Monday, May 25, 2009

Mayfair Renaissance Festival

So, after a Sunday of working hard at the in-laws on their lawn (Zachary worked his butt off, Lucas...not so much...I kept having to get after him since he wanted to play with his cousin who wasn't working) we took the kids to the RenFest today. I thought the kids might enjoy dressing up and being knights and princesses for the day.And I think they did have a good time. They got to watch a Fox Hunt (men doing silly things to be called the foxiest in all the land), the jester doing jester-ly skits and making balloon swords and hats and animals for the kids, and got to see all kinds of swords from real hand tooled steel to wooden ones that looked miraculously just like the real thing. Zachary and Lucas also got to try on chain mail which was amazingly heavy...I'm shocked that they didn't fall over from the weight of it! We made paper crowns encrusted with plastic jewels and a septor that m'Lady Elizabeth kept pulling jewels off from as soon as I'd glue them on. On the way out for the day, Zachary also played a game called "Drench the Wench" where all proceeds went to cancer research. He threw 3 wet sponges at the girls and in return he got big, red kisses on each cheek and nose. The girls gave him the choice of handshakes, hugs or kisses and of course, my boy being my boy, chose kisses...and blushed the entire time.
It's funny, because on the way home, Chuck and I were talking about if we felt the $60 for the gate entrance, food, and couple little trinkets we picked up was worth it and I felt it really wasn't. But seeing it in print, we did a lot of things this afternoon and the kids had a good time and were very well behaved. They had new experiences and a little education of how things worked in the past (we went through viking encampments and they watched a blacksmith at work) so it wasn't all lost. I just expected a bit more....renaissance. I think the addition of a jousting competition and sword fighting competition would have been neat.

In the future, I think we may go but eat a HUGE meal ahead of time and make a no trinket rule. Then it would only cost the $21 entry fee...and that's a much more reasonable price for us for an afternoon of wandering through the mid-evil mall.

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