Meetup With Basilmentos!

While I was on vacation with my family a couple of weeks ago, I met up with Anna basilmentos! We had an amazing time meeting up, and I thought I'd make a little blog post about it for all of you.

A few weeks before we left on our trip, I told Anna that we would be going on vacation, and we realized that we would be in the same location at the same time during the trip. She suggested that we meet up somewhere, and we planned it from there. Honestly, I couldn't believe that I would be meeting the one and only Anna basilmentos. Again.

Technically, I had already met her. Back in March, she held a HUGE meetup at the AGP San Francisco. Almost 100 people showed up, including my sisters and me. It was truly an amazing experience to attend her big meetup, but it was crazy. There were so many people there to see her—so many that it was practically impossible to get a word in edgewise and speak to Anna myself. I still had a blast, but when Anna suggested meeting her again (without the crowd!), I couldn't resist. I mean, seriously, who WOULD resist?!

We decided to meet at a park in the area. She would bring her doll Julia, and I would bring my doll Ruby. My three younger sisters also came, although they weren't originally planning to stay with Anna and me while we hung out.

My family arrived at the park a little early to give ourselves a chance to look around and have lunch before Anna arrived. Then it was time to meet her. We all went to our planned meeting spot and waited. During that waiting time, I was so excited and nervous, I almost started shaking! It was crazy! Somehow I had managed to plan a meetup with Anna—it was a dream come true.

Then Anna arrived. She brought a backpack with all her supplies—Julia, her camera, and her tripod. She was going to bring a bag with some props as well, but she forgot the bag, which was fine with me because the meetup was still more than amazing.

We went out to take photos and film. Although it was initially going to be a meetup just with Anna and me, we decided to have my sisters help us and hang out with us as well. Anna was so welcoming of them! I totally wasn't expecting her to be kind and patient with the "unexpected guests" at the meetup, but she was. We stopped at all sorts of random places throughout the park to film little clips of our dolls. It was truly a great experience. Other people walking around noticed us filming too! Despite the few people who seemed to find it unusual, most people thought our stop motioning was actually pretty cool! Some people even stopped to take photos of it. At one point, Julia was sitting down on a little rock while we took a filming break, and a few people walked by just to photograph her as if she was part of an exhibit!

There were even a couple of people who wanted to know where they could find our videos, so we told them to check out basilmentos or sparkfireproductions on YouTube. Who knew you could get YouTube publicity just by filming in public?!

After we were done filming, my parents bought ice cream for all of us. There was a place to purchase ice cream at the park, so Anna, my sisters, and I all got some. We went to sit in the grass below a beautiful tree and just talked while eating ice cream. It was such an amazing feeling. We got along so well, it was like we were actually long-time friends. When we were finished with our ice cream, we hung out some more and took doll photos together. My sister and I even got to play around with Julia's hair. She is a truly beautiful doll, and I'm definitely considering purchasing her for myself. ;)

We took quite a few doll photos and even some human photos with each other; then it was time for Anna to leave. We packed up our things and headed back to the park entrance to say goodbye.

Even after Anna had left and my family and I were still spending time at the park together, I felt a crazy sense of exhilaration spread throughout me. I suddenly didn't care if the other people at the park saw me with a doll (I had cared before Anna arrived, and I was nervous about taking Ruby out of my bag). I mean, what does it matter if other people know you like dolls? They're just dolls after all. If it makes you happy and it's not anything harmful, there is absolutely nothing to be worried or ashamed about. I couldn't stop smiling after Anna was gone. She was such an inspiration and an incredible person—she still is—and meeting her in person was absolutely wonderful.

I had an amazing time. <3

-Cristina