Sitting in the airport ... again!

Having spent yesterday at The Ramada ... playing on t'interweb ... & catching up on sleep ... Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl had to get up at 2am to catch the shuttle bus back to SEATAC yet again ...

The dynamic duo are currently blogging from their seats opposite the check-in desks ... which rather worryingly are not manned yet ... but having checked the board, it looks like our flight to Houston is leaving on time ... what will happen with our onward flight to Newark is anybody's guess as they are apparently expecting more snow this afternoon ...!

The only bonus of being delayed was that the girls got to watch the new episode of TVD in their room last night ... ;o)

Sleeping in Seattle ... again ...!

After saying goodbye to Chas & Ruby, Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl checked into the Red Roof Inn near SEATAC, before having dinner at Denny's down the road & returning their rental car ...








Having re-packed their cases for their flight home ... the girls embarked on a relatively early night, in preparation for their 3.45am alarm call ...

Unfortunately, Alice's 'visions' were clearly impaired by the early hour, as although things initially went quite smoothly ... this all went pear-shaped when they got to the bag drop & were met by a Continental rep who kindly informed them that their flight to Newark had been cancelled due to the airport being under 2-3 ft of snow & therefore, shut to all flights ...!

After waiting in line for around 45 minutes, the check-in assistant advised Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl that the earliest she could get them on a flight would be 6.10am the next morning ... & that flight would be to Houston ... at this point the girls got quite excited that they may get the chance to see Jasper on his horse ...?

However, she then went on to advise them that they would be picking up a connecting flight to Newark an hour later ... so that they could catch the 7pm flight to Birmingham ...

This unfortunate development meant that Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl then had the dilemma of whether to spend almost 24 hrs in the airport ... or to try to get a room in a nearby motel ... they understandably chose the latter option & got on the phone ...!




10 minutes later ... having spoken to 'Kristen' on the phone ... they were waiting for the shuttle bus to the Ramada ...









Having checked in & phoned home ... Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl did the only sensible thing ... & headed down to Denny's for breakfast ... picking up drinks & snacks for the rest of the day on the way back, to spend the day watching the movie channel ...

Fingers crossed that Benjamin will be able to control the snowfall on the east coast for long enough for the intrepid pair to get home without further delays ....

From Forks ... to Hogwarts ...

Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl were up early on their last morning at The Cullen House ... not because they were eager to leave ... but because they had more shopping to do before they left Forks ...!



Alice was delighted to discover that it was gingerbread pancakes for breakfast ... having read about how fab they were in their room's journal ...!

Then, after saying "Goodbye" to the Cullens ... the girls finally left ... & headed to the Thriftway ... where they picked up a couple more things ... including another Twi-fan, who they took with them to Leppells ... where they'd been coveting a Twilight in Forks mug since they arrived on Monday ...

By now, Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl were feeling a little like minor celebrities in Forks ... as most of the shop-keepers seemed to be recognising them from their trip last summer ... so much so that the girl in Sully's burger bar commented on it .. & the man in Native even re-opened the store after he had closed & gave them discount ...!



Just before 10am, the girls reluctantly dragged themselves away from their favourite place & headed through the stunning Washington scenery back towards Seattle ...

When you see the way the mist hangs in the trees like cotton wool ... you can really understand why Stephenie Meyer picked this area of the Pacific Northwest as the backdrop for her amazing stories ...

After a short pit-stop at Target in Silverdale ... Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl drove back into Seattle to meet Chas & Ruby at the Harry Potter Exhibition in the Pacific Science Centre ... which although quite expensive ... proved to be very good ... & included outfits worn by Rob ...!









Sparkling Alice even managed to make one last Twi-related purchase in the shop at the end of the exhibition ....! ;o)

Decisions ... decisions ...

Our first morning at The Cullen House ... & Sparkling Alice is faced with the difficult decision of what to have for breakfast ... do I be good & stick to the fruit ... or do I be bad & have some of those delicious danish ...?

Even more difficult were the shopping dilemmas ....

do I like it ...?

do I need it ...?

do I want it ...?

can I afford it ...?

how much is left on my credit card ...?

will it go in my case ...?

When they'd finished their shopping expedition, Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl went down to First Beach at La Push again, to look for Jacob ...

Wolf Girl spotted his paw prints in the sand ... & decided to follow them ...

... & found that they led back to his house ... where as the car repair business had dried up ... he had branched out into holiday lets ...

By this time it was late in the afternoon, & there was much discussion about where to eat ... as the girls had been informed that The Lodge had closed down last weekend ... various recommendations included The Rivers Edge (specialising in seafood & therefore, not high on Alice's list), & The Smokehouse (which also seemed to have a picture of a fish on the sign ...) ... so as there was a shortage of mountain lions available & all the grizzlies have hibernated ... Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl decided to do the only sensible thing ... & grab a Bella Burger & Butterscotch Milkshake from Sully's ...!

