Alabama Medieval Fantasy Festival 2018

We were very happy to attend ALMFF again this year. This time Bubbles and I will be sharing everyone’s favorite parts of this years festival. I want to give a quick shout out to all the amazing people who make the festival such a fun and educational event, You guys are the reason my family will attend every year until we move again. Thanks!

 

Baby Kermit: I liked the red Jousting guy. His horse and  sword were really cool. I liked the popcorn they sold. It was so yummy. Salty and sugary. I liked the pirate swords. I really like swords because  Jake and the Neverland Pirates is one of my favorite shows. I was a pirate for Halloween.

 

Pooh:I liked yellow Joust guy.  His armor was cool. I also liked the popcorn, cause it was really good and warm. I also liked the pirates. They pretended to try to take of our toes off. I also got a black pearl from one of them. They were very funny and made us all laugh.

 

Bubbles: My favorite part was the Fairy Tea Party with the Queen. We got the tickets for free.  At the tea party we met the Fairy Queen. I saw a friend of mine from AHG (American Heritage Girls). We all chose a seat at the table. We talked about manners while we waited for the Queen. The queen arrived and we greeted her. We all bowed.  I said to her “It is an honor to be in your presence.” We drank tea and talked. Then we said Goodbye because the festival was ending. I enjoyed it a lot!  I hope we will go there again next year.

 

Duke:The jousting was a bunch of fighting. They were riding around on horses and then they were trying to break lances. The yellow dude he hit the red dude in the head with a shield. The first time they fought they had swords. They were trying to kill each other. Every time the yellow guy hit the read guy in the head with a shield. The popcorn was delicious. Some kind of fresh sweet popcorn. I wanna go again, I really like the jousting.

 

Jem: I had the most fun dancing with the queen. I don’t know how to dance at all. We learned 2 different dances. We held hands and danced around in a circle doing different moves. It was alot of fun learning some Medieval dances.We were all tired afterwards. I wanted to take a nap and eat lunch. (It wasn’t lunch time yet 😦 )

 

 

Advertisement

Vulcan Park, AL

Hi there! so a little context to Jem’s blog post. That day we went to pick up the grandparents from the airport in Birmingham, AL. We decided to spend the day in Birmingham so that we could see a drive through light display before heading back to Montgomery. We also stopped by Red Mountain Park for a short visit.

-Kim

Dad decided that he was gonna take Grandpa, Grandma, and us to Vulcan park. (I think it wasn’t even a park. Where was the playground?). I don’t know what it cost but dad got some percent off because he is military (I think grandpa was in the military too). We got a list of what we had to find and questions we had to answer. A scavenger hunt. Most of the stuff was in the museum so we went in there first. It talked about how steel was made, the convention fair (You know the one with the giant chocolate Statue of Liberty?), and how Vulcan was made. I could explain how long it took and what was on the list but I’m not. There was a small gift shop and I looked at this book called the Ghost in the Saw Mill (if you look on the web for it, you won’t find it). We eventually got bored and headed up to the tower with Vulcan on top. (Did you know he’s the “god” of blacksmiths?) When we were on the top, the wind messed up my hair. At least my glasses didn’t fall off. And of course we left.

P.s. I threw a pencil down from way up there:/

-Jem

Ave Maria Grotto, AL

The ride to Cullman, AL seemed like it would go on forever. I am thankful that my kiddos are so willing to take on traveling. From what I experienced while sitting in the very back row of our 12 passenger van its always very bumpy. During the trip the kids and I kept ourselves entertained with knitting, reading, and interesting conversation. I guess it’s a good thing I spend my entire day with them or I might have struggled with spending so much extra time with them.

We arrived at the Grotto around lunch time. There were picnic tables located near the entrance. For lunch we had PB&J rollups, Ham and cheese rollups, apples, popcorn, pretzels, and juice. It was a really cold day for Alabama so the kids walked around and ate to keep themselves warm. We ate more quickly than usual hoping to seek shelter in the gift shop.

We spent almost an hour exploring the gift shop. It was full of Catholic everything. Most Catholic churches in our area have their own small Catholic store but nothing like what was in the Ave Maria Grotto’s gift shop. I wanted to buy everything. I mean everything even the duplicates. We bought some crucifixes for Pippi to continue her love of making Rosaries and I got a new scapular as mine had started to cause some skin irritation.

We paid for admission and headed outside. The grotto is known as Jerusalem in Miniature. It contains over 100 reproductions of famous buildings. The first thing you see is a beautiful enclosure with the Nativity inside. It’s amazing how during the Christmas season we take more time to notice the details in Nativity scenes.

We tried our best to get the boys to slow down and look at everything instead of running. It really is just part of their nature. The kids all had fun looking at the mini versions of different churches, buildings and shrines. Duke even managed to find a lizard condo. While Baby Kermit and Pooh thought the chipmunk crossing was interesting.

