FINAL FUN WEEKEND

I know summer is ending when Fan Expo comes around. We wanted to bring Hannah to see what we affectionately call "The Freak Show", but the amount of people and the length of time we wanted to spend there wasn't the best situation for a nine-month old...it was however, AMAZING for two adults who think like kids!

On Saturday, my husband, Hannah's godfather, and his seven-year-old attended the annual convention that unites comic fans, horror enthusiasts, and collectibles seekers alike at the Metro Convention Centre. They hadn't been there before so I was pumped to show them around. I was so excited because I had missed the show last year when I was pregnant. Luckily the show didn't disappoint. We spent over six hours among Storm Troopers, vampires, anime characters, and superheroes, all with one passion: imagination. Obviously you had to have imagination and creativity to even think of what we saw!

Unique and fun, we saw participants dressed up as we went up and down each row looking at amazing artwork and admiring all the things one can buy. There were comic books, monster dolls, caricatures, movie posters, and more. I met Polywhirl, Halo, Spiderman, Green Lantern, Michael Myers, True Blood characters, and even the Hulk! I was lucky enough to get bitten! Stars such as Lou Ferrigno (Hulk), Linda Hamilton (The Terminator), and Emma Caulfield (Anya in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) were also there to sign autographs (what a great warm-up for TIFF).

We found RAK, the artist whose cards we've been collecting as well as meeting several new artists, some of whom are teachers themselves. One company started a comic featuring "Heroes Around the World" which I thought was awesome especially from a teacher perspective. How cool would it be to end a unit about traditions and heritage if every student got a T-shirt featuring heroes from their country of origin?

At the end of the day, we discussed going again next year (this was our third) and what Hannah could dress up as. We saw an entire family dressed up and thought that was so great....awesome spirit! We could only imagine what Hannah would be thinking if she saw so many characters walking around. Would she realize that they were characters? Cartoons come to life? How awesome is that? Only at Fan Expo.