Well, my family invited a bunch of our friends and my cousins over and we had some food and played games till the new year. It was really fun! 🙂

I participated in an ee LotR marathon yesterday! 😀

YAY, ARIEL!

OK, so I promised I would write about our meeting with Ariel, and I'm here to do that now before I go off to clean my room and get ready for school to start on Monday.

So, first, we left the campsite waaaay too late to be on time to meet Ariel. When Kristi and the E's drove off, Gypsy and I staggered around a bit and then "died" in the middle of the street just because we wanted to. We left ten minutes after they did and arrived ahead of them. But we were supposed to be forty-five minutes away meeting Ariel. So I texted her to tell her we were late but didn't tell her how late so she ended up sitting at a McD's for 45 minutes waiting for most of the crowd. And I forgot to tell Benisse too, so she and Ariel got to sit together for a while, which wasn't so bad for them 🙂

Kristi and I had driven together (she sang to me about Anne Boleyn's head on the way) and we got there last. I asked Mom which of the peeps were Ariel because they'd already been there and my stomach was turning flips and I didn't want to think about who she was 😛 and Mom told me the wrong person in Ariel's group, so I marched up to one of her friends (who I thought looked nothing like Ariel should in any way, seriously) and accused her of being Ariel. And that was REALLY EMBARRASSING. And then I turned around to see the real Ariel and was like... "OH, I KNOW that face!" I hugged Ariel.

Then the E's and everyone else came over and stood around and looked awkward and nobody wanted to sit down. So Ariel's friend moved and we stood around a table for two and talked to Ariel. Ariel gave me a pretty star ornament ^.^ holding a match... 😛 I gave Ariel a scarf. Benisse made everyone pretty angel flakes! Ariel and I were pretty much the only people talking the whole time except for Elanor a little bit.

Ariel's friend looked like Flynn and when I told him that he headdesked. I stopped calling him his real name and started calling him Flynn. That amused everyone, including him, and eventually he even signed my archivist calendar as Flynn!!!! ^.^ He was one of two guys present. Ethan and Flynn.

And there's that one detail I can't tell you about because it's top secret and is going in the vault (you know, the thing that doesn't exist).

And we took some group pictures and then I told Ariel to back away from the table. She'd been picking up her stuff to leave and she looked at me suspiciously and said "Should I be putting these back down?" and I told her yes, and then she did and stepped away from the table and I hugtackled her and she went "UFF!" Which made me very very very very happy because she goes uff online when I hugtackle her too, and she does it in real life instead of oof ^.^

And I lost my archivist calendar so they all had to sign on the back of my mcdonald's receipt. And now I've found the calendar and have taped the receipt in.

Ariel, anything you'd like to add from your viewpoint? 🙂 or Ela? 🙂 or Benisse? 🙂

*dies* Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I soooooooo wish I'd been there!

That sounds so awesome! Wish I could've been there! 🙂

I was surprised how much I did talk. *Isn't much of a chatty hobbit* It was great fun and I'm so happy we were able to go. ^.^

I talked a lot too! I surprised myself. 😛

That's great you guys! I'm glad ya'll had a fun time!!

@ella: since this is the chat thread I guess it's a good place to say this: you and Eria did a great job on mine and always' Fili & Bilbo dolls! Thank you for your hard work!

...Fili and Bilbo dolls?

Thanks Shi! We're happy that you like them. ^.^

@Hobbit: I posted pictures of them in Artist's Corner. 🙂

Yeah, Gypsy talked more than I expected of her 😀 and Ela did talk a bit too 🙂
@hobbit -- Ela and Eria helped me and Gypsy by making Shi and Ann's Christmas presents this year ^.^ they're the most adorable little things!

I suppose the first order of business is to thank Tenny for having arranged the powwow and my RL friends who were so kind as to share me with total strangers for a couple precious hours.

