Feeling hot hot hot

We did make it to the Renaissance Faire on Saturday. It was just the 3 of us, as we could not tempt any of our friends into joining us. It was hot, but fun. The faire is in a park in Wentzville, and mostly shady, which was nice considering the unforgiving sun and 90+ degree temps. There were many vendors selling clothing, weapons, scented oils, arts and crafts of all varieties. We caught a show by a fire-eater that was amusing, if not quite as exciting as ones we've seen in more exotic places (we have very bad pictures of a very impressive display from one of our trips to Jamaica). Isabella, the fire eater, roped a man into helping her and ended up with a better show than she anticipated--his job was to remove his shirt and have his nipple briefly lit on fire-the "nipple transfer". Little did she expect that when he removed his shirt, she would find both nipples pierced and tatoos on each shoulder. Made for a nice "ooohhh" from the crowd :)

We also caught snatches of a couple of other shows and performers, and sat through an entire kid-themed skit where a baby dragon was born and a fairy tried to tell him a bedtime story. Charlotte was willing to go up and "pet" the dragon after the show--she'd already petted a horse and seen sheep, geese, ducks and ferrets close up, so she probably just thought he was another animal in the petting zoo. We enjoyed a little sword fighting and the 4:30 joust where one of the two competitors "slew" his opponent (including a squirt of fake blood). They also had a quest for the kids to complete where you talk to a series of characters around the faire, and get their marks/signatures on a sheet of paper. At the end of the day, the kids are presented to the king and queen to be knighted. Charlotte would have enjoyed it more if she was a little older, but she wasn't upset to be doing the same thing that the big kids were doing.

My poor Charlie inherited my fair complexion--by fair, I mean she's pale as a ghost, burns to a crisp even *thinking* about going out without sunscreen, and turns beet red when she gets hot. We slathered on the sunscreen at the start of our afternoon, but soon enough her face was flushed a nice crimson. We re-applied our sunscreen before the joust started (it was held in a wide open area without a trace of shade to break the afternoon sun), and she still resembled a lobster after a nice dip in the hot tub. We even had offers from strangers to give us more sunscreen, and kept explaining that we were already wearing it. Plenty of water, some ice cream, and a snow cone didn't help much either. But, by the time we'd drive the 1/2 hour home in a nice air conditioned car, she was back to her pale, rosy-cheeked self without a trace of sunburn.

It was a good day. I would recommend it to anyone--there was plenty to see and do for all ages, and the price was pretty reasonable ($10 for adults after the $2 off coupon on the website). Just don't forget your sunscreen!