Renn Faire in Ohio 2008!

I'm back! It's so good to be home! Our visit to Ohio ended up being longer than initially expected. We were planning on coming home on Sunday, but had to stay until Tuesday in order to go to CJ's grandfather's funeral.
But anyway, as promised, here are stories and pictures from the Faire!



We went to the Great Lakes Medeval Faire (not to be confused with the Ohio Rennaisance Festival ...which I would like to go to sometime). Beautiful weather for this one! No rain! And it wasn't too terribly hot either.

CJ's whole family came with us...his parents, his sister and her daughters, and his brother and his fiance' and her kids. And everyone dressed up but Mom. Momwas going to, but she needs kidney dialysis 3 times a week, and sometimes her arm bleeds, and she was worried if her arm bled that it would get on the dress I was going to lend her. I brought my whole arsenal of clothes for people to borrow. Dad wore a burgandy men's shirt, and I let my sister-in-law pick out what she wanted to wear out of all my "gypsy clothes". The girls each had "Lord of the Rings" dresses their mom had ordered from the internet.

We actually found a lady who had the adult-sized version of T's "Arwen" dress who looked like she could be Arwen herself (ears and all!).


I'd seen "Arwen" a couple times during the day, but T wasn't with me whenever I saw her. When we did track her down to get a picture of her and T together, she was very sweet and gave T an "elfin stone" out of her basket.


I'm not sure if she worked at the Faire or not! That was the one thing about this Faire, was that it was hard to know who were the actors. Sterling's actors are very obvious and outgoing and very interactive with the guests. This faire's actors are a lot more low-key. And there were so many people dressed up, it was hard to tell who might be the actors and who were guests!

When CJ and I had broken off from the rest of the family to browse the shops by ourselves, I was saying I wanted a parasol as my souvenir this year, and CJ said he wanted a hat ("With a wide brim and a big feather. Like the one Sean Connery's character has in Highlander."). But we were scouring the different shops couldn't find either item we wanted. And then, as luck would have it, we found both of them in the same shop!

I call it his "Ramierez Hat". Doesn't he look good?

When we met back up with the family, my nieces loved my parasol and each wanted one as their one souvenir of the day, so we walked with them back to the shop. M, the younger one, got the last red parasol (the others were white like mine, and black). The parasols we got were silk instead of paper, so they're more durable. They had paper ones for a cheaper price that had prettier designs, but they looked very fragile, and one was already torn.

By the way...M's crown of flowers was mine when I was T's age. My mom bought it for me on my very first visit to the Sterling festival and I wore it when I dressed up the next year. I have a picture of myself somewhere wearing it that year. I'll scan and post it if I find it.

And T, the older one, saw some feathered fans and decided she wanted one of those instead. But M was still nice enough to let her sister take a picture with her parasol...

...and she let her grandma (my mother-in-law) borrow it too, since Mom doesn't do too well in the sun. A great time was had by all. Too bad I only get to go to these in the summer. Well...if I check this website...they do have some in the spring and fall. It's just a matter of finding one that's not too far away.

My sis-in-law is supposed to be sending me pictures she took, so I'll post some of those whenever I get them. I do know there is one of T getting her hand kissed by one of the knights that was in the joust. I wasn't there for that so I'll have to get the whole story from my sis.