Ren Fest Weekend

It's a busy week at work this week, so no time for a long post.  But just a quick update on this past weekend, which was very cold and yet very fun!  We went camping on Friday night at the Texas Renaissance Festival camp grounds with 5 of our friends.  The weather was definitely chilly (it got down into the 30's that night), but we had fun sitting around the fire, drinking spiked hot cocoa, roasting marshmallows for s'mores, and attempting to tell ghost stories.  It was after the fire died down and we were all huddled in our tents under multiple layers of blankets and sleeping bags that we really felt the chill.  On Saturday morning, after about 5 hours of questionable sleep, we forced ourselves into the cold of the morning, made hot cocoa and oatmeal for breakfast, packed up camp, and headed into Ren Fest for the day!

In the fair grounds we met up with more friends (yay!) and hit up some shows, including the riveting bagpipe and drum band shown above.  One of the best parts of Ren Fest, though, is the people watching!  It was "barbarian weekend" so there were lots of warriors and animal skins in addition to the usual renaissance-type costumes of knights, maidens, fairies, etc.  Our friend dressed up as Waldo of Where's Waldo fame and his costume was actually quite the hit.  See below if you can find Waldo:

We went through a maze, saw a magician/comedian, ate lots of good food, drank our weight in hot cocoa and warm apple cider, saw glassblowing and blacksmith demonstrations, wandered through the shops galore, and even tried our hand at knife throwing!  We left a little early from the fair to meet up with our friend K back at the house that evening.  We went out for Tex Mex for dinner and wound up talking at the table for about 3 hours!  Always fun to catch up and chat!  On Sunday we slept in (definitely needed after the cold night of camping on Friday), then we very uncharacteristically (for S and I at least) went to a sports bar to watch some football and nosh on appetizers for lunch and afterwards we saw K off.  That afternoon/evening we finished unpacking from camping, did a few chores, and finally just relaxed.  I love our busy weekends, which is good because we have a bunch more coming up over the next couple of months, but at this point I'd love to have just a few days of total nothingness as well....