Renaissance Festival 2014

Fresh off a day at the State Fair we decided to check out the Renaissance Festival. We actually went a couple days later, but I was still feeling pretty beat from the State Fair. Unlike the State Fair, this was a planned event for us this summer. We thought Riley would really enjoy it since you often find princesses and such walking around here. Plus, my in-laws live nearby so we made it a group event.

We headed out early and met my in-laws there. Each weekend has a theme and this one revolved around Fairies and belly dancing. Jesse was slightly disappointed by it's non-manly theme, but  this was perfect for Riley. It was fun to expose Riley the Renaissance Festival and how different it is from the State Fair.

Riley scored with a few items at the Festival (a ring, a headdress thingy, some gems...), but we did not get a dress which is my one regret. Seems like a good excuse to go next year.

Oh Renaissance Festival - I wouldn't expect anything less from you.

Favorite sight of the day for Riley was Mermaid Cove. Nothing too exciting here - three mermaids that didn't talk, but she was in AWE. AWE, I tell you. There was a picture opportunity where she would have to get close to the mermaid below, but she was a little hesitant to do so. However, she could not keep her eyes off the mermaid. The mermaid was also handing out gems which Riley would not let go of for the rest of the day.

She saw me raise my camera and totally posed.

Mom, can we spend all day staring at mermaids?

This tank combo has been my summer uniform and now that I see it from this angle I think it looks so trashy. Why did no one tell me? If only that faded tattoo I got when I was 18 was a little bigger it would complete the look. :/

My body was still beat from walking at the fair (me = old) and the night before I ended up with sore eyes, a migraine, nausea, and rotten gut. I felt like crap. I felt slightly better in the morning, and maybe should have stayed home, but wasn't going to miss this day. In the end I was ok - I didn't feel great, but I had a lot of fun. I was also really grateful when my mother in law offered to go on this rocking horse with Riley as I'm pretty sure this would have made me puke.

Who knew that Justin Bieber worked at the Renaissance Festival?

This made Jesse's day. Also, this turtle is about 20 years old.

The temperature this day was around 70 degree, but it felt so much hotter. I used to think that I seemingly only picked the hottest days to attend the Renaissance Festival, but I think it's just something about this area and walking around on dirt or something. My dark hair and the sun didn't mix so my scalp felt like it was cooking when standing it the direct sun. I know a pony can probably withstand more than me, but I felt bad for this guy who had no shade. Hope you're ok pony dude.

Oy, and the elephants... I don't really know how they feel about all this so I may just be attaching silly human emotions to them, but in one picture I took of an elephant he/she had such sad eyes that I couldn't bring myself to even post it. And yet, not to sound hypocritical, if I were in India or something I would probably totally ride on a elephant. Maybe. Anyhoo, my kid wanted nothing to do with these animals so I didn't have to make some conflicting decision about whether she should ride this or not. Also, not judging others who let their kids ride the elephant or pony - this is all my issue.

There were a bunch of places that sold fruit smoothies, but it turns out they were just slushies. Jesse and I decided to split one to help cool my burning head and it gave me the biggest frozen throat/chest I've ever had. Painful (but did help cool me down). Perhaps, I should have tried the wine smoothie instead (yes, they had those).

There was an area that was devoted to fairy stuff, although I wasn't entirely impressed as I thought there would be fairies running around. There were a bunch of fairy homes that you could vote on, but the best thing in this area was when a band started playing right next to me and then belly dancers showed up a few moments later. It was a fun show without a big crowd.

One of many fairy houses. I think a lot of these were made by 14 year olds which makes them even more impressive.

One of the things I love about the Renaissance Festival are the characters there and the comments they make. There are a lot of innuendos, but I don't think I really heard a lot of those this time - probably because this was the first time I brought a kid with me. Jesse got a Mr. Clean comment and my father in law had multiple comments about his hair. I mean, how could he not? Check out that hair.

About 12:30 Riley announced she wanted to go home. We decided to skip the Irish Cottage which we heard was totally worth checking out (next year!) and headed back to our car.

