A Festival

Sunday we got up bright and early to get on the road to the Texas Renaissance Festival north of Houston. Zach and Linsey invited us to go along for the Roman Bacchanal weekend so our boys could wear togas together. It was a 2-hour drive and we had a two car caravan. To help pass the time, we listened to Mitch Hedberg for a good hour. That man is hilarious. Then he had to go and overdose on drugs. Ugh. Happens to all the great comedians.

Right as we walked into the front gate there was a stand for face painting. Linsey and I really wanted to get our own faces done, along with the boys. Unfortunately Luke was not too thrilled about some stranger touching his face, so they didn't do his. Aiden was in the middle of taking a bite from a cookie when the woman started to paint his cheek. He FROZE. And stayed in that position, cookie hovering in his mouth, throughout the entire painting. It only took a minute, so it wasn't for that long. But it made me laught the whole time.

After the artist was done with Aiden's dragon, she moved on to da mommas. We both did fancy eye embellishments. It was so pretty I didn't want to wash it off at the end of the day. I did, however, get a chance to walk through Walmart with the paint still on. That earned a few stares.



Last year I saw the archery range and really wanted to give it a try, but didn't work up the guts. This year, I decided before we even got to the festival that I was going to try it. You get 10 arrows for $5, so I did five and Travis did five. It was a lot of fun. Too bad I was better at hitting the ceiling panel than the balloons.

Roman Bacchanal toga and face paint

Zach and Friar Luke

You can sort of see Travis and Aiden in the shadows next to Zach and Luke. Zach swears up and down that Luke screamed "weeeeee!" the entire ride. Aiden could not figure out what the heck was going on. I was convinced the dads had more fun than the boys. I couldn't believe how fast that thing went. Oh man did it make me laugh though.

There are lots of weaponry shops throughout the grounds. We stopped in several, but this one seemed to specialize in ninja swords. David LOVES ninjas and swords, so he had to stop to check them out.

I got a ton of pictures this year. Normal etiquette teaches you not to take photos of random strangers without their permission. This year, I realized that these people are dressing up because they want their photo taken. I jumped in for a few of them. This first one of me with the fawn was probably my all-time favorite costume.

LARGE centaur and a tiny child

Just hangin' out with a couple barbarians

We spent five hours walking the festival grounds. Last year we got stuck for two hours in the parking lot waiting for traffic to start moving because we left at closing. This year we left before dusk; partially to avoid the rush and partially because we were all exhausted. Linsey is something like 14 weeks pregnant!

A few of the activities in which we partook:

• Fire Whip - although we didn't stay long enough to see him light the whip on fire
• Drench a Wench - a woman sits above the tank berating the throwers and random people in the crowd. She was so vulgar and mean I couldn't stay to watch for long. David and Travis, however, found it hilarious.
• Ate gyros for lunch - VERY delicious
• Tried honey mead - not so delicious

There were a hundred other things to check out along the way, like the costumes (fairies, ninjas, women with corsets that hold their boobs so high it looks painful), the random child riding a llama and the various stages with music that related to the area we were in (gypsies in the greek section, oompa band in the german section and so on).

We had a blast, but I'm pretty sure I am still recooperating from the busy weekend.