Finally we found a weekend with good enough weather so that we could head down to the Bristol Renaissance Faire. For my LA friends, this is run by the same people who do the Renaissance Pleasure Faire out there. It opened around the 4th of July, but it's either been raining or in the 90's every single weekend since it opened. Since last Sunday's forecast was high 70's and partly cloudy, we thought it would be a perfect day to go. It was and the only downside is that everyone else thought so as well, so it ended up being packed.

We got there about fifteen minutes before it opened (it opens at 10:00am) and got fairly decent parking. This is the first year we had to buy a ticket for Gabriel - now that he's five he no longer gets in for free.

We had a lot of fun and wandered around the entire Faire. Rob got me a dragon with bendy wires in it that can ride on my arm and a small, fat stuffed dragon for Gabriel. I also picked up two really neat tiles to put on our fireplace mantle. Gabriel loved seeing all the fairies and even tried to talk with some of them (though except for the troll/orc they're not allowed to speak). He kept trying to get them to do so though.

Oddly enough, I think his favorite this year might have been one that looked like a thistle. He talked to her the most and absolutely loved her (she even gave him a shiny stone). He liked the spider fairie, but not like in years past. Though he did give her a leather rose as a present, he didn't really talk to her at all. He just kept trying to take her web apart. She remembered him though and looked happy to see him.

We stayed there for about three hours and left around 1pm. On the way home we grabbed lunch at White Castle and then got some frozen bratwurst from Bobby Nelson's to stick in the freezer.

After the Faire we got all our weekend errands done and boy were we tired that night!

So far, my mosquito bite count from the Faire is at four. I have one on my back, two on my right knee, and one on the second finger on my right hand. The ones on my knee itch insanely. Though, as compared to one year where I had 60-70 some bites, four is a good number. That means that the bug bands work. Gabriel doesn't seem to have any bites at all and I'm not sure if Rob has any or not either. If he does, it's less than my four.

Ideally, we'd like to head to the Faire one more time before it closes for the season. Though, if we do so, it will either have to be this weekend or next weekend. If we can't, at least we got in one good run. But I hope we can. It's always so much fun for all of us there.