The Greatest Show On Earth!

Last Saturday we were in Cincinnati, Ohio. We drove there on Friday, spent the night and on Saturday morning headed out to see Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus! When Nathan saw that this circus was ended he thought it'd be fun to take the kids to it, the closest one was Cincinnati so got our tickets and made our plans.....then Nathan decided to start the Wednesday night programs at church on March 15th as the first week, and Damen got scheduled for surgery the 16th, which made our plans a little more crazy, but we made it to the circus and the kids on a good time.

Before the circus started they had the floor open and you could go and talk to clowns....

Or become a clown yourself :-) Isn't she the cutest clown you've ever seen?!

Nathan had a hysterical exchange with this clown, I should have videod it instead of just taking pictures. The boys weren't so sure about it. 

But Nathan had fun :-) 

The boys just stood there staring in awe the whole time. :-)

There was some juggling

And the kids enjoyed watching the horse

While Nathan and I clowned around!

They had performers all around

The kids watching the pre-show, with the sign, so you know where they are, if there was any question

We got to see the first female ring master in the history of the show. 

Watching as it gets started

People flying through the air!

They don't have elephants, so I guess they use camels instead? They're almost as good, right?

The trapeze artist were pretty cool

Evie really enjoyed all the acrobatics

They were throwing this guy pretty far through the air, I thought that was neat.

And a human pyramid with lots of extra weight.

Of course you have to have the human  cannonball as well. 

Going through the air.....

During intermission we went shopping.....the kids had all been given money from Nathan's parents (thank you!) for their birthdays to use at the circus, here is Hannah with her snow cone in a tiger. Evie got sticker shock when we got up to buy the snow cones, so she didn't end up getting anything at the circus....

Damen and Kaleb both got light up swords 

And now back to the circus and more acrobatics

Guy running around in the big metal thing that spins and is very hard to get a good picture of...while he was doing that.....

They were setting up the tigers!

Hannah really enjoyed the tigers. 

They were pretty cool. 

I mean have you ever see a bunch of tigers sitting up?

Or dancing?

And who doesn't love dogs?!

Some high bouncing guys

Who were kind of themed like street performers

Hannah also liked the bikes, I'm sure it's because she wants to be able to do jumps and flips like they did!

The clowns came out in between acts a fair amount

Here's one of the bigger group times. It amazed me how many people they used!

After the circus was over all the kids got cotton candy outside where it was only $3 instead of $15 and Evie got that pink bird Nathan is holding as well. Not genuine circus stuff, but a lot less expensive! 

Was it worth the eight hour drive? Nathan says "I'll remember the circus, but not the eight hour drive" time will tell if they kids remember it. The drive adds to the memory, as the way down the highway was shut down in both directions due to an accident, so we ventured off on to dirt roads to get around the slow down. It was fun and it was a good show. Hopefully the kids enjoyed it and will appreciate the fact that they got to see it. The drive back got to be a little long, but we had a nice stop visiting with the Waligoras and all the kids enjoyed that. Damen was pretty tired by the end, but considering he had surgery the day before we left he did amazing!