Pirate Weekend at the Renaissance Festival!

Some of you have asked to see pictures from the Renaissance Festival.  It makes me giggle a little, thinking that you'd care to see the pictures, but I'd love to share them!  Be prepared, though...there are quite a few!  I'll just share my favorites.  If you ever have a chance to visit the Ohio Renaissance Festival, I highly recommend it.

 Little Lou was jumping up and down with excitement as we waited for the gates to open!

We save our nickels and dimes each year so that we can attend.  We don't pay extra for rides and we don't typically buy souvenirs.  We buy lunch at the festival, but the kids usually share one or two meals.

 The tables were full, so we ate picnic style this year.  It was even more fun!

Bugs was trying to open his water bottle.  That's hard work!

The Queen and her court graced us with their presence while we dined! 

We do take along some $1 bills to tip the "players."  The kids love putting dollars in the buckets after the shows!

This weekend was Pirate Weekend, which thrilled Bugsy.  He adores the Pirate Show!

Pirates were everywhere around the festival! 

In fact, when we first arrived one of the pirates stopped The Hubby and invited us to the pirate show.  He marked the spot on our map and told  us if we had any questions we should look for a pirate because, "As you know, pirates know everything...except for where to find the treasure!"

Little Lou's favorite is the Mudde Show.  

This year we sat in the 9th row.  "It was an 8 row show."  We were SO close to being muddy!

Mama's favorite is the Swordsmen.  They do the same basic show every year (all the different shows stay pretty similar from year to year) but I love the banter between the Swordsmen!

And what would a Renaissance Festival be without a good joust?  We've always gone to the "full armor joust" before, but this year we went to the "gaming joust."  They did some little games to test their accuracy, and then they jousted.

On the first run, Lady Jessica was nearly de-horsed!  The second run left Lady Jessica on the ground and Sir Robin the victor!  We've never seen someone de-horsed before.  I felt bad for her and hoped she wasn't injured too badly.  She was in enough pain that she didn't continue, but she did walk away.

There were several other fun parts to the day.  It's such a busy, fun day!  We don't stop from the minute the gates open until we leave in the evening.  It doesn't make our kids tired, though, or so they say...

 Less than 5 minutes into the ride.  

She just dozed off and on.

No sleep in the car, but he'd had about a 20 minute snooze earlier in the afternoon.

We love our time each year, and trust it'll get even more fun as the kids grow!  Here are a few more pictures of some of the more fun moments:

My happy munchkins.  This was the first (and best) of a series of 8 shots of them.

 By far the most kid-geared show of the day.  We thought it was really cheesy and not very entertaining...the kids loved it!

 The Bug, choosing his weapon

 The obligatory "giant knight" picture!  They've grown since last year:

We enjoyed our time immensely!  We basked in a lovely family day together.  

We're already making plans for next year!  What a great annual memory!