Renaissance Festival 2014!

It's that time of year again!! One of our favorite things about Fall is the Renaissance Festival. If you've never been, and there is one near you, then you need to get there as fast as you can! Between the food, the drinks, the shows, and the crazy people watching it is worth every penny. This year my brother, Harrison, and his lovely new wife, Ashley, joined us on our adventure. As did our very own renaissance princess, Amelia Grace;-)

We weren't even in the gate yet and she was already knocked off from excitement.

We're fortunate in that the festival is literally five minutes from our house, so we didn't have to do too much waiting to get there. We do know people who drive down from Greensboro and Raleigh to attend each year. Talk about dedication! We left our house around 10 (when they opened) and figured we'd be some of the first there. Wrong. Since they run an opening weekend special of buy one adult ticket, get one free it seems like the entire population of Huntersville, Concord, and Charlotte combined met us there. 

Ashley had never been so the first thing we did was hit up the Tortuga Twins show. This is always a favorite of ours, and pretty much anyone else who attends the festival! 

 Tortuga Twins!

After the show we grabbed some beers (a must-have when attending the festival and partaking in the extreme people-watching adventures) and started meandering. We went to a few shops before heading into the Dungeon. It's been years since I had been in so I was excited to be reminded of all the cuckoo things they did back in the day. Ashley and David entertained us by reading all the plaques in their best ghoulish voices. 

The dungeon, enter if you dare!

David's obligatory moment of debate as to whether or not he should purchase a sword. Spoiler alert, he didn't get one.

Little Miss let us know she was ready to eat so we all took her advice and enjoyed the annual turkey leg. Another must-have when attending the festival. After enjoying our snack we kept wandering before hitting up the petting zoo. What is it about getting to see farm animals up close that excites us all so much?? Haha.

Stoked around some farm animals.

It was about this time that the hypnosis show was getting started. We always seem to catch the tail end of this so David was excited to be there from the beginning. He made a joke that I should go up there if he asked for volunteers. I laughed it off, but a minute later when he did, I jumped up! If you know me at all you know that is SO not like me. I just figured, why not? 

Please take note of my latest accessory, the Ergo. Love it!

I can safely say he did his job and "hypnotized" me, for at least part of the time any way. I remember zoning off, but not much else after that until a little bit later when things started becoming clear again. I guess I woke up part of the way through? David, Ashley, and Harrison said they could all tell at a certain point I wasn't fully hypnotized any more. But I don't remember things super clearly either, so who knows? It was a neat experience for sure!

Getting in some AG snuggles!

After that we took in the afternoon jousting session before deciding we were ready to head home. We were all tired and had pups that needed to potty. Overall it was a great day and we're already looking forward to next year when Amelia Grace will actually be awake for some of it;-)