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Snow!
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Medieval Times
Homeschool News
Hattiesburg Forerunners provides competitive sports opportunities for homeschool students (Examiner.com, Jul 29 2010)
Should you homeschool for special time with just one child? (Atlanta Journal And Constitution, Jul 28 2010)
Great Homeschool Conventions, Inc. and the Memphis-Area Home Education Association are combining efforts on regional Mid-South Homeschool Convention in Memphis. (PRWeb, Jul 28 2010)
Homeschooling 101: How do I register for homeschool? (Examiner.com, Jul 28 2010)
Local Information
Father's Gun Kills 2 Young Brothers In Chino Hills (KTTV Fox 11, Jul 29 2010)
Murder-suicide or suicide pact suspected in deaths of Chino Hills brothers, 10 and 12 (Los Angeles Times, Jul 29 2010)
Boys, 12 and 10, shot to death in Chino Hills (Press-Telegram, Jul 29 2010)
Two boys found dead of gunshot wounds on Chino Hills property (Whittier Daily News, Jul 29 2010)
Jamie, Lori and Joe root for the Green Knight.
Joe and Jamie with some "friends."
Some of the knights on horseback. There's our champion in front.
Medieval Times
It is said that one of the ways you can tell if someone's a native Southern Californian (as all the Five Fischers are) is whether they have been to attractions that seem to draw the out-of-town visitors (usually, the natives haven't). Oh, sure, we go to Disneyland, but that's about it. Until recently, we had not been to one of the more popular "also see's" in the area, Medieval Times.But we were wrapping up a unit on that era of history in our homeschool, and based on a recommendation by Jeff's brother Terry (head of the famous Four Fischers of Phoenix clan--and if they had a Web site we'd link there HINT, HINT :-), we decided to go. And we had a great time!
As you enter the door, you're assigned to one of (on our night, at least) six different knights, each of which has a color. You are also seated together with your fellow rooters in an appropriately color-themed section of the arena, and encouraged to cheer your champion and, well, not cheer the others.
The show starts with a good dinner, served at your arena seats (it works, but we can't explain exactly how). The kids enjoyed the waitress--oops, that is the serving wench's "authentic" introductions to each course. Joe was especially amazed to find himself eating dragon...quite good too. Tastes like chicken.
The entertainment starts as you're eating dinner. The preliminaries consist of some pageantry with the knights riding in on their steeds, followed by some pretty amazing demonstrations of horsemanship. The main event is an all-out "battle" among the knights to see who will defend the realm against the evil invader. Some of the hand-to-hand combat with period weapons gets pretty intense. These guys are obviously trained stunt men and know what they're doing...and trust each other a lot!
The Five Fischers give it 8 out of 10 thumbs up. The only down side is the persistent souvenir offers and other "buying opportunities" that start from the time you walk in the door and don't stop until you walk out. It's not exactly a cheap night out for the family to start with, so we decided ahead of time not to buy anything extra once we were there. Believe us, it wasn't easy, but we made it. Other than that, it was a very entertaining and (somewhat) educational time for the whole family (we'd say ages four and up).