ladykatza

Since I hate spelling out Renaissance Festival, it will be called Ren Fest instead.

I’ve been wanting to take the kids out to the Ren Fest for some time now. I still have many fond memories of traveling with the festival, dressing up on weekends, finding work with the craftsmen during the week. I lived in a tent for a year, and I think there’s a good portion of it I don’t remember with great clarity. Ah yes. Youth is wasted on the young.

I digress.

So a co-worker of mine agreed to switch days with me (thank you). I packed a picnic lunch, drinks, and we headed out. Hell, we even made it out of the house on time, a feat unto itself. The festival is about an hour drive south of us, and we were meeting friends there.

Of course, even with the food in the car, as soon as we got there Felicity wanted a muffin at the cafe just inside the gate. It being still early in the day, the young man that was acting as host was busy juggling instead. This is part of what got our attention. And while I didn’t get a picture of the juggler, I did get a picture of Simon with a mouth full of muffin staring at the juggler off camera.

From there we wondered along, saying hi to some people I know and looking at the various shops. Its odd being here from this angle, as I’ve never spent money on rides, or face painting, or any of the other things that the kids want to do. Its definitely where they make their money (the fair itself, not the artisans). We did run into an old high-school buddy of my husband’s. I’m sure its going to be interesting at the next class reunion, considering the changes he’s gone through. My kids weren’t sure what to make of him either.

ICK! That’s his name. The Troll, that is. He also informed us of his new line of “Troll House Cookies” that we should invest in. Anybody? ANYBODY?

Next we got on the big ship swings. Simon started crying out “YAHR! Avast ye landlubbers!” then he said “I’m the Captain! You are my Minions! Sail this ship!”. The two kids running the ride were cracking up. I got a cute picture of Felicity.

At this point we decided it was time to sit, and chose The Joust as the venue. We got there about 20 minutes before the show, which means we got to sit up front. The children could not sit still, they had to run around and climb on things. During the show I noticed that one of the jousters was having trouble keeping their horse under control, which had me concerned. I commented on this to Josh, and he had noticed too. We were a bit more vigilant on the kids after this, but all was good.

Shortly after this the rest of our party arrived, and we started up the hill toward the Peacock Tearoom. Here we ran into one of the guys my husband plays D&D with currently. We were talking about getting food with a show going on distracted us. The guy’s name is Dexter and he does… dangerous comedy? He does things like juggle chainsaws and knives while standing on a six foot ladder. His last stunt require almost the ENTIRE audience, and fire and safety gear. It involved duct tape, fireworks, and water balloons. He used the duct tape to strap the fireworks to his chest and gave the water balloons to the audience to throw at him afterwards to “put him out”. Don’t ask, just watch the video below.

This is what happens when you don’t drink, smoke, or do drugs.

Afterward we met up with the D&D people we ran into at the Tea room and had a nice afternoon tea. Not much to report after that, but there was a group photo.

Fini!

Current Mood: sunburned

Current Music: Nothing - Tiesto