Birthday Party's Rock!

Padon's Birthday Party Rocked! We cleaned up and decorated the house
managed to get two sheet cakes in the shape of a dragonfly and iced and waited for everyone to arrive.

All of our closest family and dearest friends came.
Walter manned the grill and cooked up some great hamburgers and hotdogs. My Mom brought the Margaritas, Leo brought the beer and wine, and there were blue slushies and rootbeer sodas for the kids.

After lunch everyone managed to pile themsleves into our living room where Padon unwrapped his gifts. Eliot, Ivor, and Greg were very eager to help Padon unwrap his gifts which was great so they could be part of the fun.
It was a swarm of tiny hands examining all the new and way cool stuff.
Eliot was great at picking out the gifts, handing them off to Walter and Padon, and doing her best to restrain herself as she watched Padon pause when tearing off the wrapping paper. There was much to learn in the art of quickly tearing off the paper.
After presents we readied ourselved to blow out the candle and Walter cut and served the cake.
We gave the bottom end of the dragonfly to Padon after stripping him down to his diaper and let him go hog wild. He ate a lot of the icing and about a quarter of the cake before he felt he had, had enough.

I rushed him down the hall to the bathtub to wash the icing off, put him in comfy pj's and put him in bed for a needed nap. Sadly I had forgotten about the Pinata. So while Padon missed out on the Pinata everyone else had a great time watching Greg, Eliot, and Ivor pull off the ribbons waiting to see which ribbon would release the treats. Eliot found the right one and with some hard tugging the bottom was ripped out.

It was aweome. There was 5lbs of candy, plastic lizards, frogs, and snakes stuffed in the pinata and it took some shaking, wiggling, and digging to get all the good stuff out.

I handed the kids goodie bags and let them fill them up with the treasure. Needless to say I still have a gallon bucket full of candy, lizards, snakes, and frogs but it was so worth it!
We ended the afternoon with my brother, Pat, showing of his new hot ride and giving my Dad, Mom, and his girlfriend Catherine rides on it around our yard.
We had a great time, the party was everything Walter and I hopped it could be, and Padon had a great time with everyone around.

Happy 1st Birthday Padon!

Padon is already 1! We can't believe it!
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I took Tuesday, June 3rd, off so I could be home with Padon on his birthday and we had a really great time. We started off the day with chocolate chip pancakes which strangely made Padon cough, sputter, and sneeze (He doesn't do this with non-chocolate chip pancakes). Which of course spread pancake everywhere.
He kept rubbing his face and eyes and there was just no way to keep the pancake from spreading all over his face. He only ate 3/4th of his pancake . We'll have to try something else next year I think.

After breakfast Walter and I got Padon ready to go to the Picture People to get his picture taken. The photographer did a nice job and we took home a couple pictures to frame.





The day before Padon's birthday we had gone out shopping for his birthday party and also bought him the gifts that I had been dreaming about for months. Walter had bought him a wooden sword and leather to make him a sheath at June Faire, he had also grabbed him a rubber chicken at Party City (which he has really enjoyed chewing on), I got him a baby doll, and we picked out a really large red ball that he hugged onto in the store. We also picked out a Fisher Price Barn Yard and large baby leggos compliments of a gift from Padon's Grandma Mary Jane and Padon was so excited to see all these new things.

He was facinated with the wrapped gifts,

And so patient as Walter helped him open the hard ones.

He really liked the face of the baby doll. He kept touching its mouth and eyes and he laughs when you sit it up and make it look at him.

We ended our day by playing in the play area at Alderwood Mall, eating lunch at Red Robin, and taking a very very long nap when we got home. It was a really good day!

June Faire - 1st Day trip since our 1st June Faire

We took our very first "Day Trip" to an SCA Event this year for June Faire. Typically we are the die hard SCA campers and we camp every event but this year we decided to spread our money out over the summer and day trip a few events. June Faire was one of them. Not too far away in Port Gamble, just north of Kingston, it made a perfect day trip opportunity. We took the ferry across to Kingston and on the way we saw this RV that just cracked us up. RV's tend to have catchy road worthy names on them but this one proudly sported "Citation Supreme". We just couldn't figure out anyone would want to name their vehicle Citation. It seemed worth a picture.

This was the first time the public welcoming June Faire event wasn't located in downtown Port Gamble and because it was in a more spacious location it seemed there were a lot more people camping and coming in. So many there was shuttle dropping off people and Walter had to park the car two miles away. He left me with our stuff for the day and went to go park the car at a trail head (a much closer location than the Albertson's they were telling everyone they had to park at).

Contrary to the picture, Padon was not pissed about being in the Sleepy Wrap and enjoyed being able to see what was going on around him and I enjoyed having his weight out of my arms and the freedom to move around more comfortably.

Walter (the one holding the green shield) was excited to be able to fight in a 5 man team in the day's battles. Most of the members of the 5 man team that he practices with on a regular basis were unable to come and he was disappointed that he might not get to fight. He was really pleased, however, to run into another couple fighters in a similar circumstance and between Arnor, Walter (Idris), Theodric and two other non-Medlestead fighters a 5 man team was created. They didn't win as much as they would have liked but overall had a really good time.

There was this one boy in the crowd of mundane (public people visiting an SCA event) people that was just too funny. He was so excited to see the people fighting he was vibrating with the energy. He was jabbing in the air with his invisible sword ,hoping up and down, pointing and hollering at the fighters. He was so cute.

After the fight Walter came back to camp to make a late lunch and to snuggle with his biggest fan. Padon and I had watched a lot of the fighting but a lot of it was lost on him and he enjoyed looking at the people closest to him instead what was going on in front of him.

Purcible (sp?) and his wife Elsbeth came over to chat with Padon and get in their baby fixes and
then we made our excursion off to the vendors to drool over their goods, say hi to our friend Nyssa and get some advice about furs. Walter was able to find a little wooden sword for Padon's birthday and some leather to make him a sheath he could wear on his back, Conan the Barbarian style, and I was able to find some awesome leather laces for Tim and Amy's boots. A day after the event I learned that there was a shoe cobbler teaching about how to make period shoes and I could have just about died for having missed it but what can you do. Triple Bummer!!!!

We ended the day with a play put on by members of our household. It was really well done, very funy and was accompanied by authentic Eduardian (?) candies (candied orange peel (soooooo good), candied ginger, and a mix of nuts). Padon watched with fascination around the people sitting in front of us.

Before we left for the evening I had to take a picture of the coolest wagon ever. A gypsy-esk wagon; I totally love it's double doors, curtains, and lanterns. I would totally give up our pavilion for this wagon!