PA Ren Faire!!

I know I'm not in costume...and that's really lame. Please allow me to explain why. When we visited, it happened to be "Halloween Daze and Spooky Knights" weekend. The husband and I let the girls choose what they wanted to wear. The two big girls decided they didn't care and still wanted to wear their Ren Faire attire, but my little one wanted to rock the Batman mask/cape/suit. I love to encourage their individuality and didn't want to "choose sides" so sans costume I went.

Hands down I love people watching more than anything else at Ren Faire. I love the outrageous costumes, crazy speech, bad acting and I especially love how the big girls pull their corsets so tight their boobs fall out the top. In all seriousness, someone needs to teach a class on corsets 101. Somebody could get hurt! The funniest thing was my daughter's reaction. She said, "Geez, there sure is an awful lot of CARNAGE going on around here!" LOL. So I said, "I'm pretty sure you mean cleavage!" The husband said, "She was right the first time!" Anyway, other than ogling all of the people and finding future characters for my books, I had a blast eating my way through the faire grounds.

The food there is AWESOME. I would like to recommend all of my favorites to you which were: (1) the Wicked Pickle, Giant dill pickles on a stick, need I say more?
(2)The Royal Kitchen's giant turkey leg. See picture of me, mid-chomp. The turkey leg is roasted over a spit and chock full of greasy goodness. It weighs no less than twenty pounds and I gnawed on that bad boy for about two hours! (3) The Queen's Creamery. Of course, we can't forget about desert. A scoop of vanilla ice cream over homemade apple strudel, YUMMALICIOUS. And last but not least,to top off the day in my usual style (4) Dark Knight Cafe's Cappuccino. Fan-frig-in-tas-tic.

It was a stellar day, one my family will not soon forget. Can't wait to go again. As soon as I can find that corset...

"My Special Dream"

Throughout my life, I've had my share of crazy dreams. Believe it or not, a lot of writing has been inspired by dreams. Mine in particular comes from a combination of my dreams or inspired by real life events either witnessed by me or relayed to me through friends and family. I realize not every one is a believer and that's fine, for them. For me, not believing, after what I've seen and heard is not an option. To me, angels and demons could never be "just a work of fiction" or "an overactive imagination."

Children always believe much more readily in the supernatural than adults. They tend to see many things we can not. When they excitedly tell us adults, what do we do? We don't believe them! We allow too much other information to color our response and try to disprove anything that just doesn't make sense. We want to deal in absolutes and put everything neatly into boxes. I've learned to never put God in a box!!

When God is trying to tell us something, sometimes it is just easier to get our attention through dreams. I believe that's why when we are sleeping, our minds are more open (like a child's) to allow such things. And before you all start calling me a kook and a heretic, see (Gen 40:6-8,Job 33:14-18,1Kings 3:5, Joel 2:28, Matt.1:20, Matt. 27:19, Acts 2:17 just to name a few) Throughout the entire bible, you can find instances of God using dreams to contact people.

My youngest is only six, but she has been having a reoccurring dream since she was two. The husband and I had started noticing a pattern of her giggling in her sleep from when she was a little baby. She would be sound asleep and literally giggling her little head off. We thought it was adorable. I've come to find out whenever she was giggling like that, she was having "her special dream". She started trying to tell us about it when she could speak. She said, "Oh momma, I had good dream." I would ask her, "what about?" And she would say, "Jesus and the bunnies." Alrighty then. She would be so overwhelmingly happy, we just left it at that. A few years later, when she was around four and a half she would periodically wake up giggling again and say, "I had my special dream last night."

After several attempts to get her to elaborate, she finally revealed to us what her dream was about. I will try to relate it to you, the way she did to us.

"I see Jesus and He holds my hand. Then we walk together in a giant garden or this place with a lot of hills and green grass. It's always warm and sunny there and we talk and walk together holding hands. There are always a lot of bunnies hopping around too, mommy, like at our feet. And you know I love bunnies." Then I said, "Why are you always giggling?" She replied, "Because Jesus is really funny!" I asked "What do you talk about?" She said, "Ah, mom, that's private." I said, "What do you mean?" She said,"He just tells me stuff only I need to know." The husband and I were floored!

Like I said, she's six years old and still has, from time to time, her "special dream". Whenever we hear her giggling like crazy, we smile. I, for one, am convinced, Jesus is telling her just what she needs to hear. If only the rest of us would be as open to hear and receive it!!