Greek Fest and the Renaissance Fair

About three weekends ago, we went to Greek Fest which was being held in downtown Mobile. They had a Roman Catholic Chapel they were letting people tour, so out of curiosity I suppose, we went inside.

They had this sand trough with a list of instructions hanging above it. 

You were supposed to draw a cross in the sand with your finger and then put a candle in the middle of it, light, and let it burn all the way down until there was nothing left. It was supposed to represent what Christ did on the cross..Oh, and you had to pay for the candles. 

I thought the place was a little too creepy to want to touch anything. :P

Talk about a decorated chapel, there were mosaics, paintings, and pictures in the stain glass windows all over the place.

There was an Irish man who was explaining the importance of every detail of the church (the number of arches, placement of pictures, ect). It's a shame he was so passionate about something so false.

Laurisa did exactly what I was planning on, and slipped a themessage.com serpent seed tract into one of their Bibles. xD

The picture was in the dome of the chapel. 

Afterwards, we headed to the Greek Fest part. There were all kinds of things for sale: dishes, clothing, music, jewelry, paintings, and much more. 

Some of the paintings were especially pretty!

Under a large tent outside the building there were Greek dances, which was interesting to watch but the music was VERYYY loud...

So when we got our Lamb Burgers, we tried to eat as far from them as possible.  

And Lamb Burgers people..they are AWESOME. Especially the cream cheese, mayo mixture they put on it.. *bliss*

Look at Laurisa raving to mom about it... ;) jk. I forget what she was talking about. o.o But most likely food. haha

So we headed home after eating.. A little disappointed really because Greek Fest wasn't really what it had been talked up to be. However, if you consider the Lamb Burgers, it was totally worth going just for that. ;)

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The following weekend or so, we went to the Renaissance Fair. It was pretty neat seeing so many people in Renaissance costume, even some people who weren't actors working there. I'm not sure what Toad from Mario had to do with the Renaissance era, so I'm gonna guess that people wanted to wear their Halloween costume more than just once this year. :P

We went into the Shakespeare Wagon where Laurisa and Esther "had a sword fight." 

Gabriel loved getting to check out all the swords.

Let me tell you a short story. Once upon a Renaissance Fair, there was a brother and a sister. Both wanted a throne and to rule peaceably together. BUT, the brother (being younger) became henpecked..(It gets better--keep reading.)

(Not really, it probably gets worse. Skip ahead or proceed with caution.)

Finally, one day the Queen had enough and left her throne. As you can see, the King was extremely happy with this turn of events. At last he could enjoy his position without having to deal with opposing ideas from another ruler. Yes, this was the life. He was KING and the only ruler.

But wait! The Queen had left the palace only for a time and was preparing for hand to hand combat with the "so-called" King! She had enough of his impudence and silly, childish ideas. SHE should be the rightful ruler.

She burst into the palace throne room and rushed towards him. The king, jumped up with a puny shield (just his size) that he happened to have on hand. The Queen, however, had much practice beating up on the younger ruler and quickly gained the upper hand..

*Suspense*

Come back next week for part 2 of the Rivaling Rulers! 

Kidding. I'll put this story out of its misery.

The Queen had intended only to frighten the "squirt of a King" from his throne, but alas! One impish remark from the inexperienced, younger ruler, and the Queen instantly lost her temper.

The King...was dead.

Even Royalty cannot go unpunished. It was murder. A treacherous deed and treason to the crown.

(It's ending, I promise.)

The next of Royalty in Line, Princess Olivia, was now to succeed the throne..and become Queen.

The former Queen was removed from her position as ruler, stripped of her titles, and lands; and placed as her sister's personal body guard after she had served her time in anger management classes.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

(Except for the King. He was dead let's not forget.)  

Gabriel got to try on some real chain mail. It probably weighed at least fifty pounds.

This dragon was just too cute (in person) to pass up taking a picture with it. Friendly dragon that it was, as you can see it's claws next to Gabriel's face were right in position for slapping him during the picture taking. ;P

We went to see some live Full Metal Jousting shortly after that. This Canadian is the TV show..guy.. for Full Metal Jousting.

He divided up the audience so that both knights were given half. Whenever a knight won a game or jousting round, he was given a handful of "Gold" (aka gold foil wrapped candy) that he was to share with his fans. 

The first game was to see which knight could hit the shield and make it spin around the most times.

The second game included a sword rather than a lance. The goal was to run their horses past a squire and cut the melon as closely to his head as possible.

Sir Robert did amazing! There was only about 1/2 an inch of melon left!

After that game, both Sir Matthew and Sir Robert got geared up for a joust!

And the charge! Ladies, this is what a knight in shinning armor looks like. ;)

Right after the joust, we watched some pirates sword fight. 

Laurisa was their eager volunteer to help them in case the foe began to do any unfair sword play. 

Throughout the day there were pirates playing diddies and a magic show afterwards. 

