Ohio Renaissance Festival

SO, I'm back at the whole blogging thing if you couldn't tell.  I have to say, for about the whole first year, I didn't think twice about not blogging.  And then this spring happened, and I thought taking blogging back up all the time.  I would go a little while and then just dismiss it because I didn't know how long the interest would last.  But then I thought, oh well!  It's my blog and if I want to do it, I should.  If there are lull times, then that's okay too!

Anyway, I'm super excited to be back.  

The past weekend we met my family at the Ohio Renaissance Festival which is exactly what you would think.  Definitely not a place for little Leni as there were loud noises everywhere (think cannon booms, jousting screams, bagpipes, etc.).  Leni gets very upset by loud noises, especially when she is eating and/or tired.  So while our Charlie Girl enjoyed every second of her surroundings, we left after a couple of hours to get the little babe home.

We met my brother and his family, who were in town from South Dakota, and my mom and her new boyfriend (yes, a lot of new news around these parts).  

We haven't seen my brother in a year and half so it was so good to see family and have Charlie play with her cousins!

My brother Cadet

A little background before continuing: I grew up on a farm in South Dakota with horses (we at least the first 5 years of my life).  Because horses were a big deal in my family, we always did rides, etc. SO, it was my goal this summer to get Charlie up on a horse because she seemed old enough.  Fast forward, I failed miserably and didn't get a chance.  You can imagine how excited I was when I saw they had actual horse rides here.  Charlie seemed so confident and said she wanted to ride all by herself.  I really wanted to take a ride myself so I kept asking her to be sure...are you sure you want to ride all by yourself?  Can mommy ride with you? ...You get the idea

Charlie is very hesitant in new situations.  Derek and I thought there was no way she would get up on a big Clydesdale all by herself and let a stranger walk her around.  WELL she proved Mommy & Daddy wrong.  There is my little Charlie Girl riding all by herself.  Talk about a proud Mama :)  She asked two things when getting off the horse: 1) Can she ride again and 2) Can Daddy buy her a horse.  Yes on both accounts, my love :)

I told her if she wanted to ride again, she had to take me with her!

More pictures from the day:

My mom made these adorable flower crowns for the girls and Charlie wouldn't take hers off.  She fell asleep within minutes of getting in the car and it fell down while sleeping.  Great moment for Derek & myself to share a good laugh and snap a photo.

Everybody came over Monday night for pizza and the girls played all night!