Pirate Mania

This weekend, the pirates landed in Fort Walton Beach. It is the time of year when the Billy Bowlegs Festival takes place at The Landing, and we were anxious to see what the big deal was all about.

Once we located a place to park, and paid $5 to do so, we unloaded and headed to the center of the action. Before we even got into the festival proper, we passed a woman doing really cool face painting. Of course, Batman needed his mask on in order to face to looming pirates. After that $10 investment, we rattled around until we found an appropriate spot to "park" ourselves. There was talk about a thunder storm, but we decided to just take it all in stride.

Well, once I returned from purchasing a $10 plate of food for my kiddos to share, I was no sooner back with them than it started to pour down rain. No, I am not talking about a little shower. I am talking about major lightening, booming thunder, hard winds, and slanting rain. Heather and Joey grabbed Lydie and took cover under one side of some random tent, and Tyler and I took cover under the other side. Honestly, I was really nervous about being out there because there was so much electricity hooked up in those vendors' tents and we were right beside the sound and there were trees all around us. I just stood there praying that the lightening wouldn't strike us.

Thankfully, we were just fine. The storm passed within about 20 minutes, and the only damage done was to Batman's face. While Lydie and Heather cuddled in the lounge chair, I hiked back across town (sort of) to have the face painting lady reapply the beloved mask (for another $5).

After stopping for a $5 funnel cake, we sat down to wait for the fireworks that were supposed to start at 8:38 p.m. As precise as they were with the starting time, you'd think they'd have been punctual. Nope. An hour later, we were still waiting for fireworks.

Ty was antsy, so I took him to the kids area where I had to purchase $7 in tickets for him to play on three things. His sweat and rough-housing resulted in more damage to the Batman mask, but, this time, I refused to have it reapplied. Frankly, I was beginning to get concerned about how we were going to get all that paint off.

An $8 light-up sword for Ty and a $5 light-up sword for Lydie and no fireworks to be seen meant it was time to just call it a night.

Once home, I had to put my wet rats in the tub and try to scrub the paint from Ty's face. I was able to remove all of it except the black around his eyes, and, of course, I couldn't find a single drop of eye makeup remover anywhere. With nearly shot nerves and totally shot patience, I grabbed the only thing I could think of: vegetable oil from the pantry.

It worked. No more Batman paint to deal with. And, for that matter, there will be no more face painting in this family for quite a while.

My final assessment of the pirate festival: unimpressed.