A day at the Circus

When I heard the advertisement for the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus on the radio I thought that sounded like something Libby would really enjoy. Then I thought about it again, I decided maybe all my nieces and nephew would like to go, too, since they hardly ever get to do something all together! Well Saturday was our circus day adventure! I might just add, before I go any further, that I was going into this with a positive attitude, excited about how much all the kids would enjoy the circus and each others company. Unfortunately, I did work the night before so I only got 4 hours of sleep before the circus. I'm not very patient when I don't get enough sleep. Things started out ok...I picked up Libby -- she had been camping out with her daddy the night before...I picked up Nathan -- he was at the fairgrounds with his daddy as they were preparing for the nights tractor pull...Then we went to my brother's house to pick him and my nieces up. We got everyone loaded into my truck and were on our way! Yay! To the circus!! I think we might have been in the truck 7 1/2 minutes before the arguing began! Nathan and the two oldest girls were in the very back...Libby and Julianna in the middle. Nathan was the only one not fighting. I thought at first it was just me, not being very patient because of my lack of sleep, but I noticed my brother was getting perturbed as well! The only time they were quiet was the ten minutes they were eating their McDonalds that we stopped to get them along the way! It seemed like that hour long drive into the city lasted 4 hours! But finally we arrived! Everyone was excited to go in! We make our way to our seats and the circus starts shortly after. I had the misfortune of having Libby and Julianna sit next to me. They fought the whole time! Libby was getting so irritated with Julianna that day. Neither one of them would sit still. They kept bouncing up and down in their chairs and wouldn't sit still. Finally, I smacked Libby on the butt cheeks and told her to sit down and be quiet. So she cried instead. She cried a few other times throughout the whole event and I don't even know why! I was beginning to think maybe she didn't get much sleep either! At one point I tried to get Julianna to sit with her daddy, that lasted about 5 minutes and then she was back. The older kids were pretty good during the circus at least! Once the circus was over we headed back home. I was hopeful that everyone would be tired and fall asleep on the way home. Not so much! The fighting started in again! Nathan was getting annoyed too, because at one point he pretended to be asleep just so he would be left alone! It was the longest day ever! Maybe next time I get a bright idea to do a family outing I will do it in very small groups! Anyway...here are some picks of our special day:

This is Libby pretending to be a pig before we left for the circus!

Here is my attempt to get a pic of all the kids together before we went to our seats. Of course, they had just spent an hour in the truck, so standing still AND being together for a picture was really the last thing they wanted to do!

Here is myt 2nd attempt at a group photo. I gave up after this!

Here are the elephants. I thought Libby would get excited about them, but I think this was during her first crying spell!

Here are some horses and zebras doing tricks. Libby did like this part.

I forget what they called these...wave poles, wiggle sticks, wobbly poles...I don't know. Anyway they were very very tall, they swayed back and forth, and the two acrobats did tricks. What made this so cool is that they were right in front of us because we were up so high too! The ending was probably the coolest because both of the acrobats slide down the pole upside down really fast and stopped all of the sudden right before they hit bottom! It was impressive!

These are the clowns and clown cars. I think Libby was crying at this point, too, because she didn't get very excited about it!

Aah! Here is Libby with a smile on her face! She is enjoying some cotton candy! This was her first time! She had never had it before and she liked it! (Can you believe that stupid bag of cotton candy was $12! It also came with a felt circus top hat, if that makes a difference!) Nathan bought this spinning circus flashlight thing for $20...that he ended up giving to Libby...Parking was $8...I'm glad I only spent $13 on the tickets! Aah, but seeing the joy on the little kids faces from spending the day at the circus...PRICELESS!