Sunday, Sept 3, my family was excited to get up and get ready to go to Space Center Houston to see Darth Vader, Chewbacca and Wicket, the Ewok at 1:30pm! We had been preparing for a couple of days already.

In preparation, I had found out that kids 12 and under would get into the Space Center for free if they were dressed in Star Wars costumes, so I had been figuring out how I could come up with costumes for my younger 2 at the last minute.

For my 5 year old, I already had a full-length long-sleeved white dress that was the under-dress for a ren-faire dress that she had, so I bought a silver belt for her and decided to put her hair in "cinnamon bun" style and "Voila!" she would be Princess Leia! She loves to be princesses all the time anyway so that would work well for her!

The 12 year old would be a little trickier. I went to Target and Wal-Mart, but they didn't have their Halloween costumes out yet (won't for another 2 weeks) and I didn't really figure they would have SW costumes this year anyway. However, right down the road there was a Party City, which has costumes all the time. Saturday, we went there and we found no girls SW costumes, but did find 3 boys costumes; Darth Vader, Clone Trooper and Obi-Wan Kenobi. I told her that she could easily work with one of those, especially Clone Trooper or Obi-Wan, as she could with the Trooper outfit be a female or with the Obi-Wan, just be a female Jedi, not be Obi-Wan specifically. She opted for the Obi-Wan outfit.

Not wishing to be left out, my oldest (14 years) wanted to dress up at least a little, so she wanted me to see if they at least had some sort of a Jedi robe she could wear. They did have an adult Jedi costume, but wanted $50 for the thing!!!! I said, "NO WAY!!!" I did find a brown monk robe costume for only $15 and, although it was closed in front, I figured I could just cut the front open and it would be just perfect. We did just that and her costume was great!

I wore the Star Wars shoes that I painted.

So, Sunday, the 3rd we were all ready and left home at 11:40am, which should have been plenty of time to get there, grab a quick bite to eat, stake out a good spot for the show, etc. since Space Center is only about 30 minutes from where I live. But was it? NOOOOOO! We hit traffic from hades on the way there!!! We didn't get to the Space Center parking lot until 1:20!!! (Remember the show was supposed to start at 1:30!!) We went up to the ticket booth and got in line (one of several). We finally got up to the front. My luck changed (a little). I told the guy I had some costumed kids and he let all 3 of the girls in for free (that was cool!). So, we got our tickets. We rushed in as it was already 1:32 at this point. We asked where the show was and had to practically run to get there and, of course, there was a mass of people. We went up to the side and the first thing we saw was this REALLY COOL robot of R5D4!!! I had to take a picture, of course! We couldn't get through on the side and couldn't see anything so we started to move around toward the back and the other side of the area.

Now, I'm not even 5'1" and was at the back of this group of people trying to see. The show had begun. The characters weren't out yet; they were doing some announcements and giveaways. We found a little groove where we could get in and see a little bit, so we settled in there. I stood my youngest up on a table so she could see and my 12 year old worked her way up toward the front (this is significant; you'll see why). My oldest is tall; she moved up a little and was able to take some decent pics (I hope; they're on my regular camera which I'll have developed in the next couple of days).

The next thing they did was a costume contest (kids only, of course), but they stipulated that they were only going to pull up 10 kids. The host chose one child and then he sent his assistant out to pick other kids. Guess who got chosen as one of the 10? You guessed it! My 12 year old! Only because she worked her way up closer (well, that and because she has a tendency to get in people's faces and make herself known ). Ok, so anyway, they had their 10. They went down the line, had each one come up, do a pose tell who they were and what character and then after the host went down the line and had the audience clap and cheer for each contestant in turn. He said everyone was great and that they were all winners! Each child received a copy of a DVD! Guess what DVD? The new one!!! He announced it as ROTJ, but my child recieved ANH, so I think different kids got different movies. Anyway, point is they got the ones that are being released on the 12th in advance! I couldn't believe it! She was so excited!!

Next, they did some more giveaways, this time in the form of trivia questions. My oldest this time got to answer a question and got a really cool t-shirt! It was a tour shirt that says, "US Tour 2006" with drawings of Darth, Chewie and Wicket on it. Awesome! It is a NEAT shirt and I wasn't able to buy one, but I'm glad she got one and she is really enjoying it already!!

Here are the two of them with their prizes!

At about 2:25, they announced that the characters were coming back out for photo ops. As we were approaching the stage, we were to send our kids on the stage with the characters and the adults were to get in front of the stage to take the pictures. We got up to the stage and I saw a lady standing up at the front who looked very nice and I went to her and asked if she would take our picture so I could be in the shot and she agreed (thank goodness). So here we are (I don't know what my girls were looking at). I hope on my regular camera, they were looking out, but we'll see.

We stayed at the Space Center until it closed and did the activities there and then ate dinner and came home. Then, we watched the unaltered original version of A New Hope ~ er~ excuse me... Star Wars!!!! (Well, it wasn't called "A New Hope" then, was it.)