msn name - hannah is the lord of the rings

So, now that I've seen it twice, including once last night so Caleb could finally partake of it's glory, I can finally speak of my fabulous Lord of the Rings adventure.

Around the time people got back to Truman, we started planning a group viewing of Lord of the Rings in December (further proof that planning months ahead works with me). Details for it all weren't settled until after Thanksgiving break, when the rest of us signed up on a line party set up at a "local" (for some people) St. Louis theatre. By joining the line party that meant that someone else was in charge of getting our tickets, and we had a guaranteed spot at the front of the line for our 8:30 showing. A bunch of us planned to meet at someone's house near the theatre, get dressed and apply fake ears, and meet the rest of the group.

(Of course, I'm going to leave out of this my fun adventure when I realized I hadn't involved either of my parents in the final planning process and had to change quite a few plans around. This is also how I ended up at Krista's house from Wednesday morning until Thursday afternoon-ish. Anyway.)

Early Wednesday morning, I showed up at Krista's house. She was putting the finishing touches on her tiara/circlet/hair thingy, so I hung out, played with shiny things, and laughed at her super gluing her fingers together. Her dog--Caesar, who's approximately Hannah sized--kept coming over, leaving, coming over, leaving, etc. We watched an insipid fashion special on E! both enjoying and mocking the commentary by the crazy designer dude.

We kept jumping at the phone, hoping it would be Megan and Ben, calling to say they were coming over. Finally, they called, and Krista and I decided to plop on costumes during the half hour it would take for the two of them to arrive. Krista was working on her hair when Megan and Ben arrived, so they quickly put on their own costumes and got to work on their respective elf ears.

We left the house about 3:30-ish to grab food (oh, such good food) and made a quick stop at Walgreens so Megan could buy a disposable camera. After walking back from practices in my tutu, I'm kinda used to people giving me weird looks, so I enjoyed the good people of St. Louis thinking I'd lost my mind.

The line party was meeting at the theatre at 5:30, but we arrived around 4:15. The four of us finally met up with Annie and a few other people I personally didn't know (but did know Krista and Annie), and compared costumes while waiting to be let inside. Once the fine folks of AMC cleared out an inside line queue, everyone moved to the much warmer inside. Goodie bags were handed out--yay, bookmarks! tattoos! glowy light-up rings!!--and Uno cards were pulled out for the long wait.

After the most hideously long game of Uno ever (it didn't help that nobody could remember which direction we were playing half the time and the person I didn't know playing said "oh? my turn?" more times during the one game than I have during my entire life), and a brief costume contest where Annie essentially won twice (she made both her and the third place winner's costumes), time was getting closer. Unfortunately, this is also when some AMC worker apparently decided it wasn't warm enough in the theatre because the temp suddenly increased by a zillion degrees. During this was the trivia contest (good lord, of course I didn't get on a team for this) and finally the door prizes. Every number *around* mine was called, but not mine personally.

Now that basically everyone not associated with the line party but still standing behind us in line hated us (we did try to bribe them with bookmarks, but it didn't really help), we finally got to go into the theatre. Sullivan theatre, why couldn't you be like this one? Not only was it stadium seating, but the seats looked like they belonged in an airplane. Sure I'm short, but they were too tall for every tall person in our group.

The film was fabulous. I don't even need to tell you that anymore; everyone else in the universe has done it for me. My only comment? If they don't even nominate Sean Astin for an Oscar, there are crimes against humanity going on.

The movie got out sometime after one, so we regrouped in the lobby, divided up cars, and headed to Steak 'n Shake to hang out. [Before we left, I ran into the guy who helped with my freshman week class (who I then had an LSP class with) who had graduated last year and got to chat with him for a bit.] We were basically the only people in the restaurant, which was good because we were fairly obnoxious the entire time. Trust me, the waitress (Sherry!) got a great tip for putting up with us.

It was about three a.m. by the time we got back to Krista's house after bidding farewell and happy holidays to Megan and Ben in the Shake parking lot. We were mostly awake and definitely full of eeee!!!! energy, so one of Krista's friends came over and we popped in "Lilo and Stitch." Only about a third of the way in, we decided we shouldn't try to finish it that night since we all crashed around the same time. Bedtime? 4:15 a.m.

The next morning flew by, mostly because it was barely left whenever we got up. After finishing Lilo, Krista's dad cooked us a fabulous breakfast (bacon!) and Annie came over to drive Krista and me back to Sullivan. Did I crash on the couch after getting home? Of course. Did I have the greatest time ever hanging out with TSU folk? You bet.