The Farber's Come Up for the Minnesota Renaissance Festival

My sister had been planning to come to visit. One of the main reasons she wanted to was to get some family photos taken. She decided on having them done in front of a mural. They picked the I Like You Store. I guess Marina wasn't feeling the camera in her face.

This was how most of the pictures turned out. We did get a few with Marina facing the camera.

Across the street just so happened to be the new Glam Doll Donuts.

Everyone agreed that they could go for a fancy donut.

Meadow and Marina were clearly happy to see one another.

Apparently Jeff has always wanted to go to White Castle so we all agreed to have lunch there. I had never been to one either.

We got a crave case and only ended up finishing half of the burgers. I'd been here once before as a kid with my dad in Chicago. This was way better than I'd remembered.

With the weather feeling like summer, Brittany and I biked with the girls over to the splash pad. With kids being in school we had the whole place to ourselves.

We met up with the ladies after picking up tickets to the Minnesota Renaissance Fair. Then the girls insisted on spending some time on the playground.

Marina is really good at the monkey bars.

We ran into Shannyn and her kids right before we were about to go. We had to tear them away from the jungle gym.

When we got home I made Brooke's favorite meal: Korean Rice Bowl with Steak. Normally it's made with Asparagus, but we changed it up and used Brussels sprouts instead.

We also made our own kimchi with Napa cabbage we got at the farmers market.

Then came the day we all had been waiting for: the Minnesota Rennaissance Festival. Brittany told me Jeff was going to want to dress up, I guess most people do. I let Meadow wear her fairy costume. After we arrived and I saw how many people do actually dress up I actually felt a little out of place.

I think more people weren't dressed up, but Jeff and Meadow fit right in.

I was totally expecting a big open field with cheesy temporary buildings. I was not expecting the place to have real buildings and actually feel like you were in an old town.

We first saw the mermaids and the fairy forest.

I was hoping that the mermaids would be in a big pool, but alas they mostly were just lounging on the land.

I was a little disappointed too. Someday we will make it to Weeki Wachee Spring State Park in Florida.

The fairies in the forest kept talking to Meadow saying welcome and hello. Later in the day Meadow kept asking when we would see the fairies. I told her we did and they all talked to her, but she looked the other way.

They looked more like elves. She knows that fairies are tiny and not human sized.

After we emerged from the fairy forest we happened upon a Robin Hood show. The actors told everyone to come to the front rows.

Specifically they told us to sit in the blue seats. I knew this was a bad idea. I saw the big water pond and smartly covered my camera.

Yea I totally fell for it.

At first the slapstick comedy was a little lame. And then they started battling on the bridge pushing each other in the water which caused everyone in the first 10 rows to get splashed. After each splash more people moved to the back. I had a raincoat on so I was fine and stayed the whole time.

Meadow was not having it and we ended up 30 rows back.

We were looking for kettle corn for what seemed like forever. In fact we took so long that we couldn't get seats to the dog race. Instead Jeff and Marina went for an elephant ride.

We noshed on the finally found kettle corn while watching the elephants.

It was pirates and puppies day. Marina and Meadow loved all the little dogs.

This place was great for people watching.

We kept happening upon shows. Here we watched aerial silk peformers.

Costco sells tickets with a free turkey leg for $20. We were leaning towards skipping this and just getting tickets, but we change our minds a day before. It turns out that these smoked turkey legs were really good.

And we had free lunch.

We had found some empty benches to eat our turkey legs. While eating we were suddenly in the audience for a hilarious juggling act.

The juggler even called on me while doing one of his tricks, which made me feel awkward.

And he kept calling Scott Bill haha.

Meadow kept on asking to go on the swings.

The two girls giggled the entire time they were on the swing. The swing dude was super strange, but swung them with all of his heart.

I felt like he let them go longer than normal.

I love that the rides here are all people-powered.

The girls loved going on rides together.

They ran to get onto the giant rocking horse.

This place is pretty fun even if it's a money pit. Though I prefer a free county fair. I guess you have to pay for all of the upkeep of the structures.

Then we happened upon a tourtise pulling a wagon.

The girls just sat there and watched him.

Until we got to see him pull said wagon.

Jeff and Brittany figured out what we'd do next. That is after Jeff found a mead stand.

Our last snack of the day was an apple dumpling a la mode.

Jeff picked up this awesome mug at one of the vendors and immediately bought some mead to fill it.

We ended our day with one more show: knife throwing.

We were all pooped when we got home. We heated up the rest of the White Castle and ate guac and chips. I'd say this was pretty fun weekend. The Farbers need to come visit more often.