Breaking Dawn and into the night

I knew that if I didn't get at least a couple hours of sleep there was no way I was going to be able to make through the day. I laid my sleeping bag down in front of our chairs and gave it a try. I managed about an hour at best. The semi trucks with the red carpet set up were starting to arrive and they were making a racket. Once the sun came up we could tell it was going to be a very warm day. Not a good thing being our premier shirts were hoodies and long sleeve t-shirts.

By this time we had logged about 22 hours on the street. Our line neighbor, Lisa from Utah, had left to go back to her hotel room to use the bathroom around 3am and hadn't returned. We were a little concerned being she had walked off by herself but had no way to contact her. When her daughter finally woke up she tried calling her Mom but all she got was voice mail, which made us even more worried. Around 7am she finally answered her cell phone. Turned out she decided to sleep in her bed instead of coming back to the street. She left her 12 year old daughter to sleep on the street. I know we let the girls go off, at night, to get Starbucks and to go to California Pizza Kitchen and I felt horrible about that but this was totally different. Of course, we kept an eye on her daughter but she didn't know we would do that. We started taking turns going back to her hotel room to shower and change, taking her daughter, blankets and pillows back for her. I still shake my head when I think about it.

The street was now blocked off and the red carpet was being laid out. Things were starting to come together. The day was getting warmer. More and more people were starting to arrive. The night security crew gave way to the day shift, Ryan, Jun and Adriane.



Rose wanted to see the red carpet up close so she and I walked over to Starbucks to get a better view. She asked me what might happen if she stepped on it and I told her nobody would probably even notice. We got close enough and she proceeded to put her toe on it and then sing like the hallelujah chorus. Funny girl.





The media was starting to arrive and being that we were first in line, everyone wanted to talk to us. I guess this was going to be our 15 minutes of fame. I can honestly say, I can now sort of understand why famous people get tired of dealing with paparazzi. When all was said and done we had been interviewed by Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, E! Online, ABC news, CBS news, Reelz TV, among others. Even some French news channel. We were asked the same questions over and over and over. It got to a point where we didn't want to talk to anyone anymore.





Unfortunately, this is where things started to take a turn for the worse. A-Boo Boo wasn't feeling well. We were hoping it would pass. It didn't. She threw up her breakfast. We were hoping it might be from lack of sleep so she got back in the van and tried to sleep. By noon she wasn't feeling any better. She was still throwing up. We ordered lunch but she didn't want anything to eat. We were trying to keep her fluids in her, hoping the reason she might be sick was from dehydration. By now we were starting to accept that this might be more than something that would pass with a nap and a bottle of water.



J wanted to take her back to Lisa from Utah's hotel room, which had now officially transferred over to us. A-Boo Boo didn't want to go. By 1pm they started handing out the wrist bands and numbered tickets. This was what was going to get us our spot on the red carpet front line. A-Boo Boo was feeling worse by the hour but was refusing to give up. Up to this point we had been free to roam as we pleased but once we were herded into the pens, as I called them, we were going to be more confined. It was going to be harder for A-Boo Boo to be comfortable. The day wore on and we tried our best to keep her cool and hydrated. J kept telling her she wanted to go to the hotel but stopped just short of forcing her to go because A-Boo Boo wanted so badly to stay.

With about an hour and a half to go, she thew in the towel. She looked up at J and simply stated, "Mom, I cant do this anymore." We were all crushed. As much as we knew she needed to go, we wanted her to try and stay but it just wasn't worth it. She was so sick.



I was begging J to let me be the one to take her back. I didn't care whether I was there or not. I was just there for the kids. Of course she wouldn't let me. I do understand. How could she have stayed while her daughter was laying sick in bed. We all felt so bad. We were crying, they were crying, even people standing around us were crying. You really form a bond with people when you spend so much time with them. Everyone had been so nice, giving A-Boo Boo water and fruit and what ever she needed. Every one of us was to the point of exhaustion and I think that is another reason why we were so easily reduced to tears but in truth, it was just plain old sad. They had waited SO long, only to be disappointed in the last hour. J later said that she felt like she had trained for the Olympics and then broke her ankle right before the race. I told her she was more like Mary Decker. She and A-Boo Boo had actually run the race, they almost made it to the finish line and then tripped and fell. 33 hours, for nothing.

After J and A-Boo Boo left, it just wasn't the same. We tried to stay upbeat but our hearts just weren't in it any longer. R decided right then that she was going to get as many autographs as she could for A-Boo Boo. That sort of picked our spirits up a little. If she couldn't be there we were going to try to bring her back a part of the whole experience. Before the stars started arriving the studio handed out rubber bracelets and t-shirts to everyone. We made sure to get two extra. We were told that we had to put the t-shirts on if we were in the front row. Well, we had made our shirts especially for the premier and now we were being asked to cover them up. Oh well, what could we do. J and I had already ruined ours anyway. It had been so hot earlier in the day that in an act of heat exhaustion and desperation, we found a pair of scissors in the van and cut the sleeves off our shirts.

R, who can be rather bashful at times, had a plan. She told me to have the video camera ready for when Robert Pattinson (aka: Edward) walked down the red carpet. She was going to get him to tell A-Boo Boo to get well. She also planned on telling every star that walked past what had happened to her cousin to try to get them to personalize their autographs. It worked with about half. They were just so rushed, it was difficult to get the whole story out in a few seconds...

"Can you please sign this for my cousin, A-Boo Boo, she was here with us for 34 hours and got sick a couple hours ago and had to go back to the hotel so could you please sign this with her name, (then she would spell it because she has an unusual spelling)."

I was so proud of her. About halfway through the evening she turned to me, almost crying again and told me that it wasn't even fun with her cousin not there to share the night with. No matter how many autographs and pictures we took back it wouldn't change the fact that we were there and they weren't.

I was a little surprised with R too. She broke out of her shyness somewhat and asked her favorite actor, Kellan Lutz, who played Emmett, if she could have a hug. Even more surprised when he agreed. I had no time at all to get the camera ready to catch that one. I got his arm and hand extending towards her and that was it. The girls behind us said they got some good pictures of that and were going to email them to me but so far I haven't got anything.



When Robert Pattinson came around she did exactly what she said she was going to do and I got it all on video. I was amazed by every ones kindness as they were signing autographs. Every single one of them wished A-Boo Boo a speedy recovery but when Robert not only told her to get well on video but then signed a magazine for us too, I was just so touched. I started crying again, thinking of how happy this was going to make A-Boo Boo. I think you can even hear me half laughing and crying on the video saying, "Oh great, he is going to think I am crying over him!" Like I'm some sort of obsessed teen or something!



Kristen Stewart signed with R's pen and then kept walking away, signing things. R had to call her back, "Kristen, Kristen, you have my pen!" You could see on her face she was trying to remember who she had got the pen from. R said she would have just let her keep it but that was the only one we had with us. Talk about unprepared.



My sister, C, was trying to take a picture of Cam Gigandet(James), when he grabbed the camera out of her hand and turned to take a photo of the two of them together. The paparazzi across from us took a picture of him trying to take a picture and we have been finding that shot plastered all over the internet in photo galleries from MTV to US Magazine to ET. This is actually a better shot of the same picutre. I posted the other one because you could see R over his shoulder on the other side of my sister.



After all the stars from the movie had gone through the red carpet once, we left. We could have stayed longer because most of them went around the carpet again, signing more things, taking more pictures. We just wanted to leave. To give the people behind us to get a chance to be up front and to get back to J and A-Boo Boo at the hotel.


to be cont...The Hot Topic Twilight Tour and R's turn to get sick