Texas Renaissance Festival

Pirate buddies, helping to pull the wagon

I am a big fan of the Texas Renaissance Festival!  I love the costumes, the people, the food, the rides, the entertainment, the music, the parade, the themed weekends, the competitions, and the autumn feeling in the air!  This year, we had plenty of tickets at our disposal thanks to Urban Dealight, a daily deal site.  Our family visited the ren fest FOUR times!! We even spent one night camping out!  This season was a blast!

Our first weekend was Pirate Adventure!!  Arrrggghhhh!!!! Riley wore his pirate costume, learned out to sword-fight, and enjoyed seeing the sights from his very own "sailboat"....his trusty Radio Flyer wagon!  

Learning to sword fight!

The next time we visited was for Roman Bacchanal.  Henry sat this one out so we brought along a friend instead.  We had a great time shopping, enjoying the elephant ears and smoothies, and listening to Tartanic - my favorite band at the festival!  Riley was mesmorized by the music and entranced by the belly dancers!  

Tartanic!!

Our last visit was an overnight stay in the family camping area for Celtic Christmas.  We had an amazing time!  It was so nice to be able to stay on the grounds overnight and not feel rushed to get home for bedtime.  We discovered our new favorite food in La Fiesta, popped into a few stores we hadn't visited in previous trips, and enjoyed the amazing fire show in the evening.  There were fire dancers and fire breathers...it was well worth staying for!  

The next morning, we woke up to a downpour!  It was raining quite hard all morning, eventually letting up enough to allow us to leave camp and head into the festival.  We knew that it may rain and yet we did not prepare ourselves at all!  We bought ponchos and still managed to have a great time.  

Sopping wet in the pouring down rain!

The best part of our final visit to the Renaissance Festival was the King's Feast!  The feast is a 2 hour affair with 6 courses and live entertainment.  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  We began with a fruit and cheese plate, which was probably my favorite course.  That may just be due to the fact that I was starving as we hadn't eaten anything all morning!  The second course was a shrimp & noodle soup followed by a "cleanse the palate" course: berries with mint! The 4th & 5th courses were veggies and SIX types of meat: sausage, corned beef, prime rib, bbq pork, chicken, and of course, a turkey leg!  I tried a little bit of everything, though I certainly did not finish all of it!  The final course was a creme brulee followed by a very entertaining song "Get the fork out of here!"

I mentioned that Riley had a pirate costume...but what about Henry and myself?!?  We, too, have costumes only I failed to get a photo of us wearing them this year!  For shame, I know!!  However, I do have one photo from the Halloween party we went to this year:

Each year for the past 4 years, we allow ourselves one big purchase to go towards our costume.  This year, we bought Henry's boots and my leather skirt.  I love wearing our costumes!  They are quite comfortable and so much fun!  I also enjoy dressing up like a woodland faerie for the festival from time to time.

Hanging out in the water garden

I hope that you get a chance to go to the Texas Renaissance Festival or even a ren fest near you!  They are so much fun!  If you can make it out sometime, here are my favorite things to see & do:

• The parade at Noon each day
• Arsene
• Tartanic
• Circa Paleo
• Sound & Fury
• Glassblower
• Nativearth
• Lost Island
• Green Man Games & Books
• Fruitful Endeavers
• eating anything "on a stick" - salad, bacon, cheesecake, steak, strawberries, you name it - it probably comes on a stick!

Pirate Adventure - 2010