The Circus...

The Shrine Circus came to town last weekend and we were able to take the kids to see it.  We had been to the big Ringling Bros. circus last year with Jack and this one was definitely smaller, but still really fun with tons of great entertainment.  It was also neat to be closer to the action and all the animals.  This circus still does the traditional 3 ring set-up and there were lots of neat acts to see.  Jack's favorite was the monkey's.  The monkey's did all sorts of tricks including climbing up ladders and jumping across a few feet to the other side.  They also played lots of silly tricks on the animal handlers that Jack thought were pretty hilarious.  There were, of course, the huge elephants and they also had a small 3 year old elephant named Baby Belle.  She was still big, but so tiny when compared to the adult elephants.  John and I really enjoyed the juggler that they had there.  At one point her was juggling about 5 ping pong balls with his mouth...it was crazy!  The shriner's clowns were there too and did all sorts of funny things...including shooting a clown out of a canon...well, not really, but almost!  :)  During intermission, the kids got to ride a pony- the both loved it.  We weren't sure if Rylee would want to do it, but when we asked her about it, she said 'I ride pony, too!'  We should have known that she'd want to do whatever Jack was doing.  :)  At the beginning of the second half, Jack spotted the popcorn salesman and we had to have some.  It was a nice treat for the rest of the show.  We all had such a good time and will certainly be looking forward to going again next year.

Long-haired afghan dogs...

Baby Belle doing a trick...with Momma looking on.  Look how tiny the baby looks next to the adult elephant!

Jack was so excited about riding the pony...

Rylee was excited too, but didn't want to look at the camera...

Riding...

All the monkey's ready to perform...

Silly clowns!

These two were 'illusionists'...they changed clothes about 20 times right in front of us...it was really neat and I still can't quite figure out how they did it! In this picture, he's throwing flower petals over her and when the petals fell to the floor, she was wearing a different dress..craziness!

The big elephant finale!