A trip back in time to ... medieval times

This weekend we had a fabulous treat. Actually several. One of those was dinner at Medieval Times in Buena Park, CA. Ylfelynn's parents treated us and her two brothers and their families to dinner here. What a great experience! The picture to the left shows our view from our table. It is probably had to tell from the picture, but there are no utensils on the table. We ate with our hands just like in medieval times.

As you can see from this picture, it was quite a production. I was surprised by the number of people involved. I have to wonder if there were ever this many knights, squires, etc. in any one place in medieval times.

This is the dreaded Green Knight in whose section we sat. We, of course, cheered him and booed the other knights. Our guy did not do so well and I think in the end he fell to another knight's axe or polearm or something. The medieval times must have been hard on knights.

This was our kids' reaction to much of the show. They all tend to be really sensitive to loud noises (probably inherited from me). Orion is on the far end and he is wearing ear plugs. Jessica, surprisingly enough, probably enjoyed it the most. Meri actually fell asleep with her hands over her ears. I wonder if little peasant children had to deal with stuff like this in medieval times. I heartily recommend a trip to Medieval Times if you are ever near one.

But as for myself, to me he doth not stink

I have finally found a use for that scripture (Alma 19:5). Ethan's cast was removed (see cast installation) on 9 November. I thought he would be suffering from a raging case of stink arm because I had smell some strong odors emanating from the cast before. Apparently, the scent was all in the cast because I smelled his arm right after it came off (why is it we can never resist smelling a bad smell? "Wow, that really stinks - hey you, smell this! It's really bad, huh?"). I thought of the above scripture when I discovered that there was no stink arm. Ethan is definitely enjoying having his right arm back, though he continues to draw with his left hand (he is right-handed but quickly adapted to the cast). You can see the skin on his arm looks a little funny, but after a couple of days, it looked fine. His arm did not even shrink that much, though he had a funny wrist angle for a little while.

Take me out to the airshow

Here are photos from the Edwards Air Force base 2005 Open House. Brayton, Orion, and I attended. Below is a picture of Brayton and Orion boarding one of NASA's shuttle-carrying 747s (seen on the right).


And here is a picture of the boys in the back of a C-17 Globemaster III.

It was an impressive show. Here is a link to some more pictures from the airshow.

Halloween followup followup

This is what your hair looks like when you put it down after wearing Princess Leia buns for several hours.

Halloween followup

Later that evening ... 

This is Halloween ...

Another Halloween successfully carried out. No one ate too much candy and barfed. Lest you think that is an idle parental threat ("don't eat too much - you don't want to throw up!"), two years ago, Orion actually did. As you can see in the photograph, we have Ethan on the left as an alien (Ylfelynn made the costume from fabric Ethan picked out). Meri is decked out as a cat. Orion is the skeleton. Brayton has donned a Harry Potter costume complete with the requisite scar on his forehead. Jessica is (as evidenced by the hairdo) dressed as Princess Leia (also Ylfelynn-made). It is a pity we could not find a mini blaster for her to hold. Unbeknownst to us, Harry left his wand at school that day so the Halloween evening festivities were slightly marred by some anxious searching. Tuesday morning, the wand was waiting for him at his desk. Halloween night we visited several neighbors and then hit the church for some trunk-or-treating.