Got To Be NC!

Every year for as long as I can remember I have gone to the Carolina Renaissance Festival in the Fall. When David and I got married he joined in and it became one of our favorite traditions (recaps can be found here and here) and last year we added Amelia Grace to the adventure! Following our big move this summer we knew we would have to replace this year's Renaissance Festival visit with something a little different-the North Carolina State Fair! Many moons ago (okay, like 8 years ago) David and I started going together when we were in college. Little did we know that we would be returning with our sweet girl down the road! 

My two sisters heard we were going and decided to join us for the adventure. Mandy and her husband, Tyler, provided the trip with the awesome camera that took the following pictures. Abby and her boyfriend, Mark, brought his kids who provided lots of entertainment. It's definitely more fun to go with kids who appreciate the fair with a child-like wonder that is often lost on adults. 

Rides were ridden, food was eaten, and lots of fun was had! Here are a few pictures from the day. . .

We all paid for our adventures dearly as we are all fighting a nasty cold but it was worth it. Hopefully the next time we go we will all stay healthy!

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;-)

Fun at the Fair

I have always been a sucker for a good fair or festival. Whenever I hear of one heading to town I begin the begging and pleading to my hubby to attend. He usually grudgingly goes along with it, and then ends up having fun. This past weekend we hit up the local county fair! It seemed a little early in the season for it, but I think that's just because I was spoiled by the North Carolina State Fair when we lived in Raleigh. We decided to give the 'ol county fair a go and headed there on Friday evening.

We arrived pretty early since we were both hungry and had been saving room for fair food. The question then became, what to eat?? While we were deciding we decided to peruse the animal exhibits. I always love seeing the adorable farm animals, and since it was the first night most of them were still in good moods! Here is a glimpse at some of the animals we saw:

Some of the adorable animals, minus the ostrich. It wasn't so much adorable as it was terrifying!

A local high school also had a "duck slide" set up for the baby ducks. They would put them at the top of a slide with water running down it and the ducks would slide down! It was absolutely precious. It was made even better by the fact that the ducks would then climb back up a ramp to do it again. I was melting inside!

By that point our tummies were grumbling and the fairway was beginning to smell yummy. I was in the mood for a roasted turkey leg, so I scouted one out as soon as I could. We then decided to split a plate of "ribbon fries" coated in nacho cheese and bacon. Yeaaaa we went all out with our food choices that evening. You can't go to the fair without getting some sort of fried doughy deliciousness. After a lap around the place we went with a red velvet funnel cake with cream cheese frosting drizzled on it. Nom nom nom. It was worth every overpriced dollar!

We ended up taking a few more laps around the fairground trying to walk off all our food. We sat down for a circus that reminded us a bit of the one in Water For Elephants. It was humorously pathetic, but you didn't want to walk away for fear their feelings would be hurt! We watched a few people lose some money on silly games and get sick on rides before deciding to head out. On the way out of the gates a delicious smell caught my nose-fried Oreos. I wanted one, but of course you can't buy just one, so we ended up with five. Five fried Oreos later and we were officially rolling on out of there.

 Left: Turkey leg and ribbon fries

Right: The remnants of the fried Oreos

All in all it was great fun and I can't wait to head to the State Fair next month!

Friday's Letters [09.07]

Happy Friday one and all!!

Dear County Fair, I am super excited to visit you this weekend. My only other fair experience has been the North Carolina State Fair, so my expectations of fair food and carnies are pretty high. 

Dear NC State football, Was last weekend a joke? I was so bored by the end of the HOUR LONG first quarter I could barely watch. Let's pick it up this week and show Connecticut who's boss.

Dear weekend, Thank you for arriving in such a timely manner. Want to talk to your fellow weekend friends about extending every weekend into a three-day weekend? I think the entire world would appreciate your sacrifice.

Dear body, You need to step up your game. This being absolutely exhausted all the time stuff has got to go! We're almost two full weeks into the swing of things, pick it up!