Surprise!

I have to go back in time a little to portray the full effect of this story.

In November, Mom, Dad and I went to Myrtle Beach for a weekend. During that weekend, we went to Medieval Times. It is a dinner show that involves characters dressing up in 11th century gear and competing in a tournament. The dinner involves no silverware (since back then they did not use it?)  They joust, sword fight, and well, do all sorts of Medieval sports and performances. Kellen knew about knights before the show, but that was when his fascination of knights in shining armor truly began. Ever since, we’ve been ‘playing knights’ pretty much every day. He has wanted to take Daddy there since we left the show.

JT and I talked earlier in the week about taking Kellen again soon. “Soon” turned out to be this weekend. :)

Starting on Wednesday, we told Kellen we had a surprise for him. He thought it was a present so it was a little challenging to try to describe the difference. We told him he would find out what his surprise was on Saturday. Each day we mentioned it and each day he sort of started to get the idea of a surprise and started to get a little excited (at least I think so). On Saturday when he woke up, I told him he needed to pack his suitcase because we would be dropping Maddie off at camp and then we would be in the car for a little while.  He was pretty oblivious on the way down to SC but once we got there he was pretty excited about the hotel by itself (nothing exciting…just that he likes hotels) but he kept talking about his surprise so I think he was getting excited about that too.

We did a little walking around at Broadway, feeding the fish (giant ones just waiting for some food to drop in by the looks of it), making some new friends and looking at a stingray fountain.

Then...(drum roll please)...it was time for the surprise! We still had not told him where we were going. When we pulled into the parking lot, he immediately knew where we were and I caught it on video.

He got a new shield and sword and was pretty excited about his new gear. It’s not that we don’t already have a couple of shields and swords at home but it is nice to have two real sets and now different color sets of flags and crowns. Last time we were rooting for the Yellow Knight so we had yellow flags and crowns and this time we rooted for the Black and White Knight. He liked looking at the ‘real swords’ on the wall, sitting in a King’s chair, and watching the show.

He said one thing about ¾ of the way through the show that made it all so worth it. “This is the best show ever!”

Of course we ended the night at the hotel playing “Knights” and reading about them in the commemorative program.

As soon as we walked in the door tonight at home, we played “Knights” again and as he was going to bed he wanted to read about them again.

Watching Kellen’s excitement through the whole show and getting to see him take it all in was exciting to JT and me. His imagination already runs wild but this sort of brings it to life for him. I’m already excited to go again sometime!

P.S. In case you didn't notice, his shirt has a knight on it and says "future knight in shining armor'. That wasn't planned or anything....kidding. :)