Brought to you by Julie.
(with comments by Erika in blue) (Brigitte in yellow) (Lorena in red)
Technically there are two starting points since I was there way before hand. We were already decked out in our lab coats and Emily showed up rather early so we got things moving pretty fast. She brought in a science experiment book with "cool tricks" so we could entertain little kids before the event started. Sad to say only one worked. Apparently one was suppose to use the static from rubbing a balloon on your head to turn on a light bulb, all that did was mess up Em's hair. We ended up only doing the Frankenstein hand trick, then started blowing up balloons to decorate the event room.
(2nd starting point) It all started when we arrived at Books & Books. Brigitte and Lorena were already there in lab coats and handed us our own. While putting them on , noticed the signing room was already set up with chairs and on one end was an awesome banner that read “Books & Books Middle School Science Fair.” I then began the tedious task of putting my hair into a messy yet not too messy bun, which was difficult, yet it eventually got done.
I helped tie a couple balloons and then placed the balloons near the gate. Erika and I started to put up streamers where you enter the book signing room, but then we were told they were going to put a curtain there so we only put up a few. (That was a waste of a few minutes...) Meanwhile Brigitte and I were tying balloons to the rail above the shelves. Needless to say Brigitte is quite short, I'm not all that tall myself, and Julie had the ladder. So this seemed to be quite an impossible task. Miraculously our friend Euckee arrived with great timing. And with him being a giant and all, we dumped our balloon work on him. After that we had the task of making the podium look pretty, so we (being Erika and I) added streamers and balloons to it. The room looked pretty nice once we were done with it.
Next the task came of greeting people by the gate. We gave every child who was coming to the signing a little “gift package” consisting of: 1 Science Fair bookmark, 1 YAthenaeum bookmark, 1 test tube with an excerpt from the book in it, and 1 pirate eye patch. I tried to wear an eye patch for a few minutes but frankly, I'm blind enough without my glasses, I think one eye just made things worse. Since the books are with Disney we had Radio Disney there. So the whole time we were greeting people we got to listen to the wonderful tunes of High School Musical, Hannah Montana, and The Jonas Brothers. (At least most of the people coming enjoyed the music.) Julie was whining in pain from said music...
We also had a “science experiment” at the entrance, in which we poured vinegar in a cup then put some baking soda in a rubber glove, then put the rubber glove over the cup and watched some sort of chemical reaction take place, and the glove inflate. When Dave Berry and Ridley Pearson finally arrived we performed (attempted to perform) the experiment for them, but may have added a tad too much baking soda. If we weren’t holding the glove down, it would have flown off. Actually the first time around it did fly off, but when we tried it a second time we kind of, sort of, overdid it, and all the excess liquid from the gas spilled onto the table.
We stayed out there the remainder of the time, greeting more people until the event started. Finally we went out there and the room was PACKED, I wasn’t even sure there was enough room for us to stand. Emily introduced us (almost forgetting my name) and then them, dressed like a “sith lady” because of the Star Wars tie in the book, and they were escorted in by Princess Liea. We found a place to sit on the floor. We couldn’t see much, but it was still awesome. And considering Lorena was forced to stand the entire time filming and taking pictures, the floor seemed even nicer D: There was hardly room to stand to begin with, I couldn't move an inch without bumping into cranky ladies on either side of me.
Mitchell, Dave, and Ridley were all presented with some plaques from New World School of the Arts.
At first they felt bad for us all who gave up seeing High School Musical 3 (which premiered that day) for their book signing. So they did a reenactment of two actual scenes from the movie. (Dave being Troy, Ridley being Gabriela, and Mitchell being the narrator.) This we caught on video. Watch! It's hilarious! I'm deeply sorry for the shaky camera, I can't help it when I'm laughing. We've sworn to use tripods from now on.
They then told some hilarious stories and read an excerpt from the book. After that they did the “Coke and Mentos” experiment by taking a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke and dropping inside it 2 mentos. It must have shot a geyser at least 5 feet into the air. Julie's forgetting the best part right before this occurred, when they were trying to decide on the amount of Mentos to use. Dave said 2, the audience screamed 3, Mitchell said he had no clue what 3 means, and Dave decided he liked Books & Books, so he decided two.
Thanks to amattke for the video:
Finally, the presentation came to an end and they started signing on the other side of the bookstore. We went to post-it duty, which didn’t take that long with all of us helping out. (I don't recall someone by the name of Brigitte helping out.) I protest! I was in the bathroom and when I came out I went looking for you guys. When I couldn't find anyone I called Lorena WHO DIDN'T PICK UP. Okay, okay, I'll admit, I didn't notice I had 3 missed calls till I was out of the line. When we were done we just stood around and waited for the line to die down. When I managed to ge through it I handed my cousin (did I mention he tagged along) my camera and threw myself of the floor since my feet were in pain. Once it did, we got our own books and Erika and I came to a reasonable decision of who gets what books. (If you are new to reading this blog, or just never noticed us mention it before, Julie is my sister.) I got the second and third Peter and the Starcatchers books and a poster, she got the first book, and we had Science Fair signed to both of us. (Trust me if you knew how many books she’s gotten at the past signings it is more than fair.) (No comment.)
Finally we got our own books signed and took pictures with them (Dave and Ridley, not the books. Sophie was in the picture as well with her frog).
All and all it was a very successful, fun, and hilarious event.