There aren't the best markers to remember where you parked your car. Actually, there are no markers and we didn't really do a great job of paying attention. Funny enough, the couple that parked next to use were leaving at the same time so we tried to find our cars together. For reference, we were parked less than halfway back in that picture and we arrived at 9 am. This lot was completely full, the long driveway was packed and there was a very long double lane down the highway when we left. My recommendation is go early.

Apparently, the Renaissance Festival may be moving in a couple years since there is silica sand and gravel mining pushing it out. Not sure if or where it will relocate, but since it's the second largest  Renaissance in the US I would hope that it will stick around. All I know is we have to go back next year to get that special princess dress for Riley.

Random Summer Updates

Some random stuff from this summer so far...

~Conversation with Riley while she was sitting on the toilet recently...

Riley: (loses her balance). What if I fell in and got flushed down the toilet? I would be gone and you wouldn't have a child (said so matter of fact)

Uh, ok. It's interesting because I think she's getting the concept of death more. We don't talk about it a lot, but you know, Disney's always killing off people so I'm sure she's getting it from there.


~ We went to the beach last week. As usual, the summer feels like it is flying by and I realized that besides a brief visit to the splash pad the week before we hadn't been in water much. I noticed that West Medicine Lake beach opened at 9 am (lifeguards get there at 10:30) so I decided we'd head to the beach early. I was afraid it would be a little chilly that early, but it was the best decision ever. We had the entire beach to ourselves so one of us could plop down in the shade nearby if needed while still being right next to the water.

 

We brought Riley's sand toys and she settled right in having fun. She even walked way out in the water without holding my hand or freaking out. She's not the water embracing kind of kid so this felt pretty amazing. She did fall in the water once. She was just out of my reach, but I totally saw it coming. I didn't get to her fast enough so she ended up going under water (and proceeded to cry), but also recovered pretty fast. As we were leaving Jesse told her that next time he would help her dunk under water and then would throw her in the air. I don't think she really knows what he meant because she is now really excited to do that next time at the beach.

While we were there we saw a church ceremony take place at one of the pavilions. Apparently, it was also a birthday party and a baptism. After they had their ceremony they all headed to the water where 4 young girls and an adult man were fully dunked in the water for their baptism. The girls were all wearing the same matching pink dress, but apparently the adult man did not get this memo. It was right after they finished their baptisms that Riley fell into the water so anyone who might be concerned about us not baptizing our child can now be eased by the thought that she probably got a little second hand baptism there.

~ My dad's phone company recently upgraded him and gave him voice mail without telling him. My dad's not the voice mail type of guy and has an answering machine so it's just not needed. When you'd call him it would give you a message that his voice mail was not set up. So when I finally got a hold of him and explained this to him there was mass confusion on his part. My dad barely knows how to run the answering machine, or 'recorder box' as he calls it so I knew we needed to get voice mail off his phone. As I was trying to explain what was happening I realized that I needed to give him exact sentences that he needed to repeat to his phone company. He seemed to think that the phone company was somehow messing with his answering machine- "how did the phone company get into my recorder box?". I had to explain that the phone company had nothing to do with his answering machine and that his phone just didn't ring enough for it to pick up. It was pretty painful explaining all this, but my dad was able to successfully resolve the issue with the phone company. Technology and my dad just don't mix.


~ Speaking of phones, I'm not really a fan of smart phones... or my phone... or perhaps my phone carrier. I don't know. I got a lot of feedback suggesting that I get an iPhone, and I do think I would have liked that more than an Android, however, I don't think that's the big issue for me. I actually like Jesse's cheaper Android than mine. We got a great deal going with Virgin, but there's something to be said about working with a company that has store fronts. I recently downloaded some upgrade and it totally messed up my phone... constantly searching for wireless, but never connecting, battery draining in a few hours, usually only getting spotty 3G coverage at home with a quick 4G moment here and there. I called Virgin's support line and they appeared to fix the biggest issue, but then it went back to being screwed up within 20 minutes. I really wished I could have walked into a store and said "here, fix this". A few days later started working ok again, but there are still a couple things that aren't quite right. I like having occasional internet access when out and about, but I think I would have been fine without it too. Of course, I doubt I could actually go back to not having a smart phone, but a little bummed with what I ended up with. Still, I just can't justify an iPhone at this time. Perhaps I take after my dad a little bit and don't mix well with technology.


