Temple with a K: Star Wars Celebration Five a.k.a. CV

For those of you who know us Kemple's well, you know that we are Star Wars freaks!When Lucasfilm announced the location of CV last December, I hopped online to see if I could find cheap airplane tickets to Orlando, Florida. I found 2 roundtrip tickets for around $500. Finding such a great deal, I strongly urged my husband to purchase the tickets so we could go. (Unfortunately we had to jump on the tickets ASAP as we knew how many Star Wars fans would be doing the exact same thing and we didn't plan any extra days on our trip. But that's ok, we still had a blast!)

Thanks to Chris and Aimee Botkins for picking us up at the airport at 1 AM Eastern time. Chris and Shawn met on a Star Wars forum and became friends. Geeky, I know! Chris and Aimee are a wonderful couple whom we spent a lot of time with at the Celebration. We look forward to meeting up with them again (they live in Wyoming.)

Here are some of the things I was able to do.

I met Ashley Eckstein, who voices Ahsoka on The Clone Wars cartoon and also designs Star Wars clothing specifically for women. Her Universe She is a great gal--very down-to-earth.
I also met Ben Burtt who is a Sound Designer amongst other things. Ben did the sounds for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Wall-e and is known as "the voice of R2-D2." He was very friendly. For 20 bucks I was able to meet him and get his autograph. Get this; he told me he recorded the bullet ricochets for Indiana Jones in a canyon in the Provo area. He reused those sounds for Wall-e as well.
I saw Warwick Davis aka Willow aka Wicket aka Professor Flitwick in person. He did a free live event where he talked about his work in Star Wars, Willow, Leprechaun and Harry Potter. I had a great time at this event! He is one of my favorite actors. I attempted to get his autograph but he was only available for two hours one day of the celebration. I arrived in the autograph line two hours before signing and they had just closed off the line! I was so furious! Mostly because I am such an avid fan and I had just missed my chance by 30 seconds or so. Anyway, the Ben Burtt autograph helped ease my pain.
While walking back to our hotel, (I had a Yoda backpack on my back) a very tall man behind me said in an accurate Yoda voice, "The force is strong with this one." I turned to him and said, "Wow! That is really good!" He said, "It should be, it's what I do for a living." It didn't register at the moment but a few minutes later, after he had bolted past us, Shawn and I realized that it had been Tom Kane, the voice of Yoda on The Clone Wars! Man, did I feel sheepish after not picking up on that one!
Shawn and I purchased tickets to "Last Tour to Endor." This entailed a ticket to ride Star Tours for the last time! This also meant we were able to ride a few extra rides at one of the parks of Disneyworld. After 7 PM the park was closed except for those who had the Endor ticket. There were even special Star Wars fireworks, which were the most mind-blowing fireworks I have ever seen!
I bought those wonderful red and blue t-shirts that you will see in this post! They are classic. I also bought several vintage items: an Ice Capades and Ewoks banner and a sealed R2-D2 cake pan that is discontinued, which I will never open. (I went to the Ice Capades and Ewoks when I was little and have been searching for some memorabilia to collect.)

Here are some pictures of our adventures. Believe me when I say that this doesn't even come close to representing what a wonderful time we had. I told Shawn that it was the best few days of my life.