ChiIL Mama : Bristol Renaissance Faire 2010: Lost Tooth, Lost Cameras, Lots of Fun!

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We made our annual trek to the border of Wisconsin and back in time, to The Bristol Renaissance Faire.

It was an eventful Sunday. Sagezilla lost her good digital Kodak camera, so we had a frantic retracing of our route back to the Jousting Arena, where the children bravely fought off the barbarian hordes earlier.

Then we checked the seats where we saw The Swordsmen. We even looked by the Leech Lady and The Kids Kingdom, all to no avail.

Then, oh great serendipity (which means an unexpected good thing and is the middle name of our 16 year old rescue dog). WE FOUND HER CAMERA!

Du-Jay Shot

She had taken it off in Serendipity Shop and they honestly and awesomely called Security and got it safely to Ye Olde Lost N Found.

That was not the only thing lost. Sir Du-Jay lost a tooth in his valiant 300 battle against the barbarians. Thank goddess it was a very loose baby tooth and nothing more permanent! I swear they said...not in the face...not in the face, in the rules before the battle began?!

Here are a few of our
favorite things...

Little wooden marshmallow catapults made from mouse traps and bigger wood (oh the possibilities.........)

Mile High Chocolate Crepes

The Pirate Catapult

Talented Artisans

Beautiful (water on the head hot, but not muggy or beastly hot) Weather

The 300 Battle...in which our children fought off the barbarian hordes with foam battle implements on the jousting field. The large, black leather and fur clad adults were the barbarians.

This was our first year to participate and it was a highlight. The kids were supposed to chant "Persia........Persia.

But, rumor is, chanting from the mass of kidlets quickly degenerated into PORK CHOPS......PORK CHOPS. Seitan....Seitan anyone?

And a few of our favorite people...

Elizabeth may be the official queen, but The Swordsmen are certainly Ren Faire royalty. We ran into Steve, a friend of close friends of ours, who moved to Texas years ago. He came all the way back to see "Dirk and Guido" and their Bold and Stupid Men tricks and schtick. Steve adores The Swordsmen and said he aspires to polish their boots.

Sagezilla and Du-Jay's Dad did Steve one better and humped a bunch of heavy audio gear around in sweltering heat, on a two day shoot (over his birthday nonetheless), to help create The Swordsmen's DVD. They were great guys and bought him a Mile High Chocolate Crepe and sang happy birthday to him between shows.

Dirk and Guido AKA: David Woolley and Doug Mumaw are the kings of quick witted improv and love to play with their audience. After their final show of the day, we saw small children clinging to their velvet pants legs. The boys do have their fans and fanatics.

I've gotta say I'm a fan too. I've been a sucker for sword play since I took fencing in college and loved it. And I've been a life long fan of Shakespeare, although I've only been in Twelfth Night in college.

After The Swordsmen made up on stage "mad libs" with Shakespeare and "the Scottish play", I was hooked. I've got a thing for geeky theatre in jokes, too, apparently. I was amused they revived the old actors superstition, whose name can not be spoken in a theatre or it brings bad luck. Too bad nobody told President Obama. He dared to say Macbeth in Ford Theatre, where Lincoln was assassinated, in February of 2009, and he hasn't had the best of luck since.

We even got to see The Swordsmen make "sweat angels" where they fell down dead. It would have made a great guide for the chalk body outline. In fact, they could have used a bit of chalk to cut down on the sword fight slip and slide factor the sweat angel caused, during the next daring duel.

We used to take the annual matching Doug and Dug photo,

since they both had long, corkscrew curly brown hair. But alas...not anymore. We do like the new summer doo, Doug.

Who are ya tryin' to look like now...Adam Crack?

Speaking of Adam... We were also enamored with Guinness Book World Record Holder, Adam Crack: The Fire Whip Guy.

This guy whips Pepsi cans in half with a single blow,

Dug Shot

catches things on fire, and terrifies patriotic housewives with near whippings, then asks them to kiss him.

The man is even sexy eating soup.

We also always make it a point to see Moonie's fire, rope and whistled words show. Maybe he says it to all his audiences, but we believed him when he said he travels all over, and The Bristol Renaissance Faire is his favorite place to perform.

He said "You're MY PEOPLE."

This was the first year we caught the Barely Balanced Comedic Daredevils, and we loved their show.

The kids and adults were quite entertained and amazed!

They even welcomed my little acrobats up on stage after the show.

Sagezilla did an impressive back walkover in her velvet, silver bead, and leather thrift store skirt, and Du-Jay held a bridge throughout our photo op.