Now that I have a proper video of her fetching, here it is!
This is what she does all day when she’s not sleeping or eating.
Now that I have a proper video of her fetching, here it is!
This is what she does all day when she’s not sleeping or eating.
Testing out my old Sony Bloggie for future Phantom Phridays. First test subject is Rio!
I was trying to get her to play fetch, but she was too distracted..still cute though!
Posting two pictures of the blue moon from a few weeks ago to say that I’m alive since I haven’t updated in a while. I wish I’d taken them a little sooner in the evening before the clouds started rolling in, but these two came out nicely despite that.
I’ll be starting up Phantom Phriday again this week, so anyone who enjoyed those look forward to it!
Not sure how soon I’ll get to any of these aside from the finished Law, as I’m not sure how many other cons we’ll be going to this year, but my list of planned cosplays:
Con-wise next year, Anime STL is a go since it’s so close to where we are, but A-kon might be possible too. If so, I’ll definitely have Punk Hazard/Shichibukai Law and Levi ready, but if I can manage one more I’d like to get Sabo or Corazon finished as well.
I also need to make a better prop sword for Law. The one I currently have is just a modified wooden practice sword. While it was fine for a throw together at the last minute cosplay, it bugs me that it’s not the right type of sword. Law just has to have a nodachi to make my life difficult!

Friday evening we went to see Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY performed by the STL Symphony. I’ve never really been to a symphony before, so I was excited to go to this one. However, the subject and crowd being what they were, this wasn’t exactly the usual symphony audience. That didn’t take too much away from enjoying it though.
The tracklist for Friday night:
FINAL FANTASY VII: Opening – Bombing Mission
FINAL FANTASY SERIES: Victory Theme
FINAL FANTASY XIV: Torn from the Heavens
FINAL FANTASY VI: Character Theme Medley
FINAL FANTASY XI: Fighters of the Crystal
FINAL FANTASY XI: Memoro de la Stono – Distant Worlds
FINAL FANTASY VIII: Balamb GARDEN ~ Ami
FINAL FANTASY IX: Roses of May
LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII: Light Eternal
FINAL FANTASY SERIES: Chocobo Medley 2012
-INTERMISSION-
FINAL FANTASY VII: JENOVA COMPLETE
FINAL FANTASY X: Zanarkand
FINAL FANTASY III: DS Opening
FINAL FANTASY V: Main Theme
FINAL FANTASY VII: Main Theme
FINAL FANTASY IX: Festival of the Hunt
FINAL FANTASY XIV: Answers
FINAL FANTASY SERIES: Battle & Victory Theme Medley
FINAL FANTASY SERIES: Main Theme
-ENCORE-
FINAL FANTASY VII: ONE WINGED ANGEL
It was great hearing all of these done by an orchestra in person! My only complaint is that there isn’t enough IX love, but I’m super biased as IX is my favorite of all.
STL Symphony did a really wonderful job and maybe one day I’ll go see them again during a normal performance.
Katie and I attended Anime STL today. It’s been a while since we’ve been to a con, the last one being 2011’s Anime STL. Before that, we’d been traveling down to Texas for A-kon and Oni-con for years, so we’ve been a bit out of the con loop.
We cosplayed this year! I went as Trafalgar Law (sans facial hair) and she was Boa Hancock, both from One Piece.
The main thing we were looking forward to was the One Piece panel. We’d gone to it before in ’11 and we enjoyed it, same for the one this year as well! The guy that runs it does a really great job with it and makes it a lot of fun.
I didn’t get a lot of pictures while we were there and I think I posed for more than I took, haha.
Con-wise, I think we might go to Arch Anime in June and we’ll most likely go as Law and Hancock again. Maybe next year we can go to one out of state, preferably one that more of our friends are attending, especially Shintomo! We want to cosplay together!
The weekend before last, Katie and I visited Missouri Botanical Garden to see the cherry trees in bloom. We didn’t really get to see them last year because the weather was a bit off. While it was a little windy, I did manage to get some good shots!
I’ll be adding the rest to the gallery later along with the beach pictures!
Last week, Katie and I flew down to Tampa to visit my family for a few days. Florida was hot and miserable as usual, but we did get to go out to St. Pete beach at sunset, so that made up for it all. My cousin was with us too, so that made the time even more enjoyable!

The sunset over the water was really gorgeous! Katie and I had our nicer cameras with us, so we took a lot of pictures while we were there. I’ve yet to have time to get mine off my camera, but I plan to this weekend.
Being there reminded me of my childhood as we used to go to the beach quite a bit. If there’s any one thing that I miss in Florida that we don’t have here in Missouri, it’s the beach (St Pete, to be exact). Other than that, Florida is pretty dull and way too hot for me, haha.
While seeing my family and being at the beach was nice, I missed my little cuddle buddies and couldn’t wait to get back home to them.
Snowing again today and I’m stuck here in a cubicle when I’d rather be home snuggling with the cats. At least I have that to look forward to after work.
Rio had her first little trek in the snow last week. More like a few steps, as she was on our deck, but I’m not sure she liked it very much. She left these cute little paw prints for me though.
I think she’s more of a watching the snow fall kind of kitty rather than a prance around in the snow type.
Also, signal boosting this for a friend of mine. Her kitties experienced a strange, unknown-as-of-yet illness, which resulted in a very large vet bill. Both kitties seem to be doing fine now. If you can either contribute to help them out or just spread the link, they’ll appreciate it!
Meeko and Winston
Phantom Phriday Caturday edition since I forgot to push this post out of my drafts yesterday. Oops.
I may or may not have mentioned it here before, but the youngest kitten and ruler of the house, Rio, absolutely loves cat cubes. So much that we have to replace them every month because she loves them too much. Even the one we got for her a week or so ago is already looking battered.
To see a cat cube go rolling across the living room floor is a nightly occurrence.
She also has a habit of jumping into a cube before rolling it over to attack things, so I call it her armour.
Bonus picture of Phantom having a chat with his new friend
Happy Fri-Weekend!