And then one day we went to the Renaissance Faire

Have you ever been to the Renaissance Faire? I went with my family for the first time on Saturday.

My mom, Angela, and I (the cool half of the family, obviously) decided to dress up a bit for it—you know, throw on a cape and call it a day. But we were no match for many of the fancy get-ups we saw around the place.

Belen (our exchange student) and I rocked the flower crowns...

Ok, brace yourselves for a massive amount of photos after the jump!

^^Ha. Sassafras is a popular nickname in our family, coupled with "sass-bucket!" to describe particularly sassy behavior.

^^The fairies were Mum's favorite. They wore the most fantastic costumes and planned games and activities for the little kids there.

We attended not one but TWO jousts, Dad's favorite.

We all got very excited when they announced that one of the jousters was from Spain—"Don Eduardo de Valencia." The announcers made jokes about a Spaniard  defending the honor of the English crown.

"We have to talk to him after the show!" my parents said. "Belen, you can tell him you're also from Spain!"

Belen muttered to me, "I do not think he is really from Spain."

But they tracked him down after the show, and it turns out he really was from Spain, from Majorca. Everyone was so excited, and my dad took pictures of him with Belen to send to her parents in Spain.

We admired all the pretty flower wreaths...

And followed the signs to "Vegetable Justice." It was Caroline and Joseph's favorite.

This gentleman gets pelted with tomatoes... but meanwhile he gets to insult the tomato-throwers as much as he wants. He came up with some pretty clever insults!

We enjoyed a few more shows and wandered around looking at all the darling shops.

Frank sadly couldn't be there (darn bar exam studying) so I took pictures of all the stuff I thought he would like.

One of the best parts of the day... you could sign up to get all dressed up in armor and take part in a two-person fencing match. Here are Joseph and Angela waiting for their turn:

Did you ever see two cuter little "knights"?

After that we just enjoyed all the great singing groups and took way too many photos.

^^More fairies

^^The "Irish" group that sang songs like "The night that Paddy Murphy died" ... Frank would have loved them!

The whole village turned out for a farewell dance as the gates closed:

Angela even joined in!

It was so much fun ... and fabulously nerdy. We had a great time!