Geaux Gators! Tonight Gus and Beedle got a chance to experience something they never had before--an ice hockey game. Mr. Matt was kind enough to give us tickets to see the Louisiana Ice Gators, our local minor league hockey team, take on the Fayetteville Fire Antz in the frozen swamp of Blackhem Colliseum. 
Once in our seats, we got to see the vehicle on the ice with the funny name--the zamboni. 
We had fun coming up with rhymes for "zamboni". Our favorite was "Tony, the phony macaroni zamboni driver".
The IceGators took the ice and played pretty well. Every time they scored the kids got to participate in "The Chomp"--the official clap and cheer of the IceGators. 
Between the second and third periods, "Tony", the zamboni driver, shot T-shirts out of an air gun and guess who caught one--the boys. Thank you Hebert's Irrigation Services for sponsoring T-shirt night. Now they kids have another night shirt to sleep in.
The game was very close; the score went back and forth. Unfortunately, the IceGators lost 8-7, but as you can tell by the look on Gus and Beedle's faces, the loss didn't spoil their fun...
We look forward to the next opportunity to do "The Chomp" and cheer on our IceGators!
Gus identifies quite well with that hero--dutiful, honorable, and strong. 
Beedle, on the other hand, chose Larry Boy from Veggie Tales as the hero he most identifies with. 
Like Larry Boy, Beedle is fun-loving, conflicted, and silly. 
I thought they did a great job of picking heroes that matched their personalities.
Mr. Gregg's hero was his pet duck, Hiroshima. 
There was a lot of laughs and giggles as they played a few games and gave a few cheers. 
As you can imagine, the boys did not want to take off their costumes. They preferred to stay heroes--even if it was for just one evening. 
The title immediately made me think of the skit on Saturday Night Live. But this was not as ridiculous. We learned about rare falcons, owl, buzzards--all that had special skills like speed, vision or the ability to tear a live chicken to shreds in 15 seconds. 
They started by snagging rings and then got to the fun part--trying to knock each other off their horses. 
The Spaniard knocked the Englishman off his horse and then was victorious in their sword fight. 
We felt very proud of our Spaniard. It was great entertainment.
It piqued the kids interest because they actually participated in it. 
They enrolled (after making a brief pledge to never use these skills to attack another person; only in self-defense) and were taught sword-fighting skills such as the five blocking positions, forward and back stepping, and lunging. Here are some pics... 
Their play continued as they participated in some of the Medieval games and crafts areas, such as the rolling balls and the two-stick yo-yos (sorry, we didn't get a name for what they were called)...
We saw a couple of more entertaining shows, like the Art of Self-Defense, where participants fought using weaponry and hand-to-hand combat, and the Singing Pirates, who bellowed a series of Pirate songs, including one of their favorites--the popular Veggie Tales' song "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything."
We wrapped our day at the Texas Renaissance Fair with one last photo. I think you can tell by most of the kids faces that they had a good time.
