I wrote those last two posts about grama Lanter while waiting for a couple 12-13 year olds spend their money at an anime convention.
Right now it is time for bed right after a long nap o’clock.
For Hollace’s birthday this year, an anime con in Milwaukee was taking place so I asked Hollace if she wanted to invite her best friend to come along. Both girls immediately started to plan their cosplay (costume). Hollace decided to be one of her characters, Sun Trail. We bought a long red wig, a black dress (sorry no pleats), long boots (on sale at Target) and a grey tee shirt.
Hollace’s other friend wanted to be invited. Initially I said no but changed my mind mainly as a back up in case Melanie ended up bailing on us. So now Lyric is on board.
I went ahead and bought tickets for the whole weekend just so I could pre-purchase them and avoid the long lines to buying at the event. And boy, was that line long, well worth the extra $10 I spent for them.
A week before the event Lyric had the great idea of sleeping over the night before since we hoped to leave for the day early. I have Hollace gather up the addresses and phone numbers. We get Lyric’s but nothing for Melanie.
My plan was to call the mothers to clear it with them. I wasn’t thrilled to have to call anyone but I knew I should. I wrote a letter to send home with both girls explaining the itinerary and put my phone number. Before I could call Lyric’s mom, she called me. That helped, a mom not afraid of the phone unlike this one. We finally get Melanie’s address, no phone number but she had the letter.
That night, after Lyric’s mom called a few minutes before I was planning on leaving to pick her up, I pick her up. We had to hang around for a few minutes to wait for Lyric’s dad to come home to give her money. Then we head to Melanie’s house. No one is home, no one. Hmmm, good thing I have the back up friend since it didn’t look like Melanie was coming.
We go back to our house and I see if there is anyway I can track down a phone number to no avail. We order pizza and Hollace and Lyric go off to her room to do what 13 year old girls do.
Eventually I get a phone call from Melanie’s 16 year old brother. They are out and about and want to drop Melanie off here (phew). They end up an hour or so later then they said but that is alright.
The girls stay up to all hours of the night. I go to bed at 1:00am, around 2:00am, I remind them that have to get up early for the con. Later I find out that it was more like 4:00am that they went to sleep.
I get them up at 8:00am (was hoping for 7 but I knew they stayed up later and really, we didn’t need to get going that early, there was no real schedule).
We get there and like I said, so glad to get the tickets in advance where there was no line. The other buy at the time line looked hours long.
We walk around, check out all the crazy cosplays, the girls spend their money ($40 each) and go off to find lunch. But first I text Sarah (niece) who is there for the weekend as well. She comes down and she recommends a place for lunch. 
We ended up staying until 6:00pm. Lyric was asking to spend another night but no way. I can’t have the girls staying up to all hours of the night again and I want my house back and a routine Sunday since I didn’t have it last week so I took them home and then fell asleep on the couch.