Foo to You

(Yes, of course that's me in the gorgeous long blond hair. And I did have more fun that night).

Obert Skye launched his fifth book in the Leven Thumps series - Leven Thumps and the Wrath of Ezra. It's a great series and I have loved it for a number of years. I cajoled him into coming up to Parley's when I worked there and he gave us a fabulous presentation about imagination and believing in yourself. He even gave me an extra large t-shirt to cover my swollen, ripe fetus and a super cool purple lanyard with a fancy key on it. His book, Leven Thumps and the Whispered Secret had just come out so it was very special. I had waited two years for him to come and it was worth the wait. He even mentioned that there may be a movie in the works!

Th girls and I had been working on summarizing the first book and practicing our reading strategies by putting together a short film using iMovie. We created the characters, wrote the scripts, filmed and edited it, complete with sound effects and voice overs. It was quite the production and we finally finished it last week, just in time for the Wrath of Ezra launch party.

Almost.

We actually left the house to make it to the party on time with the movie compressing and only 45 minutes to go. We didn't want to miss anything at the party so we had to leave. I had the movie completely finished at 2:30am the night before, but as I clicked to save it ONE LAST TIME -

IT ERROR-ED AND I LOST THE WHOLE THING!!!!

Don't ask me how it happened but it was devestating. YES, I cried, ok? It was SO MUCH WORK! Come to find out, the last copy that DID save was from the day before so all was not entirely lost. I had completed about FIVE extra hours on the final version so I did my best to make up those five hours the next day, which was the day of the author signing.

Reluctantly, we left the movie with 45 more minutes of compression and got Clover's ears and my kilve and Leven's backwards Wonder Wipes t-shirt and headed off to the party.   We wanted to be able to hand him our little amateur masterpiece, but decided we could find another way to get it to him. The girls were immediately in character the second we walked out the door and we had a blast talking in voices, coming up with Fooian zingers and screaming at the thought of seeing Sabine following us.  I felt like a kid again and it was so fun.  

The fine employees of Barnes and Noble gave us wristbands when we got there, telling us that we would be in the group of 100-110 to meet the author. I guess there were a few other people who had heard of the book. 

But had they heard that there was a COSTUME CONTEST? 

I think not, because we only saw two other people in costume. About 35 min. later, they had won the contest and got a supercool bag full of goodies.  The competition wasn't over, though.  They were announcing winners each hour or so.  There was still a chance for us.  What am I saying?  It was just a matter of time before we won.  I always win stuff.  

We got our faces painted, checked out the author's line and took our chance at tossing a "Foo Flyer" into Clover's void.  All three of us missed the mark the first time around.  
As we got back in line hanging our heads in shame (it shouldn't have been THAT hard - it was for kids!), we met a cute family of three young boys with their mom.  Two of the boys were twins and the youngest had seen the author at his school that day.  They tried their luck at sinking the flyer, but only their mom was successful - TWICE!  And then, while we gave up and moved to the author's line, the youngest GAVE US HIS FLYER.  What a doll!  Seriously we were so excited.  It was such a sweet act of kindness and all three of us were touched.  The girls even commented that this was the best night EVER and we had just barely gotten in line to see the author!  I love that....

Finally, Mr. Skye was in our sights and he smiled as he saw our costumes coming.  I reminded him of Park City and who I was and he remembered me!  I also said that we were bearing gifts again (I had brought him a small gift from my class at the last book signing a few years back) but that we didn't get a chance to finish burning the movie to bring it.  He was so flattered and genuinely excited and it made us even more excited (if that's possible).  He gave me his email address (awesome!) so I could email him the information about the movie or so he could let me know where to send it.  

We left on cloud 9 with our Foo Flyer, our signed books and posters, pencils and stickers and Imagination Journals and THEN!  They awarded me with the final costume contest prize of the night.  I got the purple, gold and black Leven Thumps bag (I love how everything is purple, Jen) and inside was more of what we got at the table but also a swanky tee, a Foo Flyer of my very own and another lanyard with a key!  The girls immediately thought it would be the best idea to give the family the key, since they had been so nice to us.  We already had one, and it would probably mean more to them anyway.  They ran to go give it to them and they were all smiles.  Check out their version of the night here.

What a great night.  And when we got back to the cottage, the film had finished compressing, but I was glad it didn't make it into Mr. Skye's hands because we had a few mistakes that still needed to be fixed.  It had to be perfect!  I also couldn't get it to load on YouTube because it was 15 minutes, which I guess is too long.  We'll get it one of these times.