The Weekend In Review (part 2)

Saturday
Saturday morning I woke up at 600p (I told you it was a nap), showered, walked The Calvinator, got my complimentary Grande Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte and headed back to Reliant Arena. We had an 830a roll call. You lose points if you don't show up.

I had some additional costume work to do and we had work to do to prepare the exhibit hall for the Ball.

In addition to having our quarterly meeting on Saturday morning, the new royalty was named by Captain Ty. I had guessed it right a few months ago. The new king and queen were quite deserving of the honor.

On my way home from Reliant Arena to NoRO I decided to stop and have some quesadillas, chips and salsa at Berryhill. I SO WANTED a Margarita but I knew that I would crash and burn later in the afternoon.

I got home and The Calvinator was visiting with our guests. He loves it when they come to visit because they pay attention to him. I only had a couple of hours before I had to return to Reliant Arena so I cleaned up, walked The Calvinator and headed back to Reliant Arena. (repetitive behavior again)

1,000 Krewe guests enjoyed oversized costumes, adult beverages, fun music and Mardi Gras beads. This was our first year to use Reliant Arena so the venue was to new Krewe members and guests. In the words of Project Runway's Tim Gunn, Captain Ty Burns made it work.

This year's theme was Olympus at the Library. The Dewey Decimal System set the order for presentation of the costumes. As with all things Olympus, in some cases we kinda sorta stretched some ideas and asked our guests to use their imaginations.

The ball is a version of a tableau ball. I'm always amazed how creative people can be when it comes to putting these costumes together. I never could have done mine without Stuart and Daniel's help. This is the fifth costume that Stuart has helped me with and all five of them have been different in their structure. He does a great job of figuring out how to make the frame and then I make it come to live with different mediums.

These are some photos from backstage. Please keep in mind that in some form or fashion, these costumes are attached to a person. And yes, they're huge! Huge I tell ya! ...

Table decorations and gift bags with favors for my guests
They complemented my costume.

The War of 1812
Women's Rights
Zoology
Voodoo

Pavlov's Dog (Conditional Responses)

Sex Education

Cooking (with Paula Dean)

Van Gogh

The Devil Wears Prada

Returning Royalty backpieces and trains

New Royalty backpieces and trains

Outgoing queen & incoming queen

Queen Kaylynn Burns & Ball Captain Ty Burns

Me with the new queen and the ball captain

I didn't get to take any photos once the Ball started so like I said, imagine those costumes attached to people dressed in attire to go with the huge backpieces.

more details to follow