A Beautiful Sunday!

Yesterday was a total washout. It was a dreary, rainy day. We ran some errands and watched ALOT of football (UGH). We decided to go to a Saturday evening mass instead of our usual Sunday morning in case the weather forcast for Sunday was better. Saturday was, however, my brother-in-laws birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY, UNCLE JOHN!! Unfortunately, he lives several states away, so we didn't get to celebrate with him, but sent many good thoughts his way!!

When we woke this morning, the news channel boasted about the weather and Paul and I looked at each other and said, "Let's Go." We had been wanting to take Aidan to the Renaissance Festival, but time and weather never played in our favor. Aidan is really into Knights and Pirates right now (in fact, he is going to be a knight for halloween!!). We stopped by Kroger to snag our advance (and discounted!!) tickets and headed up north. It was a beautiful ride and we could barely contain Aidan's excitement. He had many questions and just couldn't believe that he might actually see a real knight! All the way there he kept asking, "are we going to see a real knight?" Even after we assured him many times, he still asked, "for real? We're really going to see a REAL knight?"

Once we arrived, we had to walk along a long foot path before reaching the entrance gates. Aidan called this foot path "the forest." I knew he was nervous for two reasons. 1) He kept saying "I'm not afraid, I am brave." and 2) every couple of steps he would say, "I love you, mama." This is something he does/says when he is nervous. I hate that he is afraid, but I LOVE how he reacts to fear. Once inside the gates, his eyes just lit up. He was glued to every stage filled with dragons. He stared at every "character" that walked by. We finally made it to the jousting event and he cheered for our section, "The East Shire" and our fearless knight, Sir Reynolds. We knew Aidan was having a good time but we didn't realize how good of a time until the jousting event ended. There were lots of bees around and at the end of the event Aidan started sobbing out of no where. We thought he had been stung, but through the sobs he explained that he wanted to see more knights. So, we made our way down to the knights and asked Sir Reynolds for a picture....and of course, he abliged.

The topping on the cake was when we were walking back through the festival, checking out all of the sights, Aidan looked up at me and said, "Am I dreaming?" It was truly a wonderful day, filled with wonderful memories!!!
A picture of my brave knights protecting me from any dragons we may have encountered on our way back through "the forest."