weekly wonder: thirteen

I have never been one to pass up on an opportunity to experience living in another time period.  So when my friends, Rachel and Will, invited our little family to the Original Renaissance Pleasure Faire, I could not even dream of answering no.  Even though two-thirds of our household had been sick all week, I basically told everyone to man-up because I wanted to see some crazy people running around in Renaissance clothes.

So off we went to Irwindale.  We made sure to leave while Noah was napping so that we didn't incur the wrath of the "car hater"and it was a good thing too because it was WAY out there.  Anyways, when we arrived we saw people getting out of their cars and piecing together their costumes, which we very quickly realizing that there were only maybe a handful of people at this fairgrounds wearing civilian clothing. hah. After pushing our way through the crowds of "Rennies", we finally met up with our friends at the jousting tournament.  Since we got there kind of late, we couldn't really see what was going on.  So Noah went up on Jonathan's shoulders so he could get a better look.  Unfortunately, Noah was not amused. He only wanted to run around and escape.  Not exactly an ideal situation at a very very very busy fair.

Eventually,we made our way over to a petting zoo.  This was Noah's first time getting to see many of these animals.  There were several goats, sheep, rabbits, chickens, ponies, camels and donkeys.  I thought he would have been really excited to see the really hairy sheep, but I think their animal smell kept him at bay. He pretty much stuck by my side.  When the animal keeper brought him a brush so he could "pet" some of the larger animals, he thought that was pretty neat, but mostly he just wondered around checking things out.  

From there, we adults decided to do participate in some activities like axe throwing.  Have you ever hurled a five pound axe at a target? No?  Go to a Renaissance Fair and get your fix.  Hah.  It was surprising how 6 adults could only manage to hit the target a few times, but hey... it was still a lot of fun.

Most of our time was spent wondering from site to site absorbing all of the interesting people.  This is about half of the photos.  There were so many people that a lot of them are just blurry or confusing at best (not that these are any better).  

When we left, Jonathan decided that he was feeling well enough for one last small adventure.  On our way home, we stopped in Arcadia and had some hand-made Chinese noodle soup and dumplings.  Noah loves anything ethnic, so he most certainly did not complain.  It made for a wonderful end to our exciting day.