Whedonites Unite!

I'm volunteering with the Seattle International Film Festival, SIFF, this year and I lucked into landing a shift to work the opening gala. 

This year the opening film was Much Ado About Nothing, a Joss Whedon adaptation. 

I want to express my love for all things Joss right now and get it over with. 

I love Buffy, Angel, and Firefly the most, but also the Avengers. 

Since I was working, I didn't personally get any pictures, so all these are credited to Dana Landon who works for SIFF. 

Here's how the night went down.

 They had us get there early. We watched things from up here for a while.

All these guys were there. Clark, Joss, Amy, someone I don't know, Nathan. 

Aren't they cute?

I worked as an usher in the reserved seating section. Which means I met each of these pictured people and showed them to their seats.

Once the show started, I may have purposely left two seats empty behind all the filmmakers.... 

And I sat behind this lovely couple. That's Willow and Wesley for you Buffy fans.

Joss and Alexis introduced the film.

This is what I watched:

And after the film, all the filmmakers went up on stage for a panel. 

Here, this is as much as I got filmed before my phone ran out of memory:

It was super rad and I'm glad I got to do it. 

I throw fiestas.

As the new FHE chairperson for my ward I basically throw a ward activity every week. 

A few weeks ago it was a fiesta. 

In celebration of Cinco de Mayo, I invited another local YSA ward to come party with ours, Mexican style. 

Orignally it was planned to be indoors, but with unexpected warm sunny weather, we moved it outside. 

We had a potluck style salsa bar, pin the tail on the donkey, and a pinata. 

At each table there was an activity. In case young single people became incapable to chit chat, the activity was there as a conversation starter. There was try gross Mexican candy. There was make some tiny maracas. There was learn Cinco de Mayo history. There was color a picture or do a crossword puzzle There was Learn Spanish with my bff Monica, which was just a giant picture of Monica and same Spanish/English flashcards she translated for me, which included: Sí ,soy un ciudadano Americano and  Eres fastidioso. And there was a photo booth with props. 

I set it all up and just let people float and mingle. Which is hard for me because I really want people to participate is everything whether they want to or not and to really look like they're enjoying it whether they are or not. Makes me feel good. But I didn't do that. 

People did have fun though. 

Thanks to Kylee and her fancy camera we got the whole thing documented. 

Check it out. 

This is DJ Apollo, our very own ward DJ, he was pumping the jams with speakers hooked up to his car. Also he's really good at rollar skating and showed that off. 

My buddy Danny and I got the ball rolling at the photo booth/

And as at any YSA activity, it inevitably turned into a sporting event.

I put the amp in Campout.

You would think having lived in Utah for six years I would have made some sort of effort to do things outside, I mean the state has red rock and mountains. But, nope. Sure didn't.

 Ok, I went hiking once. Oh, and I rode a ski lift. 

But now I'm in the Northwest and everyone is an outdoor person. Hiking here, kayaking there, and everyone has a bicycle. 

So there's that pressuring me. 

Working at an outdoor outfitting company like
Eddie Bauer sure piles in on as well. 

I generally just opt out of any invitation for things outside. Or people just don't invite cause they know I won't go.
Unless the outdoor in outdoor outlet mall counts. 

Well I did something, kinda of outside.
This doesn't count as camping, but campout was in the activity's title. 

I attended the YSA Campout. 

We slept in a cabin, and I spent a whole lot of the time inside,
but it's the thought that counts?

It was a good let's-finally-introduce-Katie-to-outside-things thing.

Here, look:

First we went and looked at the horses. 

Then did some impromptu yoga. 

Mingled with the RS prez Jenn inside. 

Page turned while Billy jammed.

We went out to play games but never actually did.

There was a fire that we s'mored at. 

And we did some star gazing, but pictures wouldn't be able to do that justice. We also stayed up half the night mingling, eating junk food and doing other typical sleepover/campout activities. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I decided last minute to go.