Renaissance Festival

My parents leave tomorrow so today was our last day to do some fun things before they go. My Dad loves Scotch Eggs (hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, breaded and deep fried) but apparently it's hard to find them in Scotland now, so it seemed like a good idea to go to the Renaissance Festival so he could have one. Our friends Tanya and "big"* Emily came along to join in the fun.

*Remember, big Emily is not really that big, Fiona just calls her that because she's an adult and therefore taller than little Emily, Fiona's cousin (who is also not all that little).

As soon as we got there Fiona spotted a dragon...

Coincidentally it was Scottish Day, so we saw some Highland Games. Unfortunately what would normally be a much more exciting spectator sport was made very family friendly with the addition of spandex shorts under the kilts so there was no bum flashing. Even without that the hammer throwing was a combination of impressive, and occasionally life threatening when one of the competitors accidentally launched it into the crowd...

Visiting the Renaissance Festival with little kids is a very different experience to visiting without... we didn't manage to watch any of the shows or attend the free wine or beer tastings but we did get to hang out with Fiona who we told beforehand about the prospect of face painting and animals to ride on, and after that she was very, very excited at the prospect of having her face painted and riding on an elephant and that became her list of goals for the trip. We strolled around a little and then inevitably arrived at the elephant spot.

She had such a nice time riding on the elephant... what next? Camels, of course! Oh, to be 3.

After all that fun we took a break in one of the few shady spots and ate some ice cream, then Fiona and Ben went off so Fiona could have her last special treat of the day and have her face painted. While they were doing that Emily, Adele and I checked out the other animals...

Adele really loves animals and found ducks, a Highland Cow, horses and ponies, and along the way I met a sweet talking pickle seller who was definitely my favorite part of the Fair. Yes, there are many pickle related jokes that could be made here, but I'm trying to control myself, it's a family blog after all...

There were lots of fun things to look at...

Fiona came back and was very pleased with her kitty face...

(There was a free wand making craft in the kids area so Fiona and Adele both made a wand too).

We met up with the rest of our party, and by then it was late in the afternoon and everyone was tired and hot so we headed out. It was a lot of fun and Dad even found a Scotch Egg to eat so everyone was happy :-)

Photo Challenge: Day 24

Being a Sloth is a profession that I can only dream about having. Apparently sloth is a sin but I think that may just be because back in the day there was no Netflix, wi-fi or pizza delivery and the fields didn't just plow themselves y'know.

Also, baby Sloths are adorable!

Since I already photographed Brodie and Monty today we went further afield...

30 Day Photo Challenge Day 24: Animal

Photo Challenge Day 4

One of the results of this challenge is that I have been taking more pictures in general, and I have my camera with me more often and am able to take fun pictures of things that would normally be forgotten. For example, we met friends for breakfast at Ikea this morning (which was super cheap and pretty tasty and I would definitely recommend) and on our way out I spotted this:

(Click to enlarge. If you can't read what's circled in the bottom right, you'll miss the joke!)

The sign must have been at least 15 feet wide. Who knew Ikea had a sense of humor? I had to stop and take a picture even though Adele was really mad and Fiona took it as an opportunity to climb on a pile of ektorps.

Fiona and Adele have both been really interested in taking care of babies recently, which is adorable. Fiona likes to wrap hers up and tote them around and put them in bed and tell people to be quiet because they are sleeping...

She was asking for a baby carrier so I made her a moby of her own and she insisted on packing two babies in there.

Adele loves to feed her baby too, and also likes to take their clothes off. She is funny.

This afternoon we went to the Zoo, partly to get out of the house and partly to look for something green to take a picture of. I got a telephoto lens for my camera (thanks Dad!) but haven't had much opportunity to use it yet and I thought that there must be a bunch of fun green things at the Zoo to take close up pictures of... crocodiles, frogs, turtles... Well I took some really fun pictures but it turns out it's a lot harder to find green creatures that I expected. The crocodiles look more grey than green and the other things had greenish parts but were not really green.

The only really green thing was this big fat caterpillar waiting to turn into a beautiful butterfly... so here he is.

30 Day Photo Challenge Day 4: Something Green

Oh Deer.

Today we visited the Deer Park. The Deer Park is a park that is full of Deer. It also contains other mammals, mostly of the hooved variety, and some birds. Bizarrely there were also two Lemurs. What's a Lemur anyway? Rodent? Primate? It's the secret sauce of the animal kingdom.

Here are some pictures of our intrepid group getting up close and personal with the Deer.