Oh, Captain Jack Sparrow showed up. ;) There was a jail where you could have a soldier arrest friends, family..any one you told them to. And some people had Captain Jack arrested. 

No one would bail him out so whenever someone else was being set free...

He poked his head out the jail cell door and pointing past the jailer exclaimed, "Hey, look! A distraction!"

 And took off running. xD

We met up with this pirate who was playing music with the others earlier. It was a little different to be told he wanted to pet our hair, but he was a sweet older man.

We got to talk to Sir Robert in between jousting tournaments. I know jousting is dangerous, but you don't realize just how much until you talk to someone who does it for a living!

While browsing in one of the shops, Laurisa ran into an old school friend from 6th grade. It's always neat to see someone you haven't in ages.

We ended the day with a funnel cake before heading home. (Best funnel cake ever.)

I actually have another post I need to get to.. Gabriel's birthday!! I'll try to get to that sometime this week, so be sure to check back!

Ripley, West Virginia

My entire post just got deleted because apparently blogger has a mind of its own..So I'm going to try to recreate it real fast.

(Credits to Sarah G. for letting me use the pictures from her camera. We had taken ours with us on the trip, but it always got left in my sister's hotel room so I only got a few on my iPod. Thanks, Sarah, for letting me use yours!)

We had heard that there were special meetings in Ripley, WV, so after a bit of persuading, we went as a family. There were a lot less people there than we expected, but then again, we didn't know what to expect since we had never heard about the meetings or the place before.

The believers there rent an old theater every Sunday for service. The people they rent from enjoyed having them rent so much that they gave them the building for free Fri-Sun for the special meetings, which was really a blessing!

We broke the trip up into two days, and after reaching the quaint town, it was about time for church. We had some trouble finding the theater Friday evening despite the fact "ALPINE" was in large letters on the lit sign. :P

Esther and Laurisa with their friends Sarah and Emily-- they were really happy to get to see each other again. Sometimes a few years go by before they get the opportunity.

 Saturday after morning service, everyone was invited to a picnic at Cedar Lakes Park.

The food amount was so great that everyone was invited back the following day to help finish off the leftovers.

 While we were waiting on more people to arrive, Esther and I decided to walk around. Cedar Lakes Park is by far the biggest (mega huge) and prettiest park I've ever seen!

There was this 100+ year old bridge...

An old blacksmith shop..

Hey, guys, that's me again! ;) The door was locked so I had to take the picture through the window. xD 

  Old houses can be the coolest-looking things.

 I had to get a few different pictures of it..it was even neater in person!

This, my friends, is Esther's dream house. ;)

(Sorry about the haze..It was pretty cold that day so I guess it got to the camera lens.) 

Aside from this in remembrance of the pioneers..

There was this tiny post office.

I imagine a claustrophobic didn't work there..

The final exhibit they were working on was this one-room school house.

After that, we ate..and then we went on a walk across the park with Sarah, Emily, their brother Holden, their mom, and my siblings and I. That took a while. ;)

Holden had informed us there were creepy Ferris wheels over there..so we decided to see what this "creepy" was about. ;)

There were three Ferris wheels in all...and creepy was a good word for them. 

Apparently someone decided to do their Christmas decorating early...and to combine it with an old bear collection.. O.O

We thought they looked more like sloths after having sat out in the rain.....the matted, long fur....the green mold.....O_O

Another Ferris wheel had plastic Disney characters and a few plastic Christmas...yard decorations? The creepy thing about that one was Mickey Mouse... He be like 0.0

And these snowmen just didn't look well.....

After we left that slightly disturbing scene....

We reached the main picnic area and talked to a few more people.

I was amazed how all of the believers there had such a sweet spirit. This is a small portion of some of the youth that were there.

It took just a few minutes before a volleyball game was finally started. It's always a great way to get to know people and have fun doing so!

My cousins Stephen and Aaron drove from Ohio to the meetings as well. It was great to get to see them again and awesome that they stayed in the same hotel as we did because that meant we got to spend more time together.

(Stephen:tall guy to the left.) ;)

After about 10 or so games, everyone playing agreed to go to the bonfire on the other side of the park where everyone else at the picnic had already congregated. 

There were people talking, roasting marshmallows, making s'mores, and then signing and testimonies began before everyone headed to their bed to get some rest before Sunday morning service. 

We headed for home after morning service and arrived safely Monday evening. We all had such a nice time there, and some of the friends we made go to Pensacola, FL every year which means we may get to see them before long!

In case any of you were expecting a post on our canoe trip, that hasn't happened yet. The weekend we were going to go, the river was too low, and we didn't want to end up dragging our canoes 7 miles of the 15 mile trip. :P Also, Laurisa and Esther have been taking horse lessons every Saturday, so they have to try to reschedule them whenever we want to go somewhere. They're working on doing that now, so hopefully we'll get to go this weekend! *crosses fingers*