Pyrates Return!

It's rather late in coming, but here is the tale of my  latest adventure at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire!    A
few weeks ago, my father and I took my niece and nephew for the second pirate themed weekend at the faire.
Pirate Captain Grace O'Malley. (she and my niece bonded over French Fries)   


First, we visited the  Children's Discovery Garden, where Dad taught, or rather attempted to teach the kids how to play giant checkers.
Then we were off the see the first joust of the day. I had a great time, but the kids got bored. The knights were explaining the rules, and were exchanging a lot of banter and I think it was over their three and five year old heads. 
I wasn't about to distract the people around me or make the kids sit through something they didn't like so we left Bosworth Field and wondered about the Shire. That plan seems to work best with the kids.

We perused the Imaginrium Gallery and Museum. The kids were fascinated by the fluffy dragon puppets. Then we found ourselves at the Maze!

After the finding our way through the maze, we  rode some of  the rides.  It's neat seeing rides operated not by machines but by burly men or in some cases by the rider pulling a rope. 








We also got to ride an elephant! It was a lot of fun, but I was seated over her hind leg so every time she took a step, I felt like I was going to be thrown off.     
                                                   After the elephant ride, I had one of the best foods I have ever eaten in my entire life, fried brownies!  Now, I have been skeptical of fried sweets for years. I always thought they were battered first, yuck! But, oh, was I wrong! The brownie was cut up into little doughnut hole bites, and when fried, the outside was slightly crispy and the inside was warm and gooey perfection! I think I'm in love.

We walked around the shire some more, began the kids' wooden weapon collection,

 Played more games,
learned about bees, my nephew thought they were the greatest thing!  We also saw a human chess match, learned how to sword fight, ate ice cream, and generally made many wonderful memories.


We ended the day with mugs of hot chocolate and the kids asking, when can we come back? I ask the same thing kids and I can never wait to return!





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