Renaissance Festival

We had such a great day! Larry was off, the first weekend day in quite awhile. On a local friend's recommendation, we drove over to Sterling, on Lake Ontario, for the Renaissance Festival. It started raining as we got there, but it was o.k. - we got a little damp, but it kept the crowds away and was cooler than it would have been, and the kids didn't care. The rain cleared out eventually. We saw jousting, which Caleb just loved, and Alana got to pet one of the horses (she was completely enthralled). We played a few games, had some food, and bought souvenirs - a wooden sword for Caleb and a pink princess hat for Alana. The only glitch was that we forgot the camera, which is a real shame, since there were some great shots that were missed - Alana riding the "carousel" (with swings instead of horses) and Caleb doing archery and throwing tomatoes at a "prisoner." And Larry was on his best behavior, not cranky and not talking on the phone (most of the time that we were watching fireworks on the 4th he was texting his boss, so he was making a special effort this weekend!) The festival was really nice - classy crafts, fun games, appropriate food, tons of people in costumes - all very authentic and not a tacky plastic piece of crap to be seen. We're already planning for next year: http://www.sterlingfestival.com/

Our neighbors (behind us) had promised their wooden play structure to us awhile ago (their kids don't use it anymore and they got a trampoline this spring), and when we got home on Sunday, there it was in our yard! Playing with Alana and Caleb are (other) neighbors (and constant playmates) - Phillip (from across the street) and (siblings) Jake and Maddie (from right next door) - I think of them as The Gang of Five.