As the con approached, everyone began working on their costumes, especially me, cause I was making two: summer Tomoeda uniform Sakura and third opening Sakura, both costumes that I had wanted to make for awhile because I liked them a lot. The third opening dress is so pretty, and I had always liked the summer uniform a lot better than the winter one anyway (and I already had the half the costume anyway). To make the third opening dress, my mom and I found a pattern for the dress, which we altered to allow for the three layers of skirts. As I've said before, I can't sew, so my mom did the actual sewing for this (^^;). She made the white dress first, then added a light pink layer underneath and a sheer white layer on top. She sewed pink ribbons onto white lace (I love my lace, I had to look forever but I found the perfect kind ^_^) and I cut them into garters for my ankle, knee, and neck (I just safety-pinned these around my legs the day of the con). Then we used fabric glue to attach yellow star appliques to the shoes and glued one star onto the neck garter. I cut pink ribbons to tie in my hair, and chose not to even attempt the wings.
For the summer Tomoeda uniform, we bought a black tennis skirt and I wore my white shirt that I already had (it's not really the right type of white shirt, it doesn't have puffy sleeves, but we didn't have time to make a real one). The only things that had to be sewn were the white sailor vest and red tie. (As for the hat, I didn't make it because I don't like it.) My mom sewed the white vest out of a pattern I made, then added black trim around the edges. I made the red tie myself because it was easy, and even made a Tomoeda crest which I glued onto the back of the vest. ^.^
Friday
Finally, A-Kon! Elsa came over to my house while I was getting ready so that she could try on my winter Tomoeda uniform (I had convinced her to wear it and go as either Meiling or Tomoyo [she didn't really care which, she said whoever people recognized her as] for one day).. she decided to wear it even though the skirt was "too short", hehe. I put on my summer Tomoeda uniform and then we picked up Kristy (who was cosplaying as Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin) and went to Allison's to meet up with everyone. Then we went to the airport (since the hotel was the Hyatt D/FW, after all) and into the hotel.. the first thing I saw was a huge line winding all through the lobby. We had tried to get there early (about an hour before the con opened) but apparently so did a lot of other people.. so we had to drag our stuff around as we waited in line to register (some of us had pre-registered, and some of us hadn't--I fell into the "hadn't" category ^^). Anyway, we all got registered, found Eryn, Katie, Kat, Allison, and Amy, and waited in line again so THEY could register. Then we put our stuff in Kat's brother's room because it wasn't time for us to go to our actual hotel and check in there yet, and went back downstairs to start looking around.
The lobby, which was on the main level and held the registration, a smoking lounge (we always made a point of coughing when we had to walk through there XD), and a game room (which had DDR and other stuff), wasn't all that interesting. So we went downstairs (to the level below the lobby), which was where pretty much everything was--the panel rooms, artist's alley, the food carts, etc. We walked around exploring, seeing just what was where.. also looked through the dealer's rooms (yeah--there were two!) where I took pictures of cosplayers and bought some CCS Japanese manga, a Pyoko (from Digi Charat) plushie-pyo, some chocolate mousse pocky, and Gravitation stationary (^__^ aww yeah!). I was kinda expecting a big dealer's room like they had at A-Kon 12, so two medium-sized ones, although cool, were kinda disappointing. ;.; oh well. There were lots of cool cosplayers so it was okay.. I took pictures of all the CCS ones I saw (which was a few other Sakura's, a Clow Reed, two Yue's, and a Meiling) as well as some other people with awsome costumes. There was also this really really hot guy (^.^) and I got a picture of him too, but only because Eryn was really nice and went and asked him if she could take a picture with my camera (I was too afraid ^.^;;). hee, he was wearing fishnet and his hair was silver.. ^_^
Anyway, then we moseyed on over to the art show, where the girl who draws Strange Candy (Emi-chan) was putting up her stuff, so I was brave and got her to sign something for me, which ended up being the Friday schedule because it was the only piece of paper I had.. it was still really cool though. ^.^ Later I got Piro and Largo of Megatokyo to sign something too, while they were doing autographs 
(what they signed was the list of AMV's for the contest [I saw the first 12 or so, they were kinda sucky].. again, my only piece of paper ^^;).. Largo just signed it, but Piro drew a picture of Piro on it because I asked him to.. although now I wish I'd asked him for Kimiko, because she's cool. That's okay, I'll just ask for it next year.. It was funny though, because Elsa asked Piro to draw that Miho vampire girl, and when Largo signed it he wrote "evil" next to the drawing XD
Then we wandered around some more.. somehow, Elsa and I ended up in the room for the A-Kon boardies (because Allison, Amy and Kristy were in there), and had to go up to the front and introduce ourselves.. even though neither one of us visits the A-Kon boards! Oh well, it was still fun, hehehe. Anyway, around then it was time to get our stuff and take the shuttle over to our hotel so we could check in with Eryn's mom, our chaperone for that night. We put our stuff in our rooms, had some food, and some of us changed out of our costumes into normal clothes before going back to the con. The first thing we saw upon returning was a huge line for the welcoming ceremony/Duel Jewel concert, which we didn't get in line for because it was too long. Then we (big surprise) wandered around.. at one point while I was walking around with Eryn and Katie, I lost my badge.. I'd clipped it to my jeans and then the clip opened and it fell off while I was walking.. we looked for it for a bit, my agitation growing with each step, until we finally did the logical thing and went to con security, where they pulled out a whole box of lost badges when I told them what had happened. Mine was right on top, so I was very happy (and very lucky!) to have it back. Also, we got a flyer for the Yaoi Pajama Party (which I still have because it's so cool.. it says "Got yaoi? You will soon!" XD), which we all wanted to go to but ended up not going, mostly because of lack of IDs. 
