Twilight Convention ATL: Day One (and A Half)

We, Andee and Grey the Twilight Bloggers, have lived in a RIDICULOUS bubble of awesomeness for the past 4 days while attending The Official Twilight Convention Tour in Atlanta. (Note from Grey: That name is too long, guys. If you want us to call it by its official name, you need to pick a smaller one. My fingers hurt just thinking about having to type it over and over. Plus, I will mess up my very pretty CHANEL manicure. P.S. I love shopping at Neiman Marcus. P.P.S. My fiance is *so excited* about marrying my shopping habit me.) Please keep your jealousy to a minimum, because the weekend was so good that you may hate us. And if you hate us you will stop reading our blog. And then we will be alone again.

And when we're alone, we do things like this.

Day One was a huge whirlwind of goodness. Andee picked Grey up at 6:30am (so that meant Andee left her house at 5:00am. IN THE MORNING). Grey was MIRACULOUSLY ready before Andee showed up…the only time in history that this has occurred. The ride up there went by pretty fast. We listened to Britney Spears for the Alabama portion of the trip, because when we scream all the words to "....Crazy (the STOP remix)" at the top of our lungs, time flies. We were also really anxious to see the GIANT SINKHOLE that collapsed the northbound lane of Hwy 431, but we were detoured around it, sadly. We would have to see it on the way home. We didn't know we had giant sinkholes in southern Alabama.

We really had to pee, so we stopped about 2 hours away from home in Phenix City. There was only one gas station on the bypass, and it was, as Andee put it, "sketchy." We were trapped at a light that WE SWEAR took ten minutes to change, and in that time, Grey decided that instead of "sketchy," the gas station was going to be "dodgey" because that's British and probably what Rob would say if he were in the backseat. At the "sketchy/dodgey" gas station, we were greeted by a sign that told us we couldn’t wear hoods or face masks into the store.......which totally makes sense, because the only people who wear face maks in stores are the ones who are going to ROB YOU and they’re definitely going to turn around after reading your sign. Smart.

This gas station was a fan of signs. In the women's bathroom above the toilet, we were treated to a fantastic sign that read “If you’re gonna take a crap, flush it! Don’t be NASTY!!" Yes, NASTY was in capital letters. Did we mention Phenix City was the last town in Alabama before crossing over into Georgia? We cherish the fond farewell our homestate gave us, and share it with you fine people.

You didn't think we were joking, did you? You should know us better by now.

We put the Twilight soundtrack for the Georgia part of the trip, because pretending that we were Bella and singing Decode with all our hearts to Rob in the backseat also makes the time fly by. We made our annual/obligatory stop at the Wendy’s in Hogansville ("What was the name of that town? It started with a K, right? Like Kitson? Kinston? Oh, Hogansville. Yeah, Hogansville, right."). And then.....we were coming into Atlanta, at which time, Grey stopped checking Twitter and let go of her Blackberry to establish her death grip on the passenger door handle. Andee does all the driving in this friendship, namely because Andee has control issues, and you can't be much more in control than when you're in the driver's seat of a big ass Chevy SUV, double fisting the steering wheel and screaming at other people driving 70mph and trying to cross 8 lanes of traffic. (Andee: "How many lanes are there? Count them, Grey. COUNT

THEM.") She was in the zone.

While all this is going on (and by "all this" we mean Andee trying desperately to keep both herself and Grey alive), Grey is babbling about all the fun we are going to have. It was almost like a scene out of the Pixar movie "Up", with Grey playing the role of the talking dog ("And when we get there, we’re gonna do this and this and--PLANE! PLANE!") as we pass the airport. It was also Grey's job as the shotgun passenger to check the Garmin to make sure we were always in the right lane. Excuse me, "I mean, the CORRECT lane," after which, we had to formally establish that the words "Right" and "Left" could only be used in the context of driving directions. Grey also promised to only use the word f*ck in relation to the Garmin if it screwed us over. News Flash: She broke that promise about 5 minutes after she made it.

When we finally arrived and checked into the hotel, it was so AWESOME that we felt like we had died and gone to heaven, until we rode the elevators and they made us so sick that we wished we were dead and in heaven. We dropped our stuff in our room on the 15th floor, and by dropped, we mean detonated our suitcases and exploded our clothes and crap all over the room. The destruction took only 15 minutes, and then we were headed downstairs to the convention.

Our hosts for the weekend, the Hillywood stars!

So the main event for us happened about 3:00pm when Peter Facinelli (aka Andee's New Celeb Crush) did a Q&A session on stage. He was ADORABLE! Very sweet and very funny. He answered questions from the audience, but we don't remember them because all we remember was that they actually used one of our questions so he freaking SPOKE to us. Our question challenged him to 6 Degrees of Separation between himself and Kevin Bacon, which we told him we had tried to do on the trip up there. He laughed and said "Isn't there an App for that?" And so while he tried to recruit people with iPhones to find the answer some dude (yes, DUDE) in the audience actually did it in his head. Then he answered some more questions but we can't remember them because they weren't our questions. We are essentially selfish creatures.

We can't accurately explain how freaking awesome meeting him was...if you were here, we would dance for you. A little off-rhythm, but very energetic.

At the Photo Op, Grey walked up to Peter first and said hello, and then Andee shook his hand and said hello. Peter then told her, "Wow, you have a great handshake!" Andee was smitten.(Note from Andee: I hope that doesn't mean I have a manly handshake.)(Note from Grey: I think it may mean that…..because what he actually said was you had a FIRM handshake. Sorry, Man Hands.)

After the pictures, we were hanging out in the hall near the photo room, trying to organize our business cards (yes, we had business cards, and yes, we finally found the balls to hand them out to people), when Peter appeared in between the elevators (not like magically or anything. He's not a real vampire, people. He was just walking by. And at a human pace, too.) We saw him. He saw us. We waved at him, and he waved back and smiled. It. Was. Awesome. We may or may not have waved like goobers. We're not betting Twilight bloggers, but if we had to pick one, we would pick MAY HAVE.

"This is my special Andee and Grey smile. Just for you guys..."

Then came autograph time, and they announced that Peter was going to PERSONALIZE our autographs, which was really exciting. We waited FOREVER, but when it was finally our turn, Andee went first and said hello. Then Grey proceeded to tell him that her very first date was to the movies to see "Can't Hardly Wait" while he was signing his beautiful name on her page (Note from Grey: I want to draw attention to the phrase "signing his beautiful name" because it is Andee's sentence and I need you guys to see that she is FREAKING IN LOVE with Peter Facinelli now. He "dazzled" her in the same way that Daniel Cudmore did me, but that's a story for another post.) Peter laughed and then.....Andee told him that he was the only reason we even came, that we bought our tickets the day that he signed up and he said "Wow, that is so nice, I HAVE to give you two a hug for that!" SO WE GOT "REAL HUGS" FROM PETER FACINELLI. ( Note from Grey: I was actually so startled by him getting up to hug us that I didn’t know what to do…apparently I missed the part where he said “I have to give you a hug” and maybe thought Andee had said something offensive, and he was storming out of the convention hall. We would have been in trouble then. )

And then we died....

Just kidding. We lived, but it was the most awesome moment EVER. Peter gave us "real hugs." He solidified his position as our Number Three in our Favorite Twilight Star ranking.

This was only the first part of the night. The second part of the night contained karaoke. We were involved in said karaoke. And we may have shaken our asses with Michael Welch. We'll let you know more tomorrow. Right now, we're going to go make out with our Peter autographs.