Cities 2012

We made our way to Minneapolis on Aug. 25-26 with Jamie's parents, Cliff and Joy.  We were greeted with rain so our plans to hit the Renaissance Fair early Saturday morning were pushed aside.  We decided to go to Global Market and then downtown to Kilroy's.  By evening, the rain had passed and we decided to hit up the State Fair.

These first pictures are from Kilroy's, a neat antique store with slot machines and other old "stuff."

Joy is checkin' out the "peek show"! We all laughed at her...and then put in a dime and watched it, too!

At The State Fair

The Greatest Show on Earth!  Yep - we got suckered in (well, with Joy and I convinced the boys) to go see the crazy show inside the tent.  It's hard to see, but this is DJ Shorty - he walks on his two hands because he doesn't have anything more to his body after his rib cage/torso area.  Here, he is doing a one-hand hand stand.  

I know this video is sideways, but it's still pretty cool.  I'm sure there's a trick to this - like a button to start/stop the flame, but it still looks pretty cool.

SUNDAY

On Sunday, we were off to the Renaissance Fair. I've never been there before, but I'm definitely making plans to go back again!  If you've never experienced it yourself, it's a must-see!  

This guy made sure to tell the crowd not to try this at home - but,  that's where he learned it, so...
He was also sure to explain to the crowd that he learned to balance his chair during his senior year of study hall - the one skill he took from high school that he uses in his job today!  He has flames spinning on his head, is juggling three fire burning sticks, and is walking across a burning rope. Amazing.

The German rap brothers was a "family show." Rrrriiiiiigggght.

The well wenches were awesome.  They are truly funny gals.  I hope the video below works.  It was just one little portion of their show.   

Finally, the special event of the weekend was the tattoo contest.  We had the pleasure of seeing some extremely beautiful tattoos and hearing the stories behind them.  Of course, along with this show also came the more creative and unique individuals with some unparalleled tattoos.  We have the guy with his grandma tattooed on his arm, a memorial from Vietnam vet, a pet snake on a gal's leg, or the Star Wars goo-roo with various characters on his arm.  But what would win the most unique?  A young gal who has shoelaces tattooed on the top of her feet because she loves shoes and her strange mustache tattoo on her finger.  You know the joke where kids draw a tattoo on the middle of their index finger and hold it up onto their lip?  Yep, this girl tattooed a mustache onto her finger.  But after all of the special categories, who would the crowd pick...none other than the man who raised his arm to show off another tattoo, only to reveal the green evergreen tree air freshener tattooed in his armpit.