Hello from Seattle, Washington. It’s warm, it’s muggy, and my daughter and I wore wool poodle skirts all day. You know what? It was totally worth it! My family had an amazing day today at PAX.
Children: We saw about two dozen babies today under the age of one. We saw about a dozen kids aged two to ten. Earlier this week, Ruth posed the question; Should You Bring a Kid to Dragon*Con? We were asked this question several times today as we proudly walked with our kids between panels and exhibits. Our standard answer to exclamations of, “You are CRAZY!” and, “I’ve been thinking of bringing my kid, I just don’t know if it would work – how have they done today?” was this: You have to be patient with your kid(s). You need to realize you aren’t going to get to do EVERYTHING you might have planned. As long as we sat down to play a game and eat a snack every couple of hours, the kids were great. They LOVED the first round of the Omegathon, and were quite taken with people in costume.
Games: Today I was able to play a demo of a new Kirby game coming out this fall for Nintendo, looked more closely at the new 3D Pokedex for the Nintendo 3DS, and played Got ’em! and Ugh? at the Calliope booth. I was also excited to see Doug and Nilda Lariz who created Bull’s-eye because they are from my home town (the game is a lot of fun too). I was also able to find Jonathan Liu from GeekDad playing a game with Dave Banks and Curtis Silver.
Swag: We were given several shirts today. Our swag bags included Magic: the Gathering decks and some random shirt. First stop was the Chessex booth, where Tori got her first cube-o-d6’s and a special d12 and d6 for playing RPGKids. Then we stopped by Scott Kurtz’s booth to say, “hi” and purchase a Skull plush for our son. We then went to Sweet Kitty and Tori bought a Pokemon plush and a couple of Pokemon from the miniatures game.
Major SQUEE moment: Something we were not able to do two years ago when we came to PAX was stand in line to meet Wil Wheaton. Today we did get to meet him and make a big check mark on our Geeky Bucket List. I should preface this with a short story: a couple nights ago we were watching season two of Star Trek: the Next Generation. Our 5-year-old daughter (Tori) commented on how beautiful the boy’s uniform was. We told her she could tell him in person this weekend. When it actually came time to tell Wil Wheaton this story, Tori froze up (that’s okay, we told him for her. Besides, he liked Tori’s Pokemon skirt, so she did talk to him about their favorite Pokemon for a minute). Anyway, he signed a photo from Star Trek for her. She was excited, but I was ecstatic.
We spent almost 10 hours at PAX today. Tomorrow should be even more fun as my family and I cruise the exhibit hall and attend more panels. Later in the evening, we’ll be kid-free for the Saturday night concerts!
