The boys and I went to the Northern California Renaissance Faire today. Just squeaked in on the last day too, but I’d been promising all year. We had so much fun at the last one that I had a dress made and Seamus especially was all jazzed about going.

Since they were so enthusiastic, I rented costumes for them. Now that I’ve seen boy’s costumes up close, I bet that I can make some before next year, but at the rate they grow, it would probably be cheaper to just keep renting them. They had so much fun getting dressed up; I really didn’t think John would get into it, but he surprised me. They’ll remember this for the rest of their lives.

We did all sorts of stuff:

John climbed the rock wall

Seamus drank his breakfast like the good Irish throwback that he is

They went through the maze, but came out the other side, and after the barker teased me with the potential of finding entirely new kids in there!

Seamus and I went on the Maypole ride

They shot crossbows

And then the highlight of their day! The turtle races! (Well, we’d checked that out first thing, but they reluctantly believed me when I pointed out that turtles are in fact reptiles and not likely to make a very exciting race when we’re all goose-bumped in the morning.)

We watched a fire eater/juggler guy

And we watched my favorite, the jousting. Too bad I couldn’t get any good pictures from that! But the kids had a ball and really, so did I. It would be fun to go with a girlfriend or two some year, but that would have to be in addition to the kids’ trip, not instead of. I mean, really. There’s lots of eye candy walking around there, and the experience would only be enhanced by drinking more than a breakfast Guinness. Motor the trailer on up there to the RV park, and spend a weekend getting rowdy with a whole bunch of other people getting their freak on. What’s not to love about that?