my trip to Medieval Times

On the second day of our Dallas weekend, we went to Hurricane Harbor!! We had never been to Hurricane Harbor before so we were very excited!! We had a BLAST but unfortunately we don't have a single picture from our visit. We obviously didn't want to risk having our cameras or phones in the water or on the rides with us and so we rented a locker and put all of our belongings inside so that we could roam the park and ride as much as possible together without worrying about all of our "stuff". It was worth it but sorta sad too because now we have no pics. Oh well. I can tell you though that we had so much fun!! They had a kids area called Pirate's Cove that we spent most of the day in. It had a huge play structure with water spraying from everywhere AND a giant bucket on top that would dump a waterfall of water onto the playground every 15 minutes or so!! You could stand underneath it and get soaked!! The boys mostly enjoyed the water slides and an obstacle structure where you had to try to cross a pool by holding onto a net above your head and walking on floating barrels!! It was hilarious to watch but both of our boys were able to get across dunk free at least once!! We also rode a giant inner tube water slide as a family, floated down the lazy river and spent quite a bit of time in the wave pool!! Believe it or not, Ash LOVED the wave pool the most!! He wanted to go in the deep end (he was wearing a life vest of course...) but I kept him with me in the 5-foot zone. Crazy kid!! I got water up my nose just trying to hang onto him more times then I want to admit!! Ha!! Amidst all of the fun, we did take the time to stop and reapply sunscreen BUT it didn't matter for me and Brandon. We both came out looking like lobsters. Ugh. Brandon got it the worst but we were both in pain for the rest of our trip. I'm not sure how our boys' are our children because they both tanned while Brandon and I burnt to a crisp.

When we left Hurricane Harbor, we went back to our hotel room so everyone could rest and get ready for our big dinner at Medieval Times!! We were so excited!!

Maddox fell asleep on the way to Medieval Times and so wasn't very personable right away...but he perked up pretty quickly as we entered the castle!!

We were escorted through the castle in a line where we were given crowns and got to take pictures with a princess and other decorations...

Once we arrived in the main waiting hall of the castle there was tons to do while we waited for the tournament to start and dinner to be served!! There were lots of photo opportunities, face painting, a gift shop, viewing windows where you could see the show's horses and knighting ceremonies going on throughout the hour!! It was also really cool that everyone who worked at Medieval Times was constantly in character!! They were all dressed up and even spoke to us with accents!! It was really neat!!

I think Brandon likes his crown...!!! Ha!!

The boys favorite horse was the pure white one!! What was funny was that the name plate told us this horses name was "Blacky"!! The boys thought this was particularly weird and we looked at the horse more then once!!

The giant room we were in was very elaborate.

Ashtyn got his face painted but Maddox didn't want to. She did a really good job!!

Before we went into the show we bought souvenirs!! Maddox chose a wooden shield and sword and Ashtyn chose an action figure of the blue knight riding his horse!!
 

Once we were led into the arena we were all so excited!! It is amazingly decorated and well worth the trip and money!! We were divided into six teams and set around the arena within our colored coded groups. We were members of the Red & Gold team and cheered for our Red & Gold fighter the entire night. We were also given Red & Gold banners that we could wave while we cheered!! How cool!! Before we received any of our food we were already having such a good time!!

There are no utensils at Medieval Times. You have to eat with your hands and it was actually alot of fun!! Our first course was this delicious tomato soup (I ate all of mine and most of Ashtyn's...!!!) but since there were no spoons we had to drink it out of our heavy, cast iron bowls. Good times!!

The Medieval Times show was AMAZING!!!! No joke!!!! We want to go back again for sure!!!! The scene was set by the King and Princess having six different Knights duel in a series of different battles and then the tournament began!! About half way through, a "bad guy" from a foreign land appeared and the winner of the kingdom's battle was told he had to fight this foreigner for control of the kingdom. It was just awesome!! I don't know how else to describe it!!

We all really got into the show. We cheered our fighter on and booed the other Knights. It was impossible not to get involved!! I did feel bad for Maddox, though, at the end of the show. In his little 5-year-old mind Maddox honestly thought that the entire show was REAL!! I didn't realize that as the evening was going on but once the show was over and all of the characters came riding back out on their horses for a curtain call Maddox got very upset. He was confused because the Knight's who had "died" during the show and the bad guy who had been "arrested" and thrown in jail at the end were now all alive, well and free and riding right in front of us to the cheers of the crowd. Huh!?!? You should have seen the look on his face. He was thoroughly confused and I think a little disappointed. I just tried to distract him and change the subject but you could definitely see the little wheels in his mind turning.

If you ever have the chance to visit Medieval Times, we highly recommend it. It's entertaining and exciting and what can be more fun then eating with your hands!?