We will always hold this day deerly in our hearts.

The other zoo.

Warning: Today's post is from the zoo and contains scenes of a graphic and arachnoid nature.

We go to the Minnesota Zoo all the time (got to make that membership worthwhile!) but today we ventured North and East to Como Zoo with my lovely friend Emily. Fiona refers to her as "big Emily" which is not very polite but does differentiate her from cousin Emily, who is smaller (but only because she's a child!!).

We didn't take pictures of many of the animals because Adele was in the carrier and gets really angry when I won't let her grab the camera, but we did take pictures of the highlights, such as

Really Adorable Sloth:

Giant tarantula eating something incredibly disgusting:

And of course, Zebra with "appendage"...

As soon as Fiona walked into this enclosure she shouted "willy!". Girl knows her anatomy... And then when we saw the other Zebras she informed us "no willy". Right again Fiona. Ah, proud moments...

The last time we were here I was pregnant with Adele, and we tried to take a picture with both girls to compare how much younger I looked back then, but it was difficult to get both girls to look in the right direction!

Then. Wow, I look young!

Now. Wow, I look tired!!

And here's one of Ben with Fiona so he doesn't feel left out. And so I can take another one of HIM in the same location in two years to make him feel bad about looking so old and haggared. Awww, just kidding. He'll always look like a hot young thing. That's what getting more than 4 consecutive hours of sleep will do for you ;-)

Lookin' good! :-)

And that concludes the highlights from today so far. We're heading out to Grandma and Grandpa's house now to have a family dinner. My brothers in law John and Mike are visiting and arrived this afternoon, so it will be good to see them. And there will be cake. Fiona is excited.

Granny and Grandpa Visit!

My parents came to visit at the beginning of the month and we had a crazy fun time! Here I will present a collection of our activities, but I will only be talking about the ones that we took pictures of because, honestly, my brain functions so poorly in its exhausted state that without the visual reminder it may as well not have happened ;-)

One of the days we went to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. We had not been here before and it was really great! Here you can see Minneapolis' most famous image - the "cherry and spoon" sculpture...

Fiona loves to hide and jump out and yell "peek-a-boo!" and there were many opportunities for her to do this. In combination with being allowed to run around, she had a wonderful time.

Adele, as usual, hung out tied onto me and had a fun time observing Fiona and her antics. She's so easygoing, it's really fun to spend time with her!

Fiona's second favorite thing is trying to stick her hands into bodies of water... and we even managed to accommodate that!

Check out that giant fish!

On a different day we went to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. We hadn't been there before either and it was beautiful!

The leaves were all changing, the sky was blue, and some of the colors were incredible...

There's a sculpture there right now that is made by Patrick Dougherty - an artist who uses branches to make huge structures. Check out his website, really, it's amazing!

Fiona managed to find a variety of water features to paddle her hands in...

And found time for her third favorite thing... jumping off dangerous stuff!

And Adele, of course, hung out and was happy!

The other thing we did that I have photographic evidence of was going to the Zoo. It's always fun to go to the zoo, and this time was no exception, although this time Fiona was a little more batty...

Aaaaaaaahhahahahahaha. Man, I'm funny.

Other than that, we saw some bears and leopards up close...

And Adele hung out and was happy... and sleepy!

It was wonderful to have visitors!

We miss you Granny and Grandpa, come back soon!

A random assortment...

I've been sorting through months and months of photos tonight trying to get caught up with some of the backlog and upload some to flickr, and came across some funny ones. I don't have much to blog about right now, so here's a random selection of stuff...

Taken with Ben's old phone after the girls both finally crashed on our flight to Amsterdam (en route to Scotland)... see, it is possible to fit four people into two economy sized airline seats!

This one is from a trip to Ikea we took just after Adele came home. She's barely two months old and probably weighs about 6lbs. I had forgotten how tiny she was curled up in the wrap - I just look like a pregnant women with a misshapen tummy and an odd sense of style!

This one is from a recent trip to the Zoo. The tiger was pacing back and forth in front of the glass and it was really incredible to see him up so close. Fiona, however, had no idea this was anything special. Tigers are pretty old hat to her now I guess...

This last one is from an evening we spent at Cathy and Erik's house. They were putting their kids to bed and we were getting ready to go when Fiona wandered off. We tracked her down snuggled up with her cousin...

Well, that's all for now. I'd better get back to spring cleaning. Granny is visiting my parents right now and I need to have up to date pictures on flickr ready for her to look at :-)