Circus!

We went to the circus today!
On Friday we picked up some free spanish-language newspapers to use for our volcanoes.  Joseph was looking at one of them today at lunchtime, and found an ad for a free ticket to the Ben Hur Shriner's Circus.  We saw that today was the very last day, and 3:30 PM was the last showing.   So, on the (very) spur-of-the-moment, we decided to go!
I didn't really have any expectations, but what little I had were blown away.  It was a fantastic show, and with 2 free tickets (one free with each adult ticket, which was the same price as the kid's ticket, go figure), it cost us only $39 for a totally awesome 3 hour circus.
I am NOT an event photographer-- I don't have the lenses or skills, but I did take a few shots.  And then I realized that more than half of the pictures I took were of the elephants.  LOL!  I love elephants, but they were actually only a minor part of the show.  Oh well.  I'm not even showing all the pictures I took of the elephants here.

The first act was a tiger act--6 great big humongous tigers jumping over each other and over hurdles and up and down off giant stools and walking on their hind legs and looking like giant squishy (and very dangerous) house cats.

This one is jumping on his (her?) hind legs to get a piece of meat the trainer has on a stick.

Sitting on a rotating disco-ball platform.  I love cats, and tigers are the most majestic of cats (sorry, lions, but it's true).  Look at that face!

And a giant African elephant, The Mighty Bo, who did all kinds of cool tricks.

More of Mighty Bo

And more of the elephant-- look how cute!

A trick bicycle rider-- he did amazing tricks on the bike, and then rode up and down huge ramps doing flips.  I'm hoping the boys weren't getting too many ideas.


During intermission we went down to the floor to look at... the elephants, of course! 

They were selling tickets for rides, but at $10 a pop, we decided just to look.  Mosey was very grumpy at getting his picture taken.  He only did it because I told him he couldn't have his cotton candy unless he would be in the picture.  So this is what I got.  :-)

But, as soon as we got back to our seats and he broke open the cotton candy, he was happy again.

Lovely, Mosey.  Really lovely.  :-)

This was actually one of the most impressive acts, believe it or not.  There were about 7 or 8 performers in the 3 rings, some doing juggling, others doing hula-hooping.  This girl was amazing.  This is not a good picture-- I was too busy watching to get pictures of her best tricks.  A person just off the ring kept tossing them in one after another, landing them perfectly over her head where it would join all the others spinning around.  At one point she was swinging 20 hula hoops all around her body, from her ankles to her uplifted arms.  She looked like a human slinky.  It was so cool!

And more elephants. 

Yep, more elephants.

I really, really like elephants, ok?!

So, besides elephants there were arialists who did amazing and terrifying acrobatics on ropes 50 feet up in the air, a pair of trapeze artists, a motorcycle daredevil who did flips and whatnot, an amazing, incredible, hilarious clown, a human cannonball, a dog show (dogs trained to do all kinds of cool tricks), and... I'm sure a couple of other things I'm forgetting.  But it was really awesome.  The boys were transfixed, as was I!  Ben brought his laptop, thinking he might do some work during the show, but I don't think he even looked at it except for during intermission.

Afterward we went to pick up a dog house we bought from someone off Craigslist (long story, but Mister now has to sleep outside...  He's getting to be an old dog, and Ben can't take much more of letting him outside 3+ times during the night), and then out to eat at Steak and Shake.  The boys and Ben had a weird face contest.  Who do you think won?

I'm way too dignified to participate in weird-face contests.  :-)  Actually, I think I might have cracked the lens of the camera if I had tried! 
We didn't get home until almost 9:30 PM, with kids completely wired from cotton candy, cookie dough shakes, and enough stimulation to last a month.  I told them to get ready for bed and then GO TO SLEEP!  Yeah, right.  It's 10:50 PM and I'm still hearing the pitter-patter of little feet upstairs.  Tomorrow is going to be fun...
Ah, well, it's worth it for the memories, right?  :-)