Newsmaker Sunday: Rob Samour, Dallas Hammit

 

These guys know their stuff!  Way to go hubby!



Drop it and Rock it Campaign Video

Livin' the Athletic Band Life

Sienna has recently been livin' the Sun Devil Athletic Life by traveling with the women's basketball team.  She made the right choice, electing to travel with the women instead of the men.

The women's conference tournament was in Seattle, Washington, a beautiful and new place to visit for her.

Here they are in the airport, hanging with a comfort dog.

They had a day or two to sightsee before having to work, so they hit the Public Market and Pier areas.  It's Seattle, so you can expect precipitation.  Sienna was prepared with her Harry Potter umbrella, of course.

They also visited the Space Needle, perhaps Seattle's most famous landmark.

 

Eventually she had to don the uniform and instrument, and energize her team!  Which she did!  They won 2 games!

 

And shopping is a must in any travel locale. 

Aren't these kids cute and cool?

 

After coming home for a few days, then she and I went to tennis in Indian Wells for 3 days.  Then back home for 3 days and now Sienna is in the air, on a chartered flight with the band to cheer on the women in Austin, Texas, another cool city to visit.

 

Will post a story when I get some pictures from her.

 

It's great to be a Sun Devil!

 

 

A House Repainted

It's been a busy summer, not just because the girls have been on vacation, but because 1796 has been under some renovation.  We've known for awhile that homes in our neighborhood have been required to repaint per the HOA.  We received our letter at the start of summer, stating that the trim had to be painted.  In this picture, you can see the trim is a peeling mess.

Not only was the trim a mess, but our washer stopped spinning, which made for some very wet clothes and long laundering processes.  So it was time for a new washer, and what the heck, a new dryer.

 

And here they are - TA  DA!

 

 

Rob was quoted a decent price for painting the entire house, so we decided to tackle that beast as well.  And if you talk to Tony, our painter, that's exactly what he would call our house - a beast.

 

Imagine one middle aged man, painting the entire house himself, in crazy hot temps.  He did it somehow, of course not without some issues, but I won't bore you with the details.

 

Basically, he power-washed the house first, then began taping off windows and such for painting.

 

For example, our front porch,

 



garage, and bedroom window,

 



 

and front window view with gate.

Painting then commenced.

 



And V O I L A!

 



 

You can see the pop-outs are a different color, as the HOA went to a three color paint scheme.

We like it and the best part is that it's done!

 

 

Comicon 2017

Comicon 2017 has come and gone.  Four fun days of cosplaying, shopping, and hanging with authors and celebrities is what Sienna and I experienced.

Day 1 was me as Provincial Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Sienna as Lilo from Disney's Lilo and Stitch.

 

In addition to dressing up in costume, otherwise known as cosplay, we also like to attend author spotlights, workshops, and panels.  These four guys are all sci-fi authors who are great writers and just outright funny and smart guys.  The one second from the left is Sam Sykes, who is also Diana Gabaldon's son.  She is the prolifically popular author of the Outlander series, also currently seen on television on the Starz channel.  I am currently reading the series and am starting Book 7 of 9.  The show is AMAZING and even has Sienna hooked. 

 

We attended a class by The Potter Professors who talked about the history of magic behind J.K Rowling's latest film, Fantastic Beasts.  I dressed up as the main character from that movie, Newt Scamander, on Day 2.

Here we are having fun at the "Hall of Heroes" where you get to take pictures at various movie sets and even with movie characters, like Stormtroopers.

Our favorite local bookstore sets up shop near the author signing tables, so we're able to buy any last minute books we need for signing, or just have fun with picture props.

 

 

 

Day 2 was Sienna as Moana and me as Newt Scamander.

We attended a live reading of a fan fiction story related to Fantastic Beasts that day and bought some great memorabilia you can only find at comicons.

 

 

 

Look at this awesome Outlander apron I got!  I was able to get it signed by Diana the next day!

 

 

Day 3 found us as Gryffindor students from Harry Potter.

We purposely dressed as Gryffindor students because we were meeting Bonnie Wright, who played Ginny Weasley Potter in the Harry Potter movies, and who also was a Gryffindor.

 

Here's our photo op!

 

 

Then we attended her panel afterwards and learned all about the behind the scenes filming of the movies from her perspective.

 

We also walked around and met people, like this Gene Simmons.

 



 

We saw Dick Van Dyke.

 

And Jay Garrick who played Zoom in The Flash.

 

We also attended a Diana Gabaldon spotlight and got our books signed.  She's such a gracious lady.

 



We also got to know another author by the name of Wesley Chu. 

 

Sienna is deep in conversation with him because he is writing a spin-off of one of Sienna's favorite book series, The Shadowhunters.  She's asking for scoop!

 

He was super sweet.

 



Then we ended the day with many of the same authors playing a game called Botsu.  It was fun to watch but we're glad to not be playing because the consequence was eating hot salsa.

Day 4 was Sienna as Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games and me as Gypsy from The Flash.

 

Here I am with Hulk and his lady.

This is us with Sam Sykes, author and son of Diana Gabaldon.

Here we are with Sienna's crush, Pierce Brown, author of the Red Rising series.

 



 

 

Another great Comicon.  Here's looking to next year!