Here are a few pictures of our Ren Faire expedition to King's Valley, Oregon last September. This is a family tradition that we all enjoy doing together, but our first journey to Shrewsbury. Planning out and making the garb for everyone is a time-consuming but exciting chore for me to accomplish, and I am even more joyful when the family is appreciative of their clothing (which they always are!).
This year, we convinced Sam's brother Frank and his family to accompany us to the Faire. Emma is shown in the picture with Cambria and Eliza. Their face-painting experience was positive. The artist was very child-friendly, which came in handy with Eliza. She was as grumpy as could be when we got there (we'd traveled for a lot longer than anticipated), but when the face-painting lady kindly asked her to sit on her chair and choose a design, she sat like a statue and then admired herself in every reflective object for the rest of the day.
We saw the knights doing battle in their arena, we saw singers, actors, and all sorts of off-their-rocker people who just came to fit in (?). We bought toys, jewels, and musical instruments. The children were admired by people young and old, and given gifts by a few vendors who adored them. I was addressed as "m'lady." It was just too fun! This is a tradition which we will continue forever.
At the beginning of December, we took a cruise to Mexico with Sam's parents. They were so generous and kind! We saw Acapulco, Xijuatinejo, Cabo San Lucas, and Puerto Vallarta. What a fun adventure! It was an eye-opener to our blessings. We are grateful that we have all that we have. We have a lovely home, a country in which we can worship, time to do whatsoever we choose, schools that our children can attend, churches that teach goodness and truth, wonderful children and parents, and technology to enrich our intelligence. These are only a few of the blessings we realized while we were there, without phones and internet, being served constantly by happy people who treated us like kings. We enjoyed the experience so much! And now we're happy to be back, relaxed and enjoying life so much more. Now that we have had a real vacation, we will have to have one every year. I think everyone would benefit from this type of experience!
