We all arrived at Starbucks around 8:30am ready for a fun filled, educational day of jousting, birds of prey, sounds, shows and so much more. The forecast stated, 40% chance of rain. Well, my cup is half full so I said, 60% chance it will NOT rain. WRONG!
The rain was coming down a little too quickly for me as I sat in my van in the Starbucks drive thru. My friends and their entourage of children waited in their vans and we all looked at each other with cheesy, uneasy smiles. " This will be fun right?"
Our plan was to go as a group, separate into smaller sub groups and then regroup for lunch. Sounds great, huh? Well, some things became confused so we ended up arriving in 4 smaller groups to the festival. At this point the rain was down pouring and I sat in the van scrambling to put coats on my already three shirt layered children.
Apparently, in the rush of putting things in the car, I forgot to pack a coat for Austen. Thankfully, I had an extra flannel shirt, a poofy blue vest and he had three layers on already. I think we'll be alright. I maneuvered the double stroller around lakes of mud with two other friends at my side with their each four children ( love you Angela and Alanda) and their strollers. I warned my kids with a very heavy look, " Do NOT get your shoes intentionally wet". The last thing I needed was purposefully soaked shoes when I couldn't' help the downpour from above.
We huddled together at the entrance waiting for another sweet friend of mine, who has four children, oh 5 and under and here she comes, with an amazing beach umbrella. Funny thing is, once we entered into the festival, I lost sight of her. How that happened, I could never begin to explain. Mary, I hope you made it out alive!
My mascara was running down my cheeks in black streaks and a local wiped my face off with her dress. That was generous of her. She stated that we could find shelter under the Shire. So, the shire was were we headed. Well, its raining so everyone and their mother is under the shire. I have no idea what the man was talking about, all I cared about was getting out of the rain.
The rain, started coming down harder. Now, instead of just lakes of mud, we now have rivers and tributaries to feed those lakes and small streams. Slosh, slosh, soaked, soaked. My friend asked a stranger ( no stranger danger fear here) for a map. It is now 10:00am and we have been here for about 15 minutes. The jousting was something the boys really wanted to see and it would be really fun to watch. There was a show at 10:00am so we started darting through packs of students to push our way through the mud and the wet to see a redeeming jousting tournament.
After my sweater boots were now soaked to the my literal bone, we stood staring, half way across the grounds at an empty jousting arena. There would be no jousting today. The look on Jayden's face crushed me as I knew how much he had been looking forward to so many of today's events.
So, as we trudged through the " wild, wet weather" we passed a juggling show. The men were juggling flames, sitting on unicycles ( there is a good combination with rain). The show, all 1 minute that we caught of it, was pretty interesting. After the show abruptly ended we all looked at each other with this drenched, distraught, tired, why are we still here look and decided to leave. Yet, prior to leaving we had the youngest of our bunch ride the FREE butterfly ride.
This redeemed a few moments for Riah as prior to the ride and thereafter, she screamed uncontrollably about a finger that hurt her. I think she was so cold and wet that she didn't know what to do with herself. She was inconsolable. I held Hannah in my arms the entire time we were at the festival as she refused to sit in the stroller and I'm so thankful that Jayden was a man and pushed my stroller all over kingdom come because it was much too hard to maneuver them both.
The rain, kept coming, harder and harder. We were soaked and I felt bewildered. Seriously, is this seriously happening? Of course, why WOULDN'T it happen? We get to the van and as all three of us mamas are quickly ushering our children into our vans, soaked and cold, blasting the heat when Riah starts screaming that she has to go potty!
Thankfully, I have very prepared friends, thank you Alanda, who has a portable potty in her trunk. AMAZING! Riah peed, a TON, we took all of our wet coats off in the car and I decided to save the day, as much as was possible, and throw each child a box of candy hearts. That was, until I whipped Jayden's box and hit him square in the center of his face, corner side out. Then there were more tears, crying and apologizing.
I exited the wrong way, made a right turn and took a METAL pole and scrapped my ENTIRE van- yes, the van that we just fixed. Can I just scream now? Finally, we exited and started on our way home. My friend calls me and we can't stop laughing. I can hardly talk I'm laughing so hard. This is LIFE. OH, and I was coordinator of this event, but my battery on my phone became wet so that caused my phone to stop working for awhile too.
We are home now, bellies filled, cupcakes baking soon and warm pajamas on watching a movie. Happy Valentines' Day. Huzzah!
1 comment:
I said the same thing to my husband! "I had this fun filled education day planed, and nothing is going accordingly!" WE ended up staying until they closed at 2. WE just "waited" a couple hours for the rain to stop. Maybe next year our kids will get the amazing flu filled education RenFest day!
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