Whilst there, they decided to purchase a second milkshake each ... to enjoy whilst watching Eclipse at The Cullen House later that evening ... having already watched New Moon the previous night ...!

Fun in Forks with friends ...

As they had travelled separately, the girls had arranged to call Chas once they got to Forks ... unfortunately, Wolf Girl realised they had not made a note of her number ... but Sparkling Alice had a vision of them visiting the Chamber of Commerce, & sure enough Chas & Sonia pulled in about 10 minutes after they had ...


Here we all are getting re-acquainted with the Cullen Clan ...









... being a medical student, Chas wasted no time in checking out Edward's non-existant heartbeat ...















... but after the excitement of this encounter ... she needed a calming influence ... so got up close & personal with a certain Jasper Hale ...

Wolf Girl had managed to negotiate a pact with the wolf pack, so that Sparkling Alice could join them on a trip to La Push at twilight ...

... & there was much hilarity, due in some part to the fact that Alice did not foresee herself falling over the driftwood on the beach despite the light of the new moon ...

... & the falling rain & temperature failed to eclipse the fun being had ...

... until it was time for Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl to say goodbye to Chas & Sonia ... & head back to their beds at The Cullen House before breaking dawn ...

Time to visit the Cullens ...

Bright & early Monday morning, Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl were up & packed, & on their way back towards the airport to pick up a hire car for their trip to visit their friends, the Cullens, in Forks ...

There was a little concern when Wolf Girl couldn't reach the pedals & couldn't figure out how to move the car seat, especially when Alice couldn't foresee which page the instructions were on in the manual ...! The girls also had slight issues initially with the size of the boot ... as it didn't look big enough to fit in the luggage they'd already got ... let alone allow for the amount of shopping that was likely to take place in Dazzled ...!





As soon as they had cleared the Thrifty forecourt, Sparkling Alice cranked up the music with the Streetdance CD to ensure that Wolf Girl stayed awake whilst driving ...











The dynamic duo were finally looking forward to seeing the Pacific North West as it should be ... wet & overcast ... however their hopes were dashed when the sun put in a rather untimely appearance as they were heading for Port Angeles!










... they needn't have worried as before long the inevitable happened ... & it started to rain in true Washington style ...












... & the girls were also delighted to find Crescent Lake coated in a rather eerie mist ....











At one point, Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl got very excited when they thought they had spotted Damon sitting in a tree ... however, having performed an emergency stop ... they were rather disappointed to discover it was only an eagle ...

Happy Hour at Contour in Seattle ...

After a couple of hours back at the Ramada ... we were joined by our Hawaiian hunny, Chas ... who we'd spent many hours with on a San Diego sidewalk in June of last year ... patiently waiting for another glimpse of Peter Facinelli ...!

Having spent several years studying in Seattle, Chas knows all the best places to go & took us to one of her favourite places to eat ... Contour ...

Here we are ... enjoying a good girlie catch-up & some fab food ...

The morning after the night before ...

Despite a pretty late night due to blogging duties following their success at the Volturi Ball ... Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl were up with the larks, & heading back down to the Westin Hotel, to have breakfast with the four stars from the movie ... Booboo, Julia, Tinsel & Tyson ...

Booboo Stewart was the first guest to join our table ... & we were delighted to discover that he had brought his birthday cake with him to share with us ... & very nice it was too ...!

We were then joined in turn by Tyson, Julia & Tinsel, who all chatted casually with each of the guests around the table, both answering and asking questions.

After breakfast Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl paid a quick visit to the photo booth to check on the result of their photo op of the day before ... we were delighted to find that we both liked the picture that had been done ... despite neither of us remembering having looked at the camera ... let alone smiling! But as this meant that we wouldn't need to pay to re-pose the photo ... we headed into the vendors' room to spend our $100 prize money ...!

Once we had made our choices ... which consisted of a long-sleeve top, 2 T-shirts & an Alice doll ... we went back to our seats in the main auditorium to listen to the 'Ladies of the Wolf Pack' Q&A session with Tinsel & Julia ... who were both very entertaining!

All of the Q&A sessions had been hosted by Hannah & Hilli Hindi from The Hillywood Show ... dressed very convincingly in costume as Alice & Bella ...

Tyson who plays Quil was on stage next doing Q&A ...

There was another run of the 'Yes/No' game, & also another auction with more Twi-related items ... meaning that Sparkling Alice had to spend much of the time sitting on her hands again ..!

... & then Booboo Stewart made his final appearance at the convention ... at one point insisting in coming down amongst the audience to answer any questions personnally ...!

Finally at around 3.30pm our visit to the Seattle Twilight Convention ended ... & we made our way back to the Ramada Hotel having had the most amazing weekend ... & one which we definitely expect to repeat someday ...! ;o)

The Volturi-less Ball ...