You had to have an ID certifying that you were 16 or older, but aside from the fact that most of us hadn't even brought IDs, they were all back at our other hotel anyway. And you had to be wearing pajamas anyway, which we didn't have with us. So we didn't get to go, but I think they're having one at Ushicon, and we are definitely not going to miss it! ^_^ (we also saw another flyer, for a yuri party.. they're just jealous because yaoi's so much cooler! hehehe)
Not much else happened, we looked around for our con friends but only saw Luke, who didn't stay to talk to us. We looked in on the Duel Jewel concert but didn't stay very long.. Anyway, around 10 or so we had to go back to our hotel, so we walked down to catch the shuttle, but it didn't get there for awhile so we amused ourselves by dancing. We did the chicken dance and the Macarena as well as some other weird stuff.. and unfortunately we have the pictures to prove it. ~_~
Saturday
We had all set our alarms, but it didn't really get anyone out of bed.. that was left up to Eryn, who came over and banged on our door a lot.. ¬_¬ so we dragged ourselves out of bed and went downstairs to have breakfast at the hotel buffet. Then we came back, took showers, and got ready to go back to the con. We all put on our costumes (from left to right in the picture, Elsa=random Chinese girl (such a change from normal Elsa!), Amy=Cherry from Saber Marionette J, me=third opening Sakura, Allison=Belldandy from Ah! My Goddess, Eryn=Skuld from Ah! My Goddess, Katie=Rei from Evangelion, and Bekah=Fuu from Magic Knight Rayearth, and my sister's friend Nicky as a random person).. waii, my costume is so pretty, I had so much fun putting on all the little things like the leg garters and ribbons ^_^ Anyway, then we went to wait outside of our hotel for the shuttle, and there were all these 'normal' people standing out there too, so we got quite a few odd looks.. which didn't diminish when we finally got on the shuttle, only to be joined by a bunch of pilots and flight attendants.. at least they were nice and asked us where we were going, unlike the other people who stared like we were freaks they needed to laugh at.. ¬__¬
Anyway, we got back to the Hyatt.. went back downstairs right away and to the dealer's rooms.. I looked around for awhile before finally getting a Sakura Card book! Yeah, life-size, just like my wand. It's got all the Sakura Cards too and has buttons that you push to make noise, etc.. I had to figure the game you can play out by myself because the instructions were in Japanese, but it's basically inserting one Sakura Card into this slot that's cut into the side of the book over and over until it makes the Card-convering music and Kero-chan goes, "Sore wa shin no Cardcaptor ya! [Here's the new Cardcaptor]". It says a lot of other stuff too ("Clow no maryoku ya", "Sugoi no maryoku ya", "Yatta de!"), and it's really fun to play with, so I was happy ^_^ 
I looked at some other stuff, like the third season digest/anime artbook, but I ended up getting the Saint Tail Vol. 1 DVD instead.. then I was broke ;_; so I couldn't even get the Gravitation artbook they had there!! Eryn and Allison both got one though, so I got to look at theirs.. waii it's so awsome. Gravitation rawks ^__^ (and there's a cool picture of Shuichi and Yuki in the front XD)
Then we saw some anime in the viewing rooms.. which were cool, I liked them, they played good stuff. We saw the first two episodes of Saber Marionette J to X, which were really funny.. it's too bad the room was having problems with the tape the episodes were on so some parts would blank out ;_; As for other stuff we saw, me and Elsa watched a bit of Onegai Teacher (that is an.. interesting show), some Love Hina (which I hadn't seen at the time so I was semi-confused but it was funny nonetheless).. when we ran into Luke later that night we went with him to watch Spriggen, which was kinda boring and not really my style so we left after awhile.
