Renaissance Festival 2012

This year, we hit the MN Renaissance Festival on opening weekend. We got there before the gates opened (easy to do when you get up around 6:00 am on a Saturday) and waited and waited and waited for the crowd to push through. Once inside the village, we grabbed some snacks and made our way toward the areas we thought Owen would be most interested in.

Specifically, we headed toward the animals. Now up to this point in his life, Owen has been very cautious around animals. He loves to watch them and classify them and is excited and amazed by them ... but not too close.

Well, we're not sure exactly when or how it happened, but a switch was flipped in our boy. This Renaissance Festival was all about Owen wanting to RIDE the animals. He was fearless. Better yet, he was calm and aware and watchful and wasn't too fidgety or excited near or on the various beasts. Elephant, camel, llama, pony ... it didn't matter. Owen wanted a chance at all of them. It was a lot of fun taking the following pics. Of course that meant that Karen was the one that was on the bigger animals along with O but I think she had fun too.