*cracks fingers and proceeds to tell her side of the story*

Well. My friends and I got to the rendezvous point something like twenty minutes early. Benisse showed up later and asked us if we were Narnian people. To my shame, my first response was, "Pardon?" even though I recognized her immediately. *headdesk* So we shared a hug and she sat down. I presented to her the present I'd made for her (a 3-D -ish picture of a manger and a cross) and she gave me an angel flake (a paper snowflake, but with angel shapes) before proceeding to cut out more angel flakes for my friends. I feel really bad about the fact that my friends carried far more of the conversation with Benisse than I did; I just didn't know what to say for most of it. 😕

Tenny texted me about being late, so we waited and talked in the meantime. Then I noticed Gyps, Elanor, and Eria testing the waters not too far away; I recognized Gyps immediately and assumed the identities of Elanor and Eria, but I didn't know if I should go up to them or if I should let them come to me, so I just stayed put. Kristi and Tenny came and Benisse went over to say hi to everyone before confirming that, yes, I was over there. 😛 And Tenny already told you about how she marched up to one of my friends and asked if she was me. What she didn't add was that I'd no idea she (Tenny) felt embarrassed by the episode, so I think she hid that bit well enough. 🙂

And then, yeah. We stood around awkwardly. Kristi and Benisse had a much easier time of it, what with chatting with each other and even with my friends. I was again stumped as to what on earth to say, so I wasn't really any help (and probably just made it more awkward with my attempts (:oops: I really need to work on my meeting-new-people skills...)). Oh, and I handed out the rest of the presents at that juncture. Tenny already mentioned hers (a semi-inside joke between the two of us). Gyps got a hot-glue snowflake ornament, Eria got a leaf pendant, Ethran got the Arkenstone (... I took it as my fourteenth share? 😛 ), Elanor got a Big Hero 6 sketch, and Kristi got Narnian teabag holders. (I'll post pictures of these at some point in various threads so you can see.) And then I was given presents too (only one of which I knew I was getting): Tenny and Gyps gave me a red scarf/shawl, the E's gave me chocolate and a crochet Sherlock-bear (*squee!*), and Kristi gave me a hunk of chocolate shaped like Lucy's cordial (and since it's too pretty to eat, I have a photograph of it and the chocolate itself is still in my freezer :D). And I did some business with Elanor and Eria, which gained me a crocheted Baymax (which I love to pieces, down to his festive little bow tie! ^.^ ) and on-order Hiccup and Toothless. 😀 (And Tenny teased us about doing business at the party, heehee.)

In defence of Gyps, Eria, and Ethran, they did speak. Tenny just wasn't around to see the bulk of that action. 😛

So... yeah. Some more chatting, photo-taking (which one of my friends kindly took care of for us), and such. Oh, and I met Tenny and Gyps' parents as well as Mr and Mrs E (which was nice to do after they spent so much time watching the rest of us, haha). The E's left for home first, so then it was us five TLCers and my friends left. And my friends and I signed Tenny's receipt. And she hugtackled me and I did in fact say "uff!" as I do online. And then my friends and I left. I've no idea what happened after that, but when my friends asked me how I thought it went and if it was what I'd expected, I responded positively. And then I proceeded with the rest of my weekend (and showed off the red scarf/shawl and Baymax because I could, heehee) 🙂

I'm really glad and thankful that this get-together worked out, especially because I had almost resigned myself to the idea that the chances of such a meeting were very, very small. It was so cool to meet some of the faces behind the screennames and interact with them on a level outside of the inter-webs. 🙂

"We stood around awkwardly." says Ariel. Couldn't say a truer word. XD
Everyone decided to stand up instead of sitting even though there were enough seats. 😛 Except me. I sat down. Thank goodness Eria sat down too, because I felt really uncomfortable being the only person sitting!

Heh, yeah, well. 😀 I think we were kind of in a sort of shock of being in that setting with that number of people. 🙂

Eria and Ethran can tell you that I don't normally sit down when we go places, save when it's an absolute must. 😛 It's just a weird habit of mine.

I also wanted to add a little of my/our side trying to figure out if we should approach you or not:
When we arrived I noticed the party of just the amount of people we knew would be there but I was too shy to go nearer. I asked Eria to come with me several times, taking her softly by the arm and venturing a tiny bit closer, but she just shook her head and whispered, "Noooo." We wandered from just outside the McD's to the inside and circled a table. By this time I felt really awkward because I was positive who Ariel was and knew she probably knew who we were (I was sure my sweatshirt and bag were telling enough :p ). Anyway, in came Gyps and I tried to encourage her to go over with me but she didn't want to go either. So we all settled on waiting for Tenny because we knew she'd be able to go over without much of a problem. 😛