week ending sept 9, 2007

Week ending September 9, 2007: This week we went to the Renaissance Festival and took the kids fishing again. The kids had a great time at the Ren Fest. We rode an elephant, got face paint (on their arms), watched the joust, watched a pirate show for kids, ate dinner, played at the pirate playground, and went on a pony ride. Here are the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/RenaissanceFestival2007 Alex’s favorite part was the joust, which surprised me, and Chloe’s favorite part was the elephant ride. Going to the Fest with kids is a whole different experience than going with adults. Everywhere we went people made eye contact and smiled and many of the actors working the fest talked to us. King Henry came over to us at dinner and told us some jokes, and later as we were walking by the Queen and her Ladies in Waiting, we were invited to sit with them and be serenaded. Chloe felt like a princess!

The fishing trip went great, and this time we’d brought Grammy Carole, Granddad, Uncle Dan, and Natalie along. Natalie LOVED pounding through the waves and she shrieked and jumped up and down every time we got going fast. We caught 11 fish in an hour and Natalie got to reel a few in. Alex is still really excited about fishing and has the greatest laugh when we are boating a fish. Chloe didn’t want to do any reeling this time, but she ran over to see each fish as we brought them out of the water.

We had an interesting situation earlier in the week. Chloe came to get me and she was crying something unintelligible about her toy kitty called Marie. She led me into the bathroom where I found Alex holding a dripping Marie over the toilet. I roared “Alex what did you do!” and he immediately started crying so hard he couldn’t talk. I decided to put him into time out (so we could BOTH calm down). Every time I put the kids in time out I explain, as simply as I can, what the transgression is, so I said “you are NOT allowed to put Chloe’s toys in the toilet.” Chloe then said “he didn’t do it, I did.” Now I’m really confused. Chloe’s still crying and she says the “Marie is DIRTY!”. I say “you put Marie in the toilet because she was dirty?” Chloe says “the toilet is always dirty!” What? After much more question and answer I find out that they’d been throwing rubber worms at the ceiling (a favorite past time) and one stuck, so Chloe threw Marie at the worm to knock the worm down and Marie fell in the toilet. I apologized repeatedly to Alex and thanked him for helping Chloe get Marie out of the toilet and we had a group hug.