Renaissance Princess

We went to the Renaissance Festival with our neighbors Jennifer, Noah and Madeline. Both girls wore Belle costumes. Sure, it wasn't Disneyland, but they got quite a lot of attention while wearing them. I even had one woman ask if she could take Marina's picture. Naturally, Marina created a glamorous pose for her. I bought Marina the princess hat she picked out. She got compliments all day.

After we left the hat store, we met up with Prince Charming. He was kind enough to stop for a picture with her.

Noah and Madeline wanted to ride the elephants while we were there and they convinced Marina to join them. She seemed unsure, but ultimately, she went. During the ride, she was all smiles.

We stopped for lunch. Marina and I split a turkey leg. (She got a taste for them at Disneyland last year, so there was no question what she wanted to eat today!)

We spent some time in the Kid's Kingdom where Marina rode the butterfly ride and a cow! She was too scared to feed the animals in the petting zoo, so we didn't do that for long.

We finished the day watching the jousting. Marina really got into that! She loved cheering for our knight, Sir James, even if he was a bad guy. There was some staged violence and she looked concerned until I assured her it was all pretend. When the king exited the arena, she even did a pretty curtsy for him.

Despite the heat and all the walking around, everyone seemed to have a great time today!

A Little Amusement

I took Marina to our local amusement park today. Funny, she's been to Disneyland, but not to this park which is so close to home. Miss Judy came with us today. We had a blast! Shortly after we arrived, she wanted to get her face painted. So we got that out of the way early.

Then we headed to the kid's park. The lines were very short so Marina got to ride them all in quick succession.

We stopped for lunch where Marina ate a 6 inch sub sandwich by herself! She was hungry. We tried some of the rides in the rest of the park. She loved the teacups and the tilt-a-whirl. Anything that spins her around.

We played a few games. We won Marina a stuffed dog and a pink snake. By late afternoon, we were all tired. We got some ice cream and headed home. On the way home, Marina asked, "Can we go again some time?" It's certainly closer than Disneyland!

Happy Birthday America!

We planned to see fireworks with our neighbors, but unfortunately, the evening didn't turn out the way we wanted. We had thunderstorms move in this evening and the fireworks were rained out. Still we had a fun evening. We had a picninc dinner in the back of their SUV. The symphony played for a while and we got to hear that. But, ultimately the rain picked up and we went home. We saw a few fireworks from Marina's bedroom but she lost interest after a few minutes. I guess it just wasn't the same.