... that I am a super nerd?

This is the story of how this happened:



I have always loved The Hobbit.  When I was a kid, my dad used to read it to us as a bedtime story, and I can remember all of us laying in my parents' bed while he read to us about Bilbo, Gollum, and the dwarves.  We had a cartoon version of the movie taped off of TV on a VHS that I'm sure is still in my parents' house somewhere.  I don't remember how young I was when I first read The Lord of the Rings on my own, but I remember how stoked I was when the movies came out.  Needless to say, JRR Tolkien played a significant role in my childhood.

Anyway, this picture actually started with MY BIRTHDAY!!!  (That's right, we're still talking about that.)  Matt had promised to get me tickets to see The Hobbit in the REAL theater (now that we live in Utah we rarely see movies outside of the dollar theater) for my birthday.  But amazingly enough, Chad won us two tickets to an early premier!!!  And what was in the fine print?

A COSTUME CONTEST!!!!!!!!!!

Those who know me well know that I never pass up the opportunity for a costume!  I had these costumes planned out in my head exactly 5 minutes after I saw the tickets.  And most of the stuff we already had on hand!  Matt wore an old shirt, a pair of pants rolled up with a rubber band, and believe it or not, he already had that wig.  He used a piece of material that we found in the sewing closet for his cloak and just cut two strips of fabric and tucked them into his pants for suspenders.  I had a long grey dress, and we raided Matt's mom's Halloween box for a witch cloak.  After that, it was only the details that were really hard...

Using wire, felt, foil, cardboard, a hot glue gun, gold puffy paint, and an old barbie from DI,
I singlehandedly made:

The Leaves of Lorien

Arwen's Evenstar Necklace

and Hobbit Feet

I am awesome.

Except for the part when I forgot to flip the other foot over before I glued stuff on, even after I reminded myself to flip it about 20 times.  So I made 2 right feet.  Blerg.  Except for that, I am awesome.

The jewelry was kind of hard!  The leaves were the hardest, but only because I am such a perfectionist.  The necklace and the hobbit feet I may have made last minute under my desk at work... I am such a good employee.  Especially cause I also ran to the theater on my lunch break and stood in line to grab the tickets:

 

That is called a nerd fest.  A theater employee even called us "Hobbit people."

Our costumes were ready, we had the tickets, and then Matt and I both got stuck at work late!  We rushed home to put on our costumes and grabbed some Del Taco to eat in the car on the way to the theater.

Note: Del Taco is not my favorite.  But it is my husband's favorite.  And this is my face whenever I am eating any kind of chili cheese fries, so really I was pretty happy.



We made it to the theater 5 minutes before show time.  Luckily, I was able to pick out our seats before hand, and they were pretty good.  I was sad because I thought that we had missed the costume contest, but just as we sat down, a Warner Brothers rep stood up and said "Okay, we're gonna have a quick costume contest before we begin!"  I WAS SO STOKED!!!!!  We ran to the front of the theater with 2 other nerds in costumes and a guy with a ring on his neck.  Needless to say...

MATT WON THE CONTEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Granted, there were two prizes and only 5 people to choose from.  But Matt's costume won one!  Maybe it was because when it was his turn, he acted out the ring falling onto Frodo's finger with his wedding ring and the entire audience went NUTS.  My husband certainly has a flair for the dramatic, and I couldn't love him more for it!  He won a little gift basket with a copy of the book, a tshirt, pins, two more books, the movie soundtrack, and a couple movie posters.  It was so fun!!!  And I was so proud of our costumes!  They were so awesome that a random stranger asked us to take pictures with them after the movie.  Seriously.



I forgot to mention that Matt did all of this with me while he had a really bad cold.  He had a runny nose and was tired the whole time, and he still dressed up, won the contest, and stayed out late with me after a long day at work.  Who else would have done that with me??  I really do have the greatest husband in the world!

I love my husband, JRR Tolkien, and costumes!!!!!!!