Phew. Now that I have recuperated from PAX pox, it's time to share some memorable geek-out moments at PAX 12 that was held Labor Day weekend in Seattle.

1. Acquisitions Inc: For two years in a row my cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling for two hours straight. Watching the highjinks of Scott Kurtz (PvP), Wil Wheaton, and the Penny Arcade boys (Mike and Jerry) play D&D Next (or any version of D&D) is just about the most +10 bonus EVER. Their Dungeon Master, Chris Perkins (of Wizards of the Coast) is the perfect match of sarcasm to complete the show.
2. Story Realms: It's been talked about on GeekDad and here. Story Realms is a family RPG that you can back on Kickstarter right now! I was able to play through most of a game and loved how the game encouraged the kids and adults to use their imagination to get through the adventure.
3. Popcap Games swag: For the low, low price of standing in line for 8 minutes, Popcap Games had SWAG! Tim (my hubby) and I both came away with plush zombie heads, Wall-Nut stocking caps, and zombie dress-up magnet sets. Considering how much time we have spent as a family playing Plants Vs. Zombies, we all appreciated the goodies.
4. D&D Next: I had already played the next version of D&D, and there was a long line to play it at PAX. But "standing in the queue line for three hours" actually meant “sitting in nice chairs and listening to half of the line play Cards Against Humanity” until D&D started. D&D Next was a great time. I really like what has been done with game mechanics being more story-driven than dice-driven. But, that's for another post. If you didn't know about the new version of D&D, you can check it out and sign up to play-test for free on the Wizards of the Coast website.
5. Seeing fellow GeekMoms: Writing for a blog like GeekMom means probably not meeting and seeing your co-workers and supervisors very often. I am fortunate to live within a 20 minute drive of two GeekDads, but not any GeekMoms! PAX was a wonderful excuse to see Kelly Knox again (we met at GeekGirlCon a couple of weeks before), and meet Ariane Coffin for the first time.
6. Kaijudo: There were Kaijudo signs all over PAX. The new collectible card game is on my stack of items to review, but being a Pokemon junkie, I was having a hard time "getting it". Watching other kids and adults play the game and talk about it over the weekend helped me understand what's up.
7. King of Tokyo: Tim had two things on his list for the weekend...well, actually he had a very long list, but two board games were very prominent. He wanted to play King of Tokyo, and purchase NetRunner. Uncle's Games was away from the main areas so we were able to pick up Ugh! for a couple of families that were helping us out with kid watching that weekend. To our surprise, they had King of Tokyo for sale - and it was immediately purchased. It has already been played about a dozen times, and we haven't even had it a month. You can’t go wrong playing a tiny bunny, inside a giant robot bunny fighting other monsters for the privilege of stomping on Tokyo (and a game board with one whole space).
8. Netrunner: While waiting for PAX to start Friday morning, we found Fantasy Flight Games had several stacks of Netrunner (which was then purchased the minute the convention started). Tim has been talking about the TCG-turned-living-card-game for awhile. When I saw that Wil Wheaton had tweeted a picture of his Netrunner purchase at Gen Con, I knew it would be on our shopping list at PAX.
9. Gaming with GeekDads: As stated before, I live near a couple of GeekDads. Thankfully, they are both board game geeks and we get together every couple of months and play games. This year Tim's and my focus was just to play board games at PAX. We didn't schedule a bunch of panels, we didn't even go see the concerts, we just played games. It was great. And, some of the games were played with GeekDads Jonathan Liu, Erik Wecks, and Dave Banks (and Rael Dornfest who is an “honorary” GeekDad). Playing with these guys introduced me to the game Seasons – which is now on my must-have list.
10. Date weekend: Last year we tried taking the kids (then 5 and 1.5) with us to PAX. It was great the first day, but the second day was a nightmare. This year, we traded in all of our babysitting tokens and favors to friends and family to take our kids Thursday night through Monday morning. It was well worth it. Plus, we had enough family available to also take us to the Bolt bus stop (and pick us up) so we didn't even have to worry about driving and parking all weekend. It was an awesome date weekend completely full of board games and sharing a common interest.
11. Nintendo: Nintendo was on one side of the escalators going to the main floor. Lined up like my own personal candy store: Pokémon, Mario, Skylanders,Adventure Time, and Kirby. There was lots of buzz about Kirby growing out of his teen years and turning 20 - including a Guinness book gathering of people blowing bubbles with pink bubblegum.
12. Buttoneering: Buttoneering is the activity of making up a design, putting it on a slew of buttons, and then trading them with other Buttoneers. This was our first year of Buttoneering. We collected quite a few buttons. We can’t wait to do it again next year.

Now that PAX is done until next year, it’s time to start figuring out what to do next year. PAX will be 4 days next year; I can’t wait to see what the guys want to do with the extra day!