I’m not pregnant.

So, on a nice note, I’ll leave you with the Top Ten Reasons Why I Love My Mom that my 7 year old wrote for me (as he wrote it of course):

1) I Love you becouse you gave birth to me.
2) I Love you becouse you make shur geoffrey doesn’t crach my neck.
3) I Love you becouse you’re my number one (or 2nd) fan
4) I Love you becouse you take me trick or treting.
5) I Love you Becouse you make me happy wan I’m sad.
6) I Love you Becouse you always Love me and my Bro.
7) I Love you becouse you make me Hethy (healthy).
8) I Love you becouse you Bake stuff that you can eat.
9) I Love you becouse you led me money
10) I Love you Becouse you’re my special mom.

Here’s hoping you all had a lovely day celebrating with your families.

Wow, a treats post for once. It has been almost two months since I’ve posted a dessert recipe review.

First of all, I CAN eat gluten yet this cake is so good I would choose to have it even if regular cake was around.

Note that my husband is very very picky and not easily impressed. Yet he said this dessert could have easily been served at a fancy restaurant.

My good friend Mrs. R had us over for dinner the other night and her son J has celiac disease and thus needs everything to be gluten-free. She hadn’t made this recipe before but thought it looked promising and we were both up for an adventure.

Decadent Gluten Free Chocolate Cake
by John D Lee found on here

Photo: Paul Goyette (flickr)

Ingredients:

3 X 100gram, 70% cocoa dark chocolate bars
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 1/4 sticks of butter
A pinch of salt
5 eggs

1) Pre-heat oven the oven to 350 degrees.
2) Over a double boiler with barely simmering water underneath, melt the chocolate and sugar, salt, and butter together.
3) When smooth, remove from heat and let cool for a couple of minutes.
4) Meanwhile, beat the eggs.
5) When the chocolate has cooled slightly, fold the eggs in and pour into an 8 inch greased cake pan or pie plate.
6) Bake for 40 minutes, or until a fork inserted comes out pretty clean.
7) Let cool for a few minutes and serve still warm.

Serve with vanilla ice cream and coffee.

Photo: Paul Goyette (flickr)

So, here’s my two cents.

First of all Mrs. R shelled out for Lindt’s 70% dark and Green & Blacks organic dark chocolate.
The instruments to melt everything together was confusing. Melting chocolate in the double boiler is easy but getting the granulated sugar to melt didn’t happen. We initially microwaved the chocolate to almost melt and then the butter melted right in over the double boiler but the sugar never did. When we put it in the oven it was still gritty and Mrs. R was so nervous I think she started defrosting another dessert.
We tempered the eggs with a bit of the batter before folding the eggs back into it.
It baked up perfectly at 40 minutes.

Our cake did not look like the one in the photo. The cake had a crackly texture on top rather than the smooth ganache shiny look but it was still pretty, just a variation. Mrs. R dusted it with some powdered sugar. We had it with ice cream and it was so good!

Crunchy on top, gooey in the middle, and just a bit chewy at the base. I was too busy eating to even take a photo.

So, thumbs up for the first gluten-free recipe on this blog. Hope you enjoy it!

Lastly, Mrs. R is a closet twihard. She came with me to the pre-midnight showing of New Moon and also Remember Me. She surprised me at dinner with something sweet.

New Moon chocolate bar – oh an Edward one

She also knew that I would never eat it but it would end up in the vault. So hungry right now though…

What’s your favourite Twilight food?

Before I move on to the real post, for those of you who haven’t seen the aerial pics of the Eclipse re-shoot in Vancouver from this week that were posted by Punk’D Images – see them here and here. Sigh that I did not get to see Rob in town today. Hope he got up to no good with Kristen

Moving on…

You know how we get random Twilight thoughts all through the day? Like when I saw this set of matches at my sisters place

Well, random Twilight strikes even when I submerge myself into a man’s world.

I live in a house full of testosterone – Mr. TC and my two little boys decidedly make the place all blue with no pink in sight. But even then, I see Twilight everywhere!

Literally. Case in point:

star wars

while reading Lego Star Wars (bedtime story of choice)

held a straight face the whole time reading this with my kids

So you hear that guys? There is a Jedi starship called the Twilight. Although I’m sure the guys who actually care already know this sort of geeky tidbit anyways. Surprisingly my 7 year old let this one go and didn’t tease me about the Twilight part. God he must have been tired to have missed that one (or could I have raised a boy who was nice and would refrain from teasing his dear mom? I don’t think so.)

hockey

This one is a no brainer. First off, I would officially call myself a hockey widow but that is no different than the wife of almost every Canadian man around. It’s hockey playoffs and we all know that, if the guys have their way, we won’t see them for weeks except to show up in the kitchen to replenish beer and chips.

Rob looks good sporting a playoff beard

We even have to put up with the playoff beard – for those of you who don’t know the players and hardcore fans are superstitious about shaving during playoffs. Sounds like Samsonite and Delilah right? I think it’s just an excuse to look and act like slobs.

So how does this relate to Twilight? Other than the fact that when my husband is off watching hockey I get to post, twitter, and read my Twi-smut fanfic in peace?

Twilight has finally managed to make hockey sexy to me.

Not like this.

Not like this, I don’t know what the hell she was thinking

But this is what brought sexy back.

Enter Hockeyward

“God that is so hot, you are so fucking hot,” he declares as he assists me in removing his shirt. He’s still staring at my chest, and then his eyes move up to my face and back down again. I’m not sure what is ‘so hot’ or what it is about me that he finds so appealing other than that I’m willingly grinding all over him, but I’m not going to try and dissuade him if that’s what he thinks.
Once his chest is bare and I can see the thick, flexing, sinewy hot-as-fuck muscles of his arms–not to mention the rest of his upper body–I totally forget about the nipple sucking deal and how sad I was that he stopped.
I pause my desperate grinding and just focus on what’s in front of me. “Now that is nice,” I whisper in approval because Jesus mo-fo Christ does this man ever have a rockin’ body. One of the first thing my eyes are drawn to are his two tattoos, on the upper bicep of each arm. I’m such a sucker for tattoos. On his right arm is a waving Canadian flag, and on the left is some sort of crest that’s all in black. I don’t really care what it is, all I know is that it’s sexy as hell.

Mr. TC hasn’t figured out why I suddenly like watching playoffs with him and that I’m not bugging him as much about being a hockey widow. Little does he know that every time there’s a hit on the ice my panties disintegrate just a little bit.

Gotta run. Mr. TC just got back from playing hockey tonight and is heading for a shower. Oh, he and all the other Canadian guys should send hunterhunting a f*cking fruit basket for writing her fic.

Getting back at 1am from a late night hockey game stinking like wet hockey gear has now become foreplay.