Celtic Fling
This past Saturday we went to the Celtic Fling at the site of the PA Renaissance Faire, located about an hour and change west of our house via the PA Turnpike. Our friend Dana was performing with his pipe band, Loch Rannoch, at the festival, and he was kind enough to arrange for us to receive free passes - including two extra ones for our friends Catie and McKinley, who are in town visiting us from Florida.
First order of business: Play some games. Maria decided to have a go at climbing the Jacob's Ladder, a rope ladder suspended from an overhead frame such that it is completely off the ground and mostly parallel to the ground. If you climb to the top of it and ring a bell hanging at the end, you win a little prize. Did Maria win? Of course she did. She is our resident monkey.
The kids also played a medieval version of skee-ball:
Nick and I then did archery, and unfortunately I don't seem to have any pictures of it. I managed to hit one target I meant to hit, and another target I didn't mean to hit. Nicholas hit everything at which he aimed.
I told Chelsea I would brush up on my archery over the next several months in case the need to defend our house ever arises.
Later, we came across some stocks, which were very handy when Nick and Anna started misbehaving:
Fair-skinned Maria and her friend McKinley both bought parasols to stay cool:
There are rides at the Renaissance Faire, but they are not the kind of rides you see at a town carnival. Medieval rides require the operator and the rider to do a lot more work. Here are some of our gang on a swinging ship that they kept going on their own, using ropes:
Maria went on a ride called the Wild Boar that involved a spinning, swinging journey inside a giant wooden boar:
It was a great day for a festival!
First order of business: Play some games. Maria decided to have a go at climbing the Jacob's Ladder, a rope ladder suspended from an overhead frame such that it is completely off the ground and mostly parallel to the ground. If you climb to the top of it and ring a bell hanging at the end, you win a little prize. Did Maria win? Of course she did. She is our resident monkey.
The kids also played a medieval version of skee-ball:
Nick and I then did archery, and unfortunately I don't seem to have any pictures of it. I managed to hit one target I meant to hit, and another target I didn't mean to hit. Nicholas hit everything at which he aimed.
I told Chelsea I would brush up on my archery over the next several months in case the need to defend our house ever arises.
Later, we came across some stocks, which were very handy when Nick and Anna started misbehaving:
Fair-skinned Maria and her friend McKinley both bought parasols to stay cool:
There are rides at the Renaissance Faire, but they are not the kind of rides you see at a town carnival. Medieval rides require the operator and the rider to do a lot more work. Here are some of our gang on a swinging ship that they kept going on their own, using ropes:
Maria went on a ride called the Wild Boar that involved a spinning, swinging journey inside a giant wooden boar:
It was a great day for a festival!
