Thursday, May 24, 2012

Ren Faire 2012

I’ve told you in the past that I love going to the Renaissance Faire. I’m sure some of you thought, “yeah, that’s cool, like going to the county fair.” Nope, not at all. When I do Ren Faire I go all out. I have costumes and accessories and a character all worked out.

Shauna as a fairy

Sometimes I’ve gone as a fairy 
Fantastickal Fairy
but this year our faire was lucky enough to get the Fantastickals to come out and spread their special brand of magic and I didn’t want to upstage them so I stuck with pirate and privateer.








My hubs actually really enjoys faire. When we were first dating I convinced him to go, he was a very good sport and agreed to go in costume with me (once he found out about the eating, drinking and being allowed to carry a weapon all day). Little did he know how cool he would find it. Yes, I found his nerd flag and I made him fly it. It would be a couple of years before we would go again because back then it was way down in San Bernardino and that was a good 3-4 hour drive depending on traffic. Now it’s in Irwindale, still an hour and a half drive, but totally doable in a day. So over the last few years we’ve been putting our costumes together, getting better and better pieces and adding to them until they became pretty darn respectable. I even found an artist in England that did replicas of “Letters of Marque” and he personalized them for us and switching out all the King George stuff for Queen Elizabeth. They’re even bound in leather, so freaking cool! So as long as we have them, we’re privateers, not pirates.
Honorable Mention Winner!


We didn’t get to go last year because we had both lost our day jobs and decided to start our own businesses and it was an expense we just couldn’t justify. This year I wasn’t sure we were gonna be able to go, partly for the expense, and partly because we are both so busy (a blessing). But I entered the photo contest, as I do every year, and managed to get honorable mention in one of the categories and scored some free tickets! Huzzah!


Juanita and BF as first time pirates
So we went one weekend and brought two of our friends who were really excited about the idea of going, though a bit hesitant about dressing in full costume. Luckily, they were good sports about it, took some of our loaner pieces and they looked awesome! That beauteous lady is Juanita, one of my often mentioned beta readers and her boyfriend. Don’t they look great? So proud of them. Oh, and now they’re hooked! They’ve promised to start putting their own costumes together to make it an annual thing with us! Huzzah!




Shauna and Marica
The next weekend I decided we had to have a girl’s day at faire. Ladies, I cannot explain how much fun it is to go to faire with just the girls. I swear in the first ten minutes we must’ve had our pictures taken half a dozen times. 

This time I brought another newbie with us, our new friend Marcia and just look at her! What a natural! 

Juanita and Marcia
And when the men fawned all over my girls (and can you blame them?) the girls were adorable, though I wish I had gotten a picture of Juanita blushing when a lord tried to snatch her away from us!





Shauna and Moonie the Magnifi'cent
We had cider, fried foods, ice cream, caught a few comedy shows (that’s me and Moonie the Magnifi'cent, if you can ever catch his or Broon’s show, I highly recommend it – they both travel with the other faires). 

I got sunburned despite the sunblock. Bought a witch ball. Just a good time all in all.

I highly recommend it. 
Go in costume. It’s worth it.


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