The buildings were beautifully constructed. It’s amazing to think a monk, Brother Joseph Zoetl constructed most of the structures. I love his creative spirit. He used my new favorite word: resourcefulness to accomplish such an amazing place. There is a pamphlet that tells you about each structure and a little history. My favorite of course being the Nativity.

It is definitely one of those places that I think you can visit multiple times and find things you didn’t notice the first time. If you live in or near Alabama or your just traveling though this is a great place to visit. And if you seem some of the Monks don’t be afraid to chat with them. They are very friendly. Grandpa and Bubbles had a nice chat with one of them that made the trip more special for them both.

 

Nature Plex 1.0 and Survival Day

One day, Mom decided to take us to this nature place called Nature Plex. It was free because Dad is military. We went inside and looked around. The ceiling was so huge that if you were 6Ft and you grew 3 more Ft you would still fit in the building.

The first place was this room with educational stuff in it. (Mom don’t read the 2 sentences after this) To tell the true I thought it was the bathroom. When I finally decided it wasn’t, I walked in. I looked and Voilà Magical. There was a Giant bee hive and some frog tanks, etc. I played with some dead animal skins and Then Mom said some about studying some facts, Meh. Mom also took some pictures of me with trash pandas (They were dead but not dead?). There was also a bat cave (Not a real one) It had a TV playing a video about Bat and the white-nose syndrome. (White-nose syndrome is an emerging disease in the USA and Canada, to save the bats, scientists must quickly find the disease’s weakness. I got this info from a website) Then we went in the store. There was a racoon hat (*Sigh*), a stick with an animal head on it, Etc. 20 minutes later and we were watching a movie called Planet Earth Pole to pole. It was about Penguins, and Polar bears surviving and a hyena chasing impalas.

Then we went outside and walked some paths. We didn’t even get lost once (Not). There were trees, trees, grass, a stinkbug(P.U.), a worm, trees, and grass. Pippi had hit me with her jacket so I asked mom if my face was red and She pinched on the cheek. It hurt (Meany). Then she said “It’s red now.” So I walked away. We also saw a hairy caterpillar (I’m going to exaggerate now). Mom then screamed so loud that it scared away all the birds. “I hate hairy ones” she said. Then she ran away really fast.

We went to the Natureplex a second time the next week for Survival Day. The first thing that we did was fire starting class. Mr. Matt (that’s what he said his name was) told us if you were going on a hike and you knew you weren’t gonna get back in time then you should start getting wood. First start with your tender: It’s like a small stick, kindling is a little bit bigger, and then fuel, is like a log. He showed us two diffident ways to light (P.s. don’t try that stuff on TV. It takes too much energy).

After that we did a compass course,  you followed whatever direction was on your sheet. Me and Pippi had a team and Bubbles and Duke had a team. There was flags and each flag had letters on them. Example Below. When you go to the right flags it makes a word, that’s why it says Water. Does that confuse you?

Course 1

NW         W

N          a

E           t

NE        e

W         r

After that we did an archery course. I thought archery was gonna be easy but there were so many rules that it sounded stupid and was too hard. They were gonna do  kayaking  but we didn’t want to stay. We thought it was gonna rain and we were tired. Plus I was really hungry. THE END

-Jem

 

Now on to the critic reviews

Bubbles: 8 stars “I really liked that they were teaching other people how to survive.”

Duke: 10 stars “It was silly especially the toads and lizards.”

Pippi:9 stars “It would have been better with a picnic. I loved archery.”

Me: 9 stars “It was fun! I liked walking but archery was lame.”

Mom: 8 stars ” I really enjoyed the hike in the woods. The best part is that they have great events that are included with admission.”

The amazing performance of Mistletoe

One Thursday night there was a ballet performance at Davis theater in Montgomery. We got free tickets because my dad is military. When we got there, we started walking to the Davis Theater.  It was super cold!

When we got to Davis theater dad showed them his id because it was his military id. When we sat down I looked around it was beautiful inside. The stage was huge too. When we went to take are seats (we didn’t have one reserved) we found good ones, it was in the middle row.

I remember still, still, still is when people laid on the floor and danced! The second that I remember is want a hippo for Christmas. A person dressed as a hippo came out! Duke, pooh and baby Kermit all laughed at it. My favorite was I saw three ships. The most important part was when my Bff came in! she is absolutely AMAZING! She was a baker and clown. She was the lead baker.

Anyway, the nutcracker part had too much dancing at one time. Baby Kermit, pooh, duke and I were getting bored. But I know they worked hard I appreciate them working hard to put on the show. I love all the work they put in it. I hope to go there again! And that they never stop.

By Bubbles

P.s.  keep up the good work BYE!!