After chilling out back at the Ramada for a couple of hours ... Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl got their glad-rags on & headed back to The Westin for the Volturi Ball ...


Although it was only actually about 3 blocks walk away ... they opted to take a taxi due to the fact that they weren't sure if Wolf Girl would make it that far in her heels without breaking a bone or two ...!








... where they were greeted by Hannah & Hilly Hindi of The Hillywood Show ... who looked absolutely stunning as Alice & Bella ...

Much to her surprise, Wolf Girl won the award for 'Best Ball Attire' ... but in her acceptance speech she had to thank Sparkling Alice for picking the dress ... & Rach for lending her the beautiful necklace ...

The girls wasted no time in starting to plan what they were going to buy with the $100 prize fund ...!

During the evening we were joined at our tables by the four members of the wolf-pack, who kindly spent time talking with the guests ... with Tinsel even joining some of the girls on the dance floor for a boogie ..!

Sparkling Alice enjoyed another 'Cougar' moment when Booboo gave her a big hug as he said 'goodbye' ... but her hopes were somewhat dashed when she realised that he actually gave every guest a hug as he left each table ...!




Hannah & Hilly Hindi then tried to teach a fairly large group of guests how to do the Lady Gaga Bad Romance dance routine from their Eclipse Parody ... resulting in much hilarity ...

(check out the link below ...)

http://www.thehillywoodshow.com/








Safe to say ... everyone had a truly amazing night ... taking home memories that will surely last forever ...!

Star-gazing in Seattle ...

So after their slight bout of sleeplessness in Seattle, Saturday morning dawned somewhat brighter than the day before ... & earlier than Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl would have liked ...

After a quick breakfast, the girls headed a couple of blocks down the road to the Westin Hotel for the Twilight Convention ... & once they'd received their passes, they made a bee-line for the vendors' room to check out the merchandise on offer ...





On the way round, they stopped by the Hillywood Show stand for a quick photo opportunity ... before making a couple of small purchases to add to their ever-growing collection of Twi-related items ...!













Next on the agenda was a signing session with Booboo Stewart (Seth Clearwater) ... who seemed very taken with our white limited edition Eclipse books ...















... but even more taken by a "red-haired Alice" ... who certainly seemed to be enjoying a 'Cougar' moment ... maybe just a little too much ...!

The first Q&A session in the main auditorium was with Tyson Houseman (Quil) ... who gamely answered all the questions put to him, considering he looked like he'd had less sleep than us!

After the 'Yes/No' game which we both had a go at, unfortunately with limited success, & a talk by fellow blogger, Malicious Mandy ... the lovely Tinsel Korey (Emily) took part in a funny & entertaining Q&A session ... where she made sure that everyone in the room knew that it was Julia Jones' birthday today ...

Next we were treated to the 'Costume Competition' ... which we are unable to go into for legal reasons ... namely we would undoubtedly be sued for liable if we commented further ... suffice to say that the compere had to ask several of the participants which character they had come as ...!

Then we enjoyed a Q&A session with the beautiful Julia Jones (Leah Clearwater) ... who seemed genuinely surprised to be wished "Happy Birthday" by the entire audience ...

Following the 'No minimum bid auction' in which Alice had to sit on her hands on more than one occasion ...

Booboo Stewart came out on stage for his Q&A session ... during which he was presented with a birthday cake to celebrate his 17th birthday yesterday (yes Alice ... that's right ... 17th!) ;o)

Booboo finished his session, Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl made their way to the photo booth to have a picture taken with the four stars ... who seemed to think that we were ever so slightly mad having travelled so far for the event ...!

& then we were able to get our white Eclipse books signed by Julia, Tinsel & Tyson ... each of whom seemed keen to steal the red sharpie that had been purchased especially for this task ...!

A further blog about the evening's Volturi Ball will be posted when we've had some sleep ... but suffice to say ... as usual, we had a ball ...! ;o)

Sleepless in Seattle .....

OK maybe it's the excitement of what's in store for the coming day ... or maybe it's just the fact that they were in bed by 7pm last nite ... but it's currently 3am & Sparkling Alice is sitting up in bed eating the remains of her chocolate brownie (which if you're interested is very good!), & Wolf Girl is still trying to finish the tub of Rocky Road Clusters ...!

As you can see, we're so dedicated that we thought we couldn't miss an opportunity to update the blog ... & make use of this rather appropriate title! ;o)

Sightseeing in Seattle ...

By lunchtime, as the rain had dried up ... Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl decided to try a spot of outdoor sightseeing, & headed to the Space Needle at Seattle Centre ... but had to stop off on the way at the Ramada in order to offload their shopping bags!





A short ride on the Hogwarts Express themed monorail later ...

