At one of the times when we were just sitting on the floor of the level with all the panel rooms playing with the things we'd bought and talking, two boardie guys that Allison knows came over. One was her (at the time) almost-boyfriend dude or whatever, Rory, and the other was her future boyfriend, Stephen, who we didn't know at the time. So we were talking to them, and we had just asked them if they would do yaoi (and they had said yes!) when Ashley and Zack came by, so we asked Zack if he would do it too, and he said that if we paid him (a dollar from each of us) he would do it, but that it would be the only yaoi thing we'd get. So we paid them (hehehe), and Zack and Stephen kissed for about ten seconds!! It was really, really cool, and we all got pictures (there's one from like every angle XDD).. aww yeah. Who got some yaoi? I'm thinkin' it was us.. XDD
Then we went to the Megatokyo panel, but it was kinda boring (Dom wasn't there!) so some of us left after awhile and wandered some more.. ended up in the Anime Match Game with Allison's boardie guys, which was fun. Then we went back to our hotel and ate pizza and stuff.. a lot of us changed into normal clothes (I put on my kitty ears and tail! And I still had my Sakura Wand, because I liked carrying it around ^_^). Then we went back to the hotel and wandered around some more. At one point, me, Eryn, Allison, and Katie got really bored while we were sitting somewhere and made signs to put on each other's backs. Mine said "FREE HUGS (GUYS ONLY, PLEASE)" so I had to give a lot of pervy sign fanciers (XD) hugs.. some of them were hot.. most were not.. a lot were pervy old men who wanted a picture of me (one wanted a picture of him 'accepting his hug'.. right). It was still kinda fun though, hehe.
Anyway, soon a line started forming for the cosplay contest, which got really long really fast.. we probably should have gotten in line for it, but because when we got there it was already super super long, we didn't. The cosplay ended up running overtime by an hour anyway (T__T I hate how that happens at cons. Why don't they schedule it to start at 7, but tell everyone 8, so it can finally start on time?) Instead, we sat upstairs in this little corner that overlooks the stairs that go to the bottom level.. and we got bored.. and started singing (a common event, it would seem, at any con we go to ^^;;). We sang a lot of (weird) stuff, 70's songs like "I Will Survive" and "YMCA".. Ace of Base stuff.. even a little *NSYNC ("Bye Bye Bye".. cause we love it so much, you know!). After awhile we put a little cup in front of our group with a sign that said "Donate if you want us to shut up" or something.. the non-singing portion of our group (Bekah, Amy, Elsa, etc) made a corresponding sign, only theirs said "We don't know them" with an arrow pointing to us.. XDD
Anyway, we got a few coins donated to us, but not a lot.. then came the REALLY COOL PART.. two guys walked by holding hands!! IT WAS SO CUTE!!! *squeal!* I immediately pointed it out to Eryn, Allison, and Katie (fellow yaoi fangirls) and me and Eryn jumped up with our cameras and followed them downstairs (stalkers? us? noo..) but when we got there, they weren't holding hands anymore! ;_; aww they were so cute! So we gave up and went back upstairs, and then they came up too and we saw them pass by again, so we (of course) followed them some more, and they were in the lobby, and one was sitting on the other's lap! It was so cute!! So I took a picture of "Eryn" and she took a picture of "me" (hers turned out, mine didn't ;.;).. XDD So aww, real real-life yaoi, as opposed to that forced kiss we'd had to pay for earlier.. Ashley knows one of the guys, actually.. his name's Brian, and I really hope he doesn't read here and get all freaked out.. ehehehe ^^;
Anyway, so we went back, and then we were talking about how cute they were (all the other fangirls went to look at them too) and squealed all together. Then this guy who had been sitting across from us and making rude comments about our singing was like "Okay, that deserves some money" and gave us $30!! O__O And he wouldn't take it back even when Eryn offered it to him three times.. so we took it, and then we went downstairs again.. wandered, I think, as usual. We found Luke and Daniel and hung out with them for awhile.. We put the sign I was wearing ("FREE HUGS (GUYS ONLY, PLEASE)") on Luke's back (XDD) but no guys hugged him ;_; he did get a lei, though, from some girls who thought he was hot. They 'leid' him XDD yes, I have a lot of weird pictures from when we were sitting around with them.. ehehehe. ^.^; And speaking of people we met at Ushicon, we also saw Bridgette and Christina and took a picture of them.. we didn't hang out with them at all though, because when we saw them it was during one of the times when we were looking for everyone else.. which sucks, but oh well.
Anyway, so we waited for the dance to open, which was like an hour and a half late cause of the cosplay, and the fact that cosplay had not only begun an hour late but had run waayyy overtime (T____T).. then when it finally did open, it sucked anyway! What is it with A-Kon and sucky dances? ~__~ It was time for us to go back then anyway, so we rounded up our group and took the shuttle back to our hotel.
Sunday
Like all Sundays at a con, nothing much happened.. we got up, took the shuttle over to the hotel, but I was broke so I couldn't buy anything.. ;_; We didn't even see anyone we knew, which sucked, so we went back, barely making it back by noon (stupid shuttle!). Then we checked out, and went home (finally).
All in all, A-Kon was fun.. more fun than last year's A-Kon but definitely not as fun as Ushicon. I don't think anything will ever be as great as that.. but I did buy some really cool stuff (I love my manga ^_^), and we DID get some yaoi (XDD aww yeah).. we also made up a bunch of cool inside jokes! "Yo.. eh. That's what it's all aboot!!" (ghetto Canadians XD), the crazy Spanish show with the freaky people, the elephant thing at the end of said Spanish show, the pervy sign fanciers, Allison getting a bunch of hugs from girls (hahaha).. etc etc. So yeah, good times!