Renn Faire

Headed to the Renn Faire this afternoon and ran into several friends!
Ben and Elan bailed on the group event and stayed home to play ALL day.

I decided to take one shot with Evan cropped out, to make it look less like a drunken hobo had wandered up and Rho I guess decided the photo just was not complete without someone swigging.  hahaha!

I wish this guy had a website!

He had maps of real places, fantasy places, maps of things like the Quiddich teams of the world and their locations, the levels of Hell, 100 Acre Woods and Peter Pan's island, Skyrim, Hyrule, Westros, Middle Earth, all kinds of hand drawn maps. The one I bought immediately was Earth from Avatar the Last Air Bender.  I love it.

Another random meshing of the wandering kiddos.  

After the girls wandered off, the Queen came over!

Chocolate covered bacon.

We gave Phoenix back to her mom and headed toward the house.
We of course had to stop at the railroad bridge.

I found Woodwinked again!

The tree at the end of the bridge is covered in panties, underwear and bras.
I have NO idea if this is the local tradition, some rite of passage or just plain icky.

Chan is NOT feeling well.  Do not approach, she's cranky.
It's her own fault, she spent most of the dance screaming.  I did not ask, apparently it was a happy reason to scream, but today her throat hurt more and more and her voice worked less and less.  Finally, she was reduced to flapping and pointing.  Then she realized all the puns she could not foist upon us all and became quite irate.

I may be dressed covered in rainbows, but I will totes laser you in half.
With my EYES.

more graffiti

We stopped for dinner on the way back and tomorrow morning, Rho and Elan are heading back home and the rest of us all have dental cleanings.  Way to abruptly end a fun weekend! 

Costume Shots

In case you wondered how fanged beings drink smoothies.

Saturday Evening Post

It's actually early Sunday morning!  But I do have pictures, so there's that.  

In the afternoon, we met Amanda to get the hat part of Rho's costume, then headed home long enough for everyone to get dressed.

Then we went to Southern Adventures to ride the swings!

Katy met us with Emma and Sarah showed up so Sophia could join.

They played around out front for a few minutes:

The we headed to Katy's for them to finish getting ready for the cosplay ball at the library.  Jake, Chan, Rho and Brit went last year, too.  I was glad everyone wanted to go this time!  They met up with Dae inside and we met up with her parents outside and the 4 of us went on a double date!

Our first stop was Harrison Brother's Hardware over in downtown, about a mile away.

You meet on that corner and pay the guy-cash or check, no debit or credit processing, and he gives you the tickets.

Then you wander around and talk to the costumed tour guides and the people in the tour shirts about the tours (if you don't already know which one you want)

This year they have the Old Town Tour, which covers the $ district and has stories from the Civil War and more or less that time frame.

The Twickenham Tour covers the $$ houses and covers the founding fathers of Huntsville and pre-Huntsville times.

The Downtown Tour is newest and covers businesses and streets around downtown, all the way to the Halsey Grocery.

We had no preference going in, so I suggested (based on crowd size) the Downtown Tour.  There were around 15 people waiting for it compared to 40-60 for the other tours.

They usually do the tours at 6, and here in Alabama, that's still not only in the daylight, but it's still HOT then. In October they added the 8:30 tours as well. 

Last night was cool, but not breezy.   My regular grey jacket was plenty, worn over a t-shirt.

I won't go into detail about the hauntings, so you can take the tour yourself.
Most of the buildings I took photos of had a story, but some I just took a photo of.

Keep in mind it's dark and my shutter was set to 1/2 second.  I propped when I could, using trees or street signs, but there's still going to be a good bit of blur and the photos are grainy due to high ISO.
These are from a pocket point and shoot.

The ghost here is supposed to watch us from the door.
I totally see someone peeking around the middle bit, hand dangling, there on the (your) right side of the door.  The face is next to the R.
I see the car reflected in the door, but only one woman went in and she had on tight black pants and jacket and had her hair combed out, it was springy and tall.

Shot this in passing, no story down the alley, but the 'orbs' amused me!  hehehe

Matt and me!

My legs and a parking meter shadow.

Matt saw this as a shield, I see a crazy cartoony face!

We went and grabbed some IHOP and then headed to the library and picked up the kids.
We offered to feed them, but the ones that heard me said no, they had eaten candy all evening and just wanted to get back.
I think Chan and Brit missed that conversation and were a little annoyed.  Luckily, while in town to get Rho's hat, we also stocked up on groceries!

We headed back home with various extra kids and our own three.  I think it was a pretty good night out!
The ghost tour was fun, I'd go do another one of them any time.  They only run 5 months out of the year, next weekend is IT for 2014!