I love, love, love the Renaissance Fair. No, I am not one of those people who grow up attending every one within a 500 mile radius, nor am I one of them, shall we say, “colorful characters” a.k.a. freaky deakys who live their life to attend events such as these where they can dress up like wenches and drink beer and be cool for doing it. However, I love go and see how immersed in medieval theming (since I’m not actually sure the middle ages were actually that quaint) and watch the kids go into “knight” mode and be all about slaying dragons, rescuing princesses and such. (This may be the influence of Super Mario Bros. and not the Renaissance Fair, the jury is still out on that one.) This year we went with Dave, Heather and the kiddos. The cousins are so cute and look forward to this event every year. It is a LONG drive to get there and we heard all about “Knight Sir Joseph” (last years joisting champion) and how I had promised the boys that they could pick out a knight weapon (this earned me an exasperated look from Tay). I had already purchased Lucy wings at last years Renaissance Fair (when she was 2 months old) and I had brought them with us to let her show them off again this year. As soon as we walked in the opening gate my my little diva was strutting around showing off her cuteness and tons of people were commenting on how cute she is. (Don’t you just hate when people talk about how cute their kids are in their blogs:) We walked on past where Twig the Fairy is but she was walking around the fair and wasn’t around. (We hunted her down later but my camera had died by then.) This Fairy lady is the best, and I mean best Fairy I have ever seen. I am ridiculously picky about these things to. Check her our at TwigtheFairy.com. Amazing.
Next we came upon the huge rubber band jumping trampoline ride. Basically you strap your child into a rubber band and fling them into the air all while on a trampoline. Let me refresh your memory of last years adventure with this attraction. Wes hops up and gets strapped in. The man flings Wes and he loves it. He jumps about 3 times and on the fourth stops smiling and goes a limp as a noodle. I see impending vomit and rush over to tell the unexpecting attendant to get Wes down immediately lest he gets barfed on. The rest of the day Wes walked around saying “that ride was too scary for me…..I am 4.” Fast forward to this year and I am having serious reservations as he gets strapped in because if he pukes the day is over (and we had just arrived) and Taylor may just kill me if we wasted all that money on tickets just to leave. Much to my surprise he did awesome! Not only did he not freak out but after a few jumps he mastered doing flips in the air!! Way to go little man!
All of Heather’s kids did the jumpy thing as well, so while we were waiting for everybody to be finished we took pictures and the boys played on a playground nearby. It never ceases to amaze me that no matter where we are – Renaissance Fair, Disney World, Camping, whatever, that the boys will find a playground and act like it is the best thing they have ever seen. They could have spent the whole day there! I really don’t understand this phenomenon……………..anyway. The boys were going down the slide in a all kinds of crazy ways and crashing at the bottom. You can see the end result- giggling little cuties in a tangled mess.
We continued walking and found a hat shop which the girls (Heather, Julia, Emma and I) had to check out. It was so cool!@ They had queen hats, pirate hats, Victorian hats, pumpkin hats, tiaras. So, of course we had to try them all on and take pictures of ourselves. Taylor discovered I was in the hat shop and and was afraid I was going to buy a hat because I am notorious for buying hats on vacations and at events and never wearing them again. I realized at this hat shop why I never wore any of the hats again. Despite the fact that I like a wide brimmed hate to cover my face (and because they make me feel glamorous) I really don’t like having my head covered when it’s 5 million degrees outside. At this hat shop I found the Holy Grail of hats—a wide brimmed beauty with a hole in the top! Maybe not so glamorous but I seriously love it. I bought it and promised Tay I would wear it and I actually have worn it 3 times since buying it 2 weeks ago. I think I have found a keeper both in hats and husbands.
Next the kids tried out some medieval games. James did pretty good with the stick game. I’m not sure what the point of this particular game is but he looked good doing it. Collin and Wes found a ring toss that was fun and Wes tried a thing that I can only describe a like the Diablo's in Cirque Du Soleil. Maybe he has a future at La Nouba. We found a ride that the kids went on last year called The Joust. Since at the Renaissance Fair there is no electricity (on rides anyways) they are all wooden and man powered. This ride is a wooden horse strung on a rope hanging between 2 poles. Big, burly men race you back on forth on it. The kids loved it and this year James was old enough to ride. He loved it.
After all the fun and games was the little kids were exhausted so the guys offered to take Lydia, Lucy and James home and let Heather and I stay with the big kids – Collin, Wes, Julia and Emma. I must say it was pretty awesome being with the big kids. Thank you guys for letting us stay with them! We had one more event that we had saved for the end of the day- the jousting reenactment! Weston loved this last year and talked about it all year long. We got in sat down and watched as the Queen was presented and the jousting began. Before I knew it our knight had been knocked off his horse and a sword fight started. Before I knew what was happening one of the knights took the other knight by the hair and sliced his throat. When he did this blood squirted out of the cut and blood poured from his mouth. It was a lot of blood. I have never seen any throat actually be slit but it looked just like it does on the movies. Next another knight got his throat sliced and another got stabbed in the heart. By the end of this blood bath the kids were all in fetal position staring is disbelief. What I had failed to realize is that the last joust of the day is called “a joust to the death.” The kids are okay and are expected to be out of therapy in 2034. Luckily, at the end all the slaughtered knights got up and took a bow and that seemed to smooth things over.