~ We successfully saw a movie in the theater with Riley. Jesse tried to take her when Planes came out, but when the previews included dinosaurs and bears it was all over. She lost it and they had to leave. Months later we decided to rent Planes for movie night and the first thing out of Riley's mouth was "are there going to be dinosaurs and bears". Haha. No, kiddo, there will not be. So Planes: Fire and Rescue just came out and we decided to try a movie again. Jesse actually asked the movie attendant what previews there were and it sounded like we would be safe. I mean it's been over a year so I just hoped it would be a completely different experience. There were only two families in the theater (one being us) and we happened to sit right next to each other (kinda weird). Riley did great, although she got a little antsy at some point and got up and walked around... and even once asked to play with my phone (a new thing she discovered) to which I said "no". All in all a successful outing and excited that it's another activity we can add to the list for the future.


~ Also, caught this princess checking herself out.

Princess Party

It happened. My kid fell head over heals for princesses. Until a few months ago it seemed like she couldn't care less about princesses. She was into rocks, cars, puzzles, coloring, books... but not really girly stuff. Then one day she came home from school where they had been talking about what they would be when they grew up and she said she wanted to be a princess. I asked her what princesses do and she said something along the lines of "nothing, they just hang out". Uh huh. Ok. The independent woman in me started freaking out internally, but then I remembered what a girly girl I was at her age (pink everything, thank you). So here we are riding the princess wave (which is seriously full blown). We walk around holding imaginary Cinderella's hand, we watch Disney princess movies, tell 'once upon a time' princess stories... you name it. Princess are a part of our daily existence now. 

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that Riley wanted a princess birthday celebration. I'm sure it would have shocked many of my friends to see me pile up the cart with all things princess, but you embrace the things that make your kids happy even when you never thought you would do certain things. Ah, to be a parent.

Like last year, we decided to have a small gathering. I knew I would be out of town the week before and wanted to keep it easy to prepare for. We invited my dad and the in laws and then decided to invite a couple people with kids, one of which unfortunately couldn't make it. Riley didn't seem to care if there were 6 people or 20 so I'm all for keeping it small for now.

Riley most adores Ariel (and wants to be her when she grows up) - her teacher even let her borrow a book from school over the weekend that's all about Ariel, but I tried to bring in multiple princess characters while still having Ariel be the main star.

Our party was fairly simple. We hung out for a bit and Riley played board games with grandma.

I asked for a silly face. This is what I got.

I made Italian Beef sandwiches and an orzo salad for lunch. We also had a veggie plate and hummus and crackers. Nothing too fancy and nothing that Riley would really eat (except some of the veggies), but the adults enjoyed the food.

Sandwich toppings. The olives were a new addition and a good one.

After lunch some of our friends arrived just in time for Riley's favorite part of the day - opening gifts. Riley was waiting for this allllllll morning. As you could probably guess there were a lot of princess presents.

She audibly gasped at this gift when she opened it. It was so dramatic and cute at the same time.

And then there was the playing with all the gifts...

Found this at the airport on my way home from CO.

Glitter without having glitter everywhere. Win win.

Cupcake time! We went to Byerly's for Jesse and my birthday and while his birthday cupcake was really good - mine, not so much. We decided to check out yum!, a local restaurant that has delicious food with the hope that their cupcakes would follow suite. And they did. So good - can't wait for another birthday to come up so I can buy more cupcakes from there.

And just for kicks we played a game that was simple and fun for all... pin the seashell on Ariel. Of course, the guy holding the baby and using his non-dominant hand won.

Such a fun and simple party. We had a little drama that night when we wouldn't let Riley stay up all night playing with her princess stuff and the next morning when one of her dress up princesses broke in half, but otherwise the day was a success.