Went to the IPMS convention held today in Stafford, TX (suburb of Houston to the southwest of the city). Lots of great models on display and a bunch of vendors selling everything from kits to tools to paints/supplies and even prints.
This was a first time for me. Seems like every year I miss this event, and was about to miss it again when I bought tickets for Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace for today then remembered this was the day of the convention. Swapped the movie tickets for tomorrow.
Lots of fun to see all the models. My reactions ranged from "You entered that into a contest?" to "WOW!" As for the vendor floor, it was a mad-house. I scoured all the displays. I ended up buying some supplies from a (more-or-less) local shop, LionHeart Hobbies (located in Kyle, TX between Austin and San Antonio, so not exactly local to me). Then I found what looked like a good deal on Monogram's old First Lunar Landing kit, although this was a more recent re-release. Considered a few other kits but opted to not go crazy.
Here are the photos I took of the builds from my Amazon Photos link.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/groups/share/sSn9MzT3TvOcKXTuL-ZtkQ.V-jWYLyKUuQ2y6teXxhrzz