When my family and I were invited to head over to Medieval Times, you know I had to say yes. What is better than spending a Sunday afternoon eating and watching a tournament and learning how to be a knight?

This summer, in honor of its 20th anniversary season, Chicago’s own Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament invites children between the ages of 5-12 to come inside the Castle for up-close-and-personal Knight Training sessions given by the Castle’s own Knights and hosted by the Lord Chancellor and the King himself! For the first time ever these exclusive sessions are offered free to children with a paid ticket, immediately prior to the first show each Sunday, between June 26 and Labor Day 2011 at the Medieval Times Castle, 2001 N. Roselle Road, Schaumburg, IL.

Madison attended the training session and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread (this video is of Madison during the training. I taped the entire training session, so this video is almost 10 minutes long):

I do have to warn you. You definitely need to bring your wallet here. There are several gift kiosks set up where you can get your kids outfits, swords, shields, stuffed dragons, etc. Anything that would remind you of the medieval times, you can find in the gift kiosks (including real swords!!!!). While waiting for the show, we went and checked out the dungeon (the tickets for that are $2 (aff) a piece). You can also buy ginormous drinks and drinks in really cool kid cups that were shaped like old style cups. Here's what our experience looked like:

The first thing that happens when we walk through the door is that you get assigned a color to root for. You get a crown that color. That also tells you where you are sitting in the theater. I can honestly say that I don't think there is a bad seat in the house! I'll be honest — I expected the tournament. I didn't expect the back story that happened beforehand. The cool thing is that you are watching the story and eating. You'll see in the pictures above that you eat dinner without utensils. Yes, you eat with your fingers! And the food? Yum! You get sooo much food. We literally brought home (aff) another 2 (aff) days worth of food (2 large containers of food came home (aff) with us). The show also always had enough action to keep the kids interested in it. Our yellow knight won the tournament too! (We also had our yellow knight throw us a flower!). After we left the show, I asked the kids what they thought:

As you can see, the kids loved it. Bill and I liked it also. If you are in the Chicago area (whether visiting or if you live here), I recommend checking out Medieval Times. My family had a blast! Tournaments, skills tests, cheering for your favorite knight, what more could you ask for?

Since we had such a good time, I've arranged for one lucky reader of mine to get 2 tickets for Medieval Times Castle, 2001 N. Roselle Road, Schaumburg, IL. Here's what you need to do:

Tell me why you'd like to go to Medieval Times. Is it the 4 course dinner? The Knight Training? The Tournament?

EXTRA ENTRIES:

1. Twitter about this contest. You can do this daily — just leave me a comment letting me know.

2. Stumble this post and add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).

3 (aff). Share this post on Facebook

4. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

5. Comment on another post on this blog. Let me know which one, so I can give you credit. The more posts you comment on, the more entries you get.

6. Add this contest of contest linkies (and let me know which ones please). Each Contest Linky gets you another entry.

Each of these gives you 5 additional entries:

1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

2. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed

3 (aff). Add my badge to your sidebar:

<a href="http://mythoughtsideasandramblings.com"><img decoding="async" data-src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" alt="" class="lazyload cwvlazyload" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP//////zCH5BAEHAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="><noscript> <img decoding="async" data-src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" alt="" class="lazyload cwvlazyload" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP//////zCH5BAEHAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw=="><noscript><img decoding="async" alt="" data-src="http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk258/blm03_photos/banner.jpg" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP//////zCH5BAEHAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==" class="cwvlazyload"></noscript> </noscript></a>

4. Like My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings on Facebook!

Each of these will give you10additional entries:

1. Subscribe to my newOak Lawn Dealssite!

2. Subscribe to my newLisa’s Mom Dealssite!

This contest will end on August 10th at 11:59 pm CST! Good Luck!