Renaissance Festival

Yesterday we made our annual visit to the Renaissance Festival in Kansas City.  Austin got to join us this time, he missed it last year because he was too little to go.  We always have so much fun here!  There is good food, shopping, fun costumes, singing, dancing, sword fighting, ax tossing, puppet shows...something for everyone.  We spent over seven hours there and we missed a lot of stuff, but here is what we did.

When we first got there we got something to eat and went to the children's area (The Enchanted Realm) so the kids could play on the playground.  By the time we finished we were watching a fencing demonstration on the stage.  It was great!  Even Austin loved it!  This guy showed Gavin the appropiate place to stab people.

Then the boys watched people fencing.



Then Gavin got to go up on stage and practice fencing with a foam sword.

While Gavin was fencing, Austin practiced his moves with a little wand he found on the bench.  It was really funny to watch him trying to hit an invisible enemy.

Gavin got to be a heroic knight slaying a dragon.

Then we visited a petting zoo.  The sheep were very nice.  None of them bit Austin although I was sure they were going to because he was running all over the place with his arms outstretched like Frankenstein trying to touch them all.

Last, but certainly not least, was the jousting.  What can I say?  Gavin loved it, Austin seemed to find it all entertaining and it was very exciting and dramatic.  Our valiant knight...

Gavin got to try on real chain mail and a real, kid sized helmet.  He did not like the helmet...it was very heavy.  I got this picture just as it was put on and right before it came off.

And, my baby...who never falls asleep in public...took a 15 minute cat nap. 

This guy was there last year too.  He ties one end of a rope to a tree, has audience members hold up the other side, balances on it and juggles fire.  Go figure...



Into the Swing of Things

Since Steven and I were in Florida for a long weekend, this week we have all been getting back into our normal routine and preparing for Fall!  We have gotten out our Fall clothes and started some minor decorating.  Here's some pictures from Florida...it was beautiful!

So basically we haven't done anything very exciting this week.  The kids did get to paint.  Gavin and Austin were painting a 'thank you' to Grandma Sue for watching them all weekend.  Gavin spent a lot of time on his project and it turned out great...but they are not in the mail yet...

Gavin and I have started reading about New York.  We read a book about New York City and all the things to do and see and we read a book about the men who built the Empire State Building.  Then we went on the YouTube and found some actual video taken of the men working on the building and a slide show of about 30 pictures that was really neat.  We finished the day by checking out the web site and took a virtual tour and saw pictures of the view from the top!

We Are Finally Back!!!

So if you don't know I haven't just been lazy this last month and a half but our computer was not working...but...we finally got it fixed!  So, here's the abridged version of what we've been doing this last six weeks.

We were cowboys.

We saw a snake eating a toad in our front flower garden.  Okay, that's gross, and yes, it was that gross in person and also disturbing as the snake then slithered into a hole under our front porch where we play all the time!!!!  Gavin was very sad for his toad friend but I suppose it was a good nature lesson.  He drew a picture in his nature notebook.

We played with trucks. 

Sometimes having a big brother is a great thing!

We hung out on the porch and enjoyed the beautiful summer days.

We went to the park.

We 'played' music.  I took some video of this.  Trust me when I tell you that you can be greatful I'm not uploading it.

We painted.

Austin mixed the paint into a delightful shade of brown so Gavin made a picture of The Old Man in the Mountain, a rock formation in New Hampshire.  We have finished Georgia, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Virginia in the last month.  When he was finished with the mountain he got his own paints and then made a nice picture of an apple tree because they grow apples in New Hampshire.

Gavin also made a really cute Johnny Appleseed...who was not technically from New Hampshire but he's apple related and I thought it was a cute project and Gavin likes puppets...so we did it anyway.

We played with Play Doh.



We talked on the phone.

And, most exciting, we have a new patio at the bottom of our back deck.  It took a couple of weeks and was truly a family creation (although Steven did most of the work) but it looks great!  Steven gets mad at me when I post pictures of him so I will be nice and just post pictures of the boys.  I need to take a picture of the finished patio and put it on here!

So that's it!  The nice thing about this blog is that I always feel like we don't do much but when I post all the stuff we do I don't feel quite so bad.