Catnip's Blog
June 13 Circus Circus Signing
June 17, 2009After a crazy Friday morning of last-day-of-school parties at my kids' school, we grabbed a quick lunch and hit the road, Friday, June 12th for the 5 1/2 hour drive to Vegas!
We arrived, checked in, and then went straight to the MF store to buy our items for the signing. But we walk in and there are JD, Costa, and Dimitra! We started looking around and JD came right over and asked if we knew about the signing. I said that I got the email and that I read the directions over and over to get it right. He laughed and I told him I'm a Loyal. So then I asked him if he had any tips regarding the signing the next day, like what time to arrive. He said, "well, don't show up at 6am like some people have done!" He said since I'm a Loyal to show up at noon and that I'd be fine. Then he asked my kids if they watched the show and my 9-year-old daughter started saying yes, but then stopped mid-sentence and said, "well, no, my mom watches." Ack! So embarassing! But JD said, "Thank you for being honest." So a bit later, I went to pay, and while at the counter, I showed JD my VIP Loyal card and said, "See! I came prepared." He laughed. Off we went to eat dinner. It was around 8pm and we were all starving. But on our way back to our room after eating, we stopped by the store again to take pictures.
Then an up close of Criss's signature and date on the table from the original store opening on 6-6-09:
So then I walked over to JD and said, "I came back with the camera JD!" And he right away offered to take a family picture. Costa asked him if I knew about the signing and JD told him, "Oh yeah, she's a Loyal...she knows." Ha!
I said my thank-yous and that we'd see them the next day.
So Saturday, June 13th we walked by the store around 9:30am after getting breakfast and there were already people lined up outside the store. So we went exploring to find the pool because that was our afternoon activity after the signing :) Found it, walked around some more, then headed up to the room to get ready. Came back down around 11:30am and didn't see JD yet. But they moved the line of people from in front of the store to inside the AdventureDome. So we kinda wandered around there until I finally found JD. He was talking with security and I tapped him on his shoulder when he was done and he recognized me and said, "Come with me. You're in the VIP line." Another Loyal, April, was with us and off we went.
That's the line and my kids in front! My daughter was nervous being first in line, so when the actual signing started, we let another Loyal and her older daughter go first and we went second :) But while we were waiting, Dimitra was helping behind the counter and JD was in the store answering questions and dealing with the madness....the entire family is so great:
And at 1:40pm, we hear screaming from the crowd and here comes our man! He stopped just feet from me so the crowd could take pictures:
So our turn comes....ack! I hand JD my calendar with a post-it note with my name and my kids' name on it (so Criss knows what to sign) and then my camera went to Tommy. I had told the kids ahead of time that they would go on one side of Criss and that I'd go on the other....gotta plan ahead! While I was walking around the table and putting my backpack on the floor, I said "Hey Criss." He was looking down, busy signing our calendar and said "Hey, how's it going?" And then it was picture-time quick! Tommy got irritated because I forgot to turn on my camera....oops! So JD then told the people in line to have their cameras ready....so embarassing! But then we got this...
After the picture, Criss turned to the kids and said, "So you're Lilah and you're Luke." And my kids are super-shy and got tongue-tied and probably didn't say a thing (I couldn't hear cuz I was still on the other side of Criss) so then he said, "You know you guys have a cool mom." Ack!! faint I didn't have anything fabulous to say (I'm so bad at that! Gee, wonder why my kids are wallflowers too, eh?) So I went to get the calendar and Criss had left his Sharpie on top of it. I said, "This is mine" (grabbing the calendar) "and this is yours Criss." He laughed and I said thank you and off we went. Ahhhhh.....it was so much fun. JD did say that they were gonna be doing some filming in the new store this week because he asked me if I was a local. But I told him, unfortunately not.....from Los Angeles. I've never done a solo driving trip like that with the kids and have to admit, I was was nervous going across Death Valley with them (ha!), but it was a fun weekend (the kids spent 3 hours in the Adventure Dome Saturday night!) and we'll definitely go back....and maybe even bring hubby next time. ;)
Thanks for reading my novel! - Cathy