Last year in October, I read this post on the Hendrick blog:
http://allthingshendrick.blogspot.com/search/label/Renaissance%20Festival
It looked like such fun that we decided we'd go this year. We made arrangements to stay in Kingwood at my uncle's house. Plans were made. Tickets were purchased early to get the discount. All was well.
Then we put Ava in the car to head to Kingwood on the night before. We left Lafayette at 4pm. Ava started crying/screaming at about 4:10. She cried until 7:00 when she finally fell asleep. This was 10 minutes before we got to the house. Oy. We both wanted to leave her at the Texas Welcome Center and pick her up on the way home.
We unloaded, stuffed our faces, bathed the kids, and put Ava to bed. So far, much better.
Then we went to put Jacob and Mary-Grace to bed. The word "nightmare" comes to mind. They were petrified of the dogs and were CONVINCED that the two very small dogs could bust down the door to their room. They were thinking Superman stuffed inside those dogs, I guess. By 10:30, they'd stopped freaking out enough to go to sleep.
We packed up the next morning and were out the door for 7:20... plenty of time to spare. Again, so we thought.
Ava went right to sleep. Praise the Lord.
My stomach started doing flip flops, so we had to make numerous bathroom breaks and a medicine stop. These pit stops woke Ava up, and she proceeded to scream all the way to Plantersville.
When we were about halfway there, I asked Phil where he put the packet with the tickets in it because I wanted to look over my map.
He turned white.
I called my aunt.
It was sitting next to the computer at their house.
We turned around.
Then, in a moment of pure divine inspiration, I called her back and had her find me the phone number for the festival. Thank God, these sweet people told me to just come and they would give me some new ones.
Finally, we made it. We ended up parking on the same row as the Hendricks which was great because I'm not sure we'd have met them otherwise; the place is HUGE! I loved getting to meet Heather after all this time of getting to know her through her blog.
The day was great, well worth the trip and headaches of actually getting there.
