On the back of an elephant

We wrapped up September with a visit to the Renaissance Festival for a day of face painting, dress up, crowd control, elephant rides, and the mandatory turkey leg followed by at least three mandatory bottles of water to wash down all that salt. My family joined us this year, so Hannah got to pal around with Clay.


Like last year, we took advantage of the free pony rides.

Clay's first pony got a little skitterish and crazy, so one of the employees snatched him off quickly and plopped him onto a much calmer pony. He wasn't thrilled with that experience, even after getting the calm pony.

I don't know why it is that with as many shows as they have that the Squire on the Wire is pretty much the only one we see year after year, but it's fine because he's pretty darn funny (we don't seek him out; it just happens that we're always there). This year he asked for a 4-year-old volunteer. A very specific age...Hannah's specific age. She raised her hand and got picked. He had two tight ropes  and told the audience that he would walk on the highest wire and then asked Hannah which was the highest. She pointed to the highest, and he tried to convince her that the other one was the highest and tried to trick her into pointing to that one instead. The comedy was way over her head, and she was a bit confused about why this adult seemed so insistent that the short one was the high one, but he ended up giving her a dollar so she walked away smiling.

In addition to being in her first show, Hannah had her first elephant ride. Shortly after we got in line, a little girl riding solo got in line behind us (I was told a parent had to ride with kids that young, but I guess they made an exception for her). She wasn't much older than Hannah and Clay so we let her join our little party. Hannah really wanted to ride in the front, and I saw no reason for her not to so we sandwiched the random girl between Hannah and Clay. She didn't mind at all. This is one of those photos that we'll look at 10 years from now and say, "who's that kid??" And the answer won't be that entertaining, but a picture that starts a conversation beyond "awww!" is always fun.

Some things, like riding the ponies and the giant wooden slide, we'll probably do every year. Other things, like participating in shows and riding an elephant, add an extra uumph of special to an already fun day.

Hannah's face in a hole

Hannah had a hay day with the face-in-a-holes at Weber's this year, and Weber's has amped up their selection of cardboard places to put your face to a level bordering obnoxious. Eric played the diligent paparazzi, and I am posting all of his pictures!! Only because I heart obnoxious-ness.

I missed the trip the first trip there this year (hoping there will be a second, and that I'll be there for that), so Eric is our photographer for this post. Last year Hannah split her time between running wildly through the corn maze and flying down the giant slides on a burlap sack. According to Eric, these were favorite activities again this year, but according to the pictures on his phone, all she did was take a hay ride and stick her face behind a bunch of painted cardboard.

Last year's visit to Weber's has links to all the previous years.

Hmm...face painting, soccer, and an apothecary photo shoot

Oooo boy am I behind!! I'm living in the weeds these days so the best I can do at the moment is post a few unrelated pictures.






Hannah got a pretty interesting face painting at this year's HampdenFest. I'm not sure what it is--vampire butterfly?? It goes well with the blue flower barrette that one of the vendors gave her for free.

It sucks to have no backyard, but you can't beat our back porch! Best back porch around! And come March/April, there will be another baby hanging out on that back porch...Yay!

Hannah's awesome school started a complimentary after-school soccer program this year. Love complimentary!! It's especially awesome at this age when kids have no idea what they will and will not like, and you end up forking out dough for them to try something and then having to deal with them complaining about going which is what Hannah does every Saturday morning when it's time for dance class. All summer she asked to dance and said she missed her dance friends. We switched her to Peabody this year (and so did the friend she kept asking for), but she is not liking it...I'm hoping it's just because it's new and that she'll adjust and like it, but if not, we won't sign her up again in the spring. In the meantime, I've explained that she has to follow through with it.

We stopped by Jenny's apothecary a few weeks ago to pick up some post-partum tea for Terrill (yay for new babies!) and Hannah managed to spot the random hats Jenny had laying around, including this pink cowboy hat with glitter.

September ended with our annual visit to the Maryland Renaissance Festival...post pending...and we rang in October with a camping trip--Jacob's maiden voyage--another post pending!

Aargh!! All hands on deck!

Baltimore's Urban Pirates family adventure cruise rocks. Seriously. We had so much fun! Granted, I did not have terribly high expectations, I mean, I LOVE kitschy activities more than the average Joe, but I also recognize that a great deal of said activities are often only moderately entertaining at best (thinking specifically of Frontier Town which totally sucked and was obviously being enacted by people who hate their jobs). Not so with this one. Urban Pirates FAR exceeded my expectations. The crew was full of fun activities, and they had amazingly silly attitudes.

Hannah brought her own pirate hat and sword, but her and Addison happily accepted a marker mustache and beard and mermaid fake tattoos.

The crew kept the kids going non-stop with fun, silly activities, starting with learning some pirate lingo (e.g., all hands on deck, which was translated literally, and avast, which means freeze). There were a few different dance parties, one of which taught me some sweet new moves (e.g., swab the deck, raise the sails). 

Hannah, Brody, and Addison took the stories very seriously.

In the beginning, I was part of what they called "the shade brigade." (Love it! Totally stealing that term, along with "check yourself before you shipwreck yourself." There were more that I fully intended to incorporate into my daily speech, but I forget them now.)

The ship sails around the harbor for an hour, and at the far end near the Science Center, the kids got to spray the water canons at strolling tourists who paused to smile at the spectacle and take pictures (we didn't get close enough to actually get them wet).

No pirate sail is complete without a conga line followed by a game of limbo.

I disbanded the shade brigade to conga with Hannah.

At various points throughout our ride, Madman Mike, the rogue pirate who stole the treasure, would appear in his little dingy and circle the ship fake menacingly. When that happened, the water canons were turned back on and the kids tried to soak him.

Toward the end, at the insistence of the crew to return the treasure, Madman Mike offered to trade it for Hannah's sweet hat, but she said no way. The crew huddled the children together to come up with a plan: trick Madman Mike! They let him think they were going to give him the hat, so he handed over the treasure, but Hannah held onto her hat.

Before debarking the ship, the kids got to pick two things from the treasure box. Hannah picked over the little plastic toys and grabbed two gold doubloons. (She's recently acquired an obsession with Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and they're always collecting and counting gold doubloons...)

I wore my psi bands to keep the motion sickness at bay, and they worked pretty well, and I was only slightly uncomfortable.

Bottom line: if you haven't been, you should totally go. We had a Groupon which sweetened the deal (I think full price is $20/ticket for everyone over age 3), but now that I know how fun it is, I'd pay full price (unless, of course, they run another Groupon deal, in which case, I'll happily take the deal). This is definitely something we'll do again!

One rainy summer day...

...Jacob helped me hold the hold umbrella.

(Yes, I'm still playing catch up with all the random pics I collected this summer.)