... & they were at the foot of the 605ft Space Needle ... & feeling that it really wasn't necessary to take the glass elevator on the outside of the structure ... unless of course, you were feeling the need to throw up .....















After exploring the shopping options here, Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl headed swiftly back to the Westlake Shopping Mall downtown, where they grabbed delicious slices of mushroom pizza.

As they were leaving the mall, Sparkling Alice suggested visiting the Washington State University shop to see if any of the Cullens had been in recently. Whilst in the store the girls were very tempted to purchase some 'Cougar' gear ... before they realised it actually referred to the local sports team ... & not their preference in men ...!

Further hilarity broke out as Wolf Girl was considering the purchase of a 'Cougar' base-layer T-shirt ... which Sparkling Alice rather helpfully explained was to "keep you cool in the winter & warm in the summer ...!" The poor chap behind the desk clearly thought that they'd lost the plot when they dissolved into fits of giggles in the corner & could barely breathe ...

At this point Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl thought it best to make a swift exit & made their way back to the Ramada for a leisurely evening lying on the bed watching Pierce Brosnan murdering Abba songs in Mamma Mia & Channing Tatum strutting his stuff in Step Up ...

One day in ... & the count is already on ...

Despite a very long day's travelling yesterday, Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl were awake early & feeling very hungry ...! So by 5.30am they were sitting on the bed consuming Texas BBQ Pringles as if they were going out of fashion ...!

By 8.00am we had eaten breakfast & were ready to explore Seattle ... but as it was raining, we felt the need to commence our exploring indoors .....

First stop on the expedition was the local Borders book store ... where the girls were delighted to find two Twilight related magazines that they surprisingly hadn't already got in their possession, plus The Alchemist & a Vampire Diaries journal ...








Just around the corner ... Alice discovered All Saints

... this may not be a good idea ...!











While waiting to cross the street to get to the Tourist Information booth that they were heading for ... the girls spotted hoodies that they couldn't possibly live without ... & therefore, had to purchase ...




Some time later ... we made it down to Seattle's famous Pike Place Market ...

but unfortunately, as Alice suffers from a rare form of fish-phobia ... this was the closest she could be persuaded to get ...!







In stark contrast ... when she came across the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory ... Wolf Girl couldn't get close enough fast enough ....

... & emerged some time later with a dark chocolate covered, caramel coated candy apple for herself & a huge chocolate brownie for Alice ...!


So following on in the tradition of their last expedition ... by the end of their first day, Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl had already purchased between them, several books & magazines, a hoodie each & a top from All Saints !

A slight disappointment ...

After almost 5 hours in Newark Airport, Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl boarded another plane to embark on the second leg of their trip ... unfortunately, by the time they were boarded there was no room left in the overhead bins for their carry-on luggage ... so they spent just over 5 & a half hours in rather cramped conditions with various bags around their feet, & coats & hoodies on their laps ... this was not good as the temperature on the plane was something akin to the climate in the Bahamas ...!

Also not good was the onboard entertainment situation ... gone were the free movies, TV shows & games, with which we whiled away the hours on the first leg ... to be replaced by pay-to-view channels ... so we spent the journey in another, possibly more industrious way ... catching up on some much-needed sleep...!

A short taxi-ride later ... & we are now happily camped at the Ramada in downtown Seattle ... having showered & attacked the Pringles & Chewy Rocky Road Clusters ... it's now time for bed!

Tomorrow is another day ....! ;o)

We're on our way ....!

So the day has finally arrived ... Sparkling Alice & Wolf Girl ride again ... (or rather fly again!)

As usual .... with any of their trips ... the day started early .... at 3.00 am to be precise! Wolf Girl had a minor issue when she thought she'd mislaid her camera ... having just moments before replaced the memory card. This was nothing however, compared to the rather more major issue Sparkling Alice had when both the back doors on the car were frozen solid ... & she was forced to undertake a move more reminiscent of a scene from the Dukes of Hazzard ... climbing in over the front seats! Unfortunately, & rather thankfully, Wolf Girl's camera was not handy at the time!

However, we arrived at Birmingham by 6.oo am & cleared check-in swiftly ... heading straight for the nearest Weatherspoons for a delicious breakfast sandwich!

Our Continental flight departed on time & we were pleasantly surprised that the 7 hour flight seemed to pass very rapidly ... possibly mostly due to the fact that each seat had its own entertainment system in the headrest ... which included numerous movies, including Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince, as well as a number of rather addictive games .... so much so that Alice could barely drag herself away from Bejewelled for long enough to eat her in-flight meal ... see below ...!

Dedicated as ever ... we're currently sitting blogging at the gate in Newark Airport, waiting for the internal flight to Seattle ... fingers crossed that we'll have the same entertainment options to help this flight go as quickly...! ;o)

